Gatwick closed by drones

Author
Discussion

djc206

12,245 posts

124 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
stevensdrs said:
In the above analogy there is physical evidence. "carnage" and damaged vehicles even if there is no photo. I have yet to see any physical evidence of the alleged drone at Gatwick other than the couple of broken drones discarded in fields near the airport to try and give some credibility to the story.
There’s your problem. You’re demanding physical evidence where it’s entirely likely none would exist. Unless the drone/s crashed and were located there would be no physical evidence since there was no physical damage.

The story is credible by virtue of the number of sightings by credible people (coppers, pilots and air traffic).

djc206

12,245 posts

124 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
techguyone said:
You do realise that airplane mode turns off all the phones radios right? The thing that potentially causes issue, the emission of radio signals, that thing that doesn't happen when it's in Airplane mode.

You sound like how the industry was in the late 90's when phones did have to be switched off and there was little in the way of airplane mode, and staff were confused and played it safe.

A phone in airplane mode might as well be a mp3 player or something for all the harm it could potentially do with leaking signals.
That matters not one jot. The rule is switch the thing off in all likelihood to avoid the temptation of a distraction as well as the interfering with radios and potentially other sensitive kit. Either way I don’t write the rules, they are what they are though.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
I can't believe I am going to say this, but why the hell are you all arguing with Thankyou4calling?

He is quite clearly correct here, that if there was a drone circling the tower and flying around gatwick, there would have been photos of it. Not one or two, but hundreds of pictures, and videos too.

The place was closed for over 30 hours with hundreds of thousands of people going through the airport. That's a whole load of people not to bother to take their phones out and take a picture.

Even if there had been a drone, why not just take off the other way down the runway as happened when there was a drone sighting at birmingham airport recently. (I was on a plane taxiing to the runway when this happened. we just took off the other way.)

It feels like you NEED there to have been a drone. but why?

saaby93

32,038 posts

177 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Isnt it still looking like it was a cover for the strike that day?

skwdenyer

16,181 posts

239 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Efbe said:
I can't believe I am going to say this, but why the hell are you all arguing with Thankyou4calling?

He is quite clearly correct here, that if there was a drone circling the tower and flying around gatwick, there would have been photos of it. Not one or two, but hundreds of pictures, and videos too.

The place was closed for over 30 hours with hundreds of thousands of people going through the airport. That's a whole load of people not to bother to take their phones out and take a picture.

Even if there had been a drone, why not just take off the other way down the runway as happened when there was a drone sighting at birmingham airport recently. (I was on a plane taxiing to the runway when this happened. we just took off the other way.)

It feels like you NEED there to have been a drone. but why?
The above seems to be a red herring to me; is it likely that there was not CCTV and perhaps even audio recording in the tower? Would such recordings have not captured people saying "look, there it is again, that damn' drone!" or somesuch?

In an era of cockpit voice recorders and so on, it seems slightly unlikely that there is no audio and visual recording for evidential purposes in the event of some catastrophe.

Even if we discount that possibility, in an age of chequebook tabloid journalists, if there were indeed no drone would not somebody from within the tower have come forward to sell their story?

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
skwdenyer said:
Efbe said:
I can't believe I am going to say this, but why the hell are you all arguing with Thankyou4calling?

He is quite clearly correct here, that if there was a drone circling the tower and flying around gatwick, there would have been photos of it. Not one or two, but hundreds of pictures, and videos too.

The place was closed for over 30 hours with hundreds of thousands of people going through the airport. That's a whole load of people not to bother to take their phones out and take a picture.

Even if there had been a drone, why not just take off the other way down the runway as happened when there was a drone sighting at birmingham airport recently. (I was on a plane taxiing to the runway when this happened. we just took off the other way.)

It feels like you NEED there to have been a drone. but why?
The above seems to be a red herring to me; is it likely that there was not CCTV and perhaps even audio recording in the tower? Would such recordings have not captured people saying "look, there it is again, that damn' drone!" or somesuch?

In an era of cockpit voice recorders and so on, it seems slightly unlikely that there is no audio and visual recording for evidential purposes in the event of some catastrophe.

Even if we discount that possibility, in an age of chequebook tabloid journalists, if there were indeed no drone would not somebody from within the tower have come forward to sell their story?
exactly.

When a drone was flown over parliament, photos were taken: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drone-over-...
Far fewer people walking around parliament than gatwick

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Look how small it looks despite the person who took the photos close proximity to it

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
Look how small it looks despite the person who took the photos close proximity to it
I can see it very easily in those photos.

If this was lowlight/night it would be far easier due to the drones lights.

It's actually quite hard to find a decent vid of a drone from the POV of the pilot. Here is one of a medium sized drone. You can see it really clearly throughout this video. The one at gatwick was claimed to be a large industrial one (whatever that means) so would have been 2x+ this size...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57FJFxhTInQ

Edited by Efbe on Saturday 23 February 19:46

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
Look how small it looks despite the person who took the photos close proximity to it
It reminds me of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvnKXOGYKM8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMiKyfd6hA0

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Efbe said:
I can see it very easily in those photos.

If this was lowlight/night it would be far easier due to the drones lights.

It's actually quite hard to find a decent vid of a drone from the POV of the pilot. Here is one of a really small acro drone. You can see it really clearly throughout this video. The one at gatwick was claimed to be a large industrial one (whatever that means) so would have been 10 x this size...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57FJFxhTInQ
But again, they're within proximity of the drone, how well do you think they'd be able to capture it on a phone if it they were in a control tower and the drone is at the end of a runway?

Coolbanana demonstrated this earlier in the thread, he sent his own drone up 100ft or whatever and then tried taking a photo with his DSLR

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
But again, they're within proximity of the drone, how well do you think they'd be able to capture it on a phone if it they were in a control tower and the drone is at the end of a runway?

Coolbanana demonstrated this earlier in the thread, he sent his own drone up 100ft or whatever and then tried taking a photo with his DSLR
Will have to look for that post, however I have found a better vid, to illustrate the distance you can see a drone at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57FJFxhTInQ

This is not taken with a great camera, and is not a large drone like the one at gatwick was supposed to be

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
That's the same vid?

Here's a photo from earlier in the thread, taken at Gatwick, on board a plane:




Look how small the control tower looks, do you honestly think a phone camera would be able to resolve something the size of a drone at the same distance?

You can try this yourself, next time you see a really low flying plane or helicopter, take a photo of it on your phone. I bet you it doesn't look anywhere as big in the photo as it did with your eyes.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Could it have been a sort of transparent kite with a picture of a drone on ? Maybe with a sort of ink that evaporates after a few minutes ?
Or maybe a transparent ballon with a drone piccie on the side then when it had done its job the baddies could have shot it with an air rifle to make it vanish

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Here's Coolbanana's post from earlier in the thread

Coolbanana said:
I have just done a basic photography test using a mobile phone only: Samsung S9+



First shot, 18m high, 22m away. No zoom.





Next, 100% zoom



Finally, 118m high and 23m away...maximum zoom





The drone is visible to the naked eye as a tiny speck but invisible to a mobile phone. Stationary and at legal max height. It can go far, far higher and travel at 40mph.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
That's the same vid?
so it was. copy/paste error. :/

here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oQ2qOiL_44

Thanks for finding the cool banana photos. I have a similar sized drone, so I might have a go at this myself, though hard to take a photo of a drone with a phone when your phone is flying the drone

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Efbe said:
so it was. copy/paste error. :/

here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oQ2qOiL_44

Thanks for finding the cool banana photos. I have a similar sized drone, so I might have a go at this myself, though hard to take a photo of a drone with a phone when your phone is flying the drone
If you watch that video at 2m 47s you see how the guy filming the drone struggles to focus on it despite it still being relatively close, and that's taken on a Canon Powershot, not a phone camera.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
If you watch that video at 2m 47s you see how the guy filming the drone struggles to focus on it despite it still being relatively close, and that's taken on a Canon Powershot, not a phone camera.
Whilst it's true this is not a phone camera, that camera is a cheap one, and also Gatwick had the worlds media camping out there for 1 1/2 days with the best telescopic lenses money can buy, being operated by professionals who were there hoping to make huge amounts of money by capturing a picture of this drone. The same drone that was supposed to be circling gatwick for all of this period (I do understand not continuously)

In addition with thousands upon thousands of people going through the airport all the time, the drone has to go in and out of there.

In addition to that, all the drones I know of have lights on, so extremely visible at night. You could probably turn them off, but if your goal is to disrupt gatwick, then why do this?

I really do think it's inconceivable that a drone was flown around gatwick over a 30+ hour period with many people on site and not one person, professional, or amateur was able to capture it at all.
Then a drone flies over parliament and a photo is captured straight away and posted online.
or one spotted here: https://myeverettnews.com/2018/08/11/unauthorized-...
or here: https://petapixel.com/2017/12/16/mans-photo-shows-...
or here: https://abc7ny.com/news/drone-spotted-flying-over-...
or here: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/racing/drone-spot...

you get the picture...

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
It wasn't flown continuously for 30hrs, it would supposedly go up, the airport would shut down and it'd return to base until they tried to resume flights at which point it was supposedly sent up again, flights would be grounded and so on.

Also if you go back to the 28th Dec in this thread Coolbanana also took photos of his drone with his Canon 5D and 400mm lens with extension on it.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Oakey said:
It wasn't flown continuously for 30hrs, it would supposedly go up, the airport would shut down and it'd return to base until they tried to resume flights at which point it was supposedly sent up again, flights would be grounded and so on.

Also if you go back to the 28th Dec in this thread Coolbanana also took photos of his drone with his Canon 5D and 400mm lens with extension on it.
I will take a look at that. Edit: maybe I am missing the point, but the drone is very clearly visible in this photo. I was expecting a high res photo where I couldn't see the drone smile

However, there are hundreds of examples of drones being filmed/photographed by members of the public or officials, in which the drones should not have been there. I have posted a fair few of these in my previous post, with images in each one showing what has been captured.

Edited by Efbe on Saturday 23 February 21:18

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 23rd February 2019
quotequote all
Could it have been like a projected image of the drone ? A bit like when they want Batman and they summon him by projecting the bat image into the sky