Originally Posted by
First.officer
The whole thing seems somewhat contrived, admittedly easy to say with hindsight. If i was a conspiracy-minded person, you could almost believe that it (event and subsequent airport closure) was used as a springboard to maybe allow for a new bill to be pushed through parliament that may have previously stalled, or received adverse reaction? or perhaps to allow rapid deployment of new equipment at all UK airports that is utilised to detect such errant drones as was purported to have been the case (press reports suggest 'yes' here). Of course, such equipment may have further monitoring capabilities as well as that applicable to drones?. It is of course beneficial to have such monitoring (to identify errant drone activity for one) for safety and security, but it all seems a little too convenient and maybe some other less publicised 'activity possibilities' are introduced alongside the main purpose as well?. You have to wonder what (if any) other benefits are realised at a less obvious level. Maybe none of course. And there has been recent press speculation of increased threat levels again to aviation from new ISIS groups, so again anything to combat perceived or actual threats and protect the interests of all involved, can only be good. Time may tell i suppose, but i doubt it. And to treat the couple arrested like they did - sacrificial lambs on the alter of public desire for a lynching? whatever, that was very badly handled and watching and reading the press its all to easy to see where that is now likely headed with regard to compensatory considerations - and arguably fair too given the nature of it all.
To yet again quote 'Hanlon's Razor': "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Unfortunately, we have the heavy handed imposition of 'safety' rules and 'legal powers' based on no proven sighting of a small UAS. This is because while there is absolutely no available system for airport staff to observe and identify 'drones' (small UAS) there are a plethora of actions that they are required to take for safety. There is also an immediate demand for legal response. So a sparrow hawk can cause an airport shutdown.
What is needed is a primary radar system that is processed perhaps by some kind of AI that would identify and alert to small aircraft. The current direction of ATC is to move to cooperative 'surveillance' where aircraft report their position with SSR or ADS-B and primary radar is being effectively phased out. Strangely all the emergent UAS Traffic Management (UTM) systems (SESAR speak U-Space) are also cooperative so would be of no assistance whatsoever in a Gatwick type incident. A new (or perhaps a real) systems analysis needs to be carried out to identify the safety requirements of airspace control with uncooperative aircraft from small model size up mixed in with large passenger carrying aircraft.
Unfortunately, geek software and communications engineers with little knowledge of (or care about) air traffic management are the ones who 'know just what is needed for drone management' without even trivial attempts at formal systems and safety analysis and no ideal of a validated scalable concept of operations for separation management from other 'drones' and manned aircraft.
Expect to see more 'Gatwicks' - intentional, unintentional and imaginary.