Fellow Flightradar geeks - come here

[KenAdams]

Gatwick has suspended all flights due to two zones in their airspace. They are now having to find somewhere for numerous planes to land if you want to watch on the app. I'm watching an Easyjet Madrid to Gatwick one. Thought it might land at EMA but it's still going.

Placemarking!! Is the app worth downloading or can I just go onto the website each time I want to use it?

I prefer the app to the website which I find a bit clunky sometimes.

lokis

People always surprise me when things happen that disrupt their day, they seem to have absolutely no awareness whatsoever that they are not the only people in the world.

This is not just one or two diversions, up until 8am there had been around 60 aircraft diverted. That's thousands of people, planes, crew etc out of place and a logistical nightmare for the airlines. Not to mention the potential motif for the drones.

Then you get Bob from Blackpool complaining that easyJet didn't give him a personal call prior to his upcoming fight this morning

This is going to be causing mayhem all over Europe now with planes from Norway, Sweden, Spain and Italy cancelled - planes in the wrong place, passengers not getting home.
All because some idiotic fools have got less brain cells than a jellyfish.

I think they should be banned Bearded. Or maybe licensed like firearms, so you need a specific, demonstrated purpose for having them (like a roofing company could have one to check for loose slates/tiles etc without sending someone up for example).

How else are they going to stop these? Squadrons of specially trained attack pigeons?

BBC says LGW shut until 10, and that drones were seen at 7. I really hope they find these wazzocks and throw the book at them.

My son reckons they should get very long prison sentences, I wouldn't go quite that far (he was suggesting life!) but they certainly need the proverbial book thrown very heavily at them.

I pity the folk who have flown from Barbados and ended up in Shannon. It's a lovely place but not where you want to be when you've just had a long transatlantic flight. At least the flight from Dublin wasn't diverted into Shannon - can you imagine the jokes there would be about Ryanair if it had? (I know this is no laughing matter but still....)

Can you see all the ground vehicles at Gatwick. They are all driving around all over the airport, presumably checking runways, taxiways etc?

Yes, rover2 is beetling about all over the place.

I’m due to fly on a one day trip to Lapland in the morning. I’m swinging between feeling sad that we won’t be going and murderous to whichever wankers flying that drone.

I'd be happy for them to be banned for the general public. Having them hover over you when you're in your garden or on a beach sucks.

Why can’t they just shoot down the drones?

The cost of this disruption will be enormous.

There’d be a risk to people in the vicinity SlowNorris. Plus I imagine a stray bullet could do some damage connecting with, say an aviation fuel tank. There’s a lot of very expensive and sensitive equipment in and around an airport.

There has to have been some thinking about such an event though. Drones are a nuisance that some dickhead in his shed can’t wait to unleash. I just can’t believe the heads of security at Gatwick haven’t thought through this scenario.

I reckon it's Jeremy Corbyn feverishly operating a drone to deflect press attention.,..

I just can’t believe the heads of security at Gatwick haven’t thought through this scenario.

I'm sure they have. But what could they have done differently? There was a guy just talking on BBC running through all the "what ifs" - you can't use a signal jammer as you don't know where the signal is coming from, these things move really fast and are zipping on and off the airfield, it appears to be a concerted, planned attempt at sabotage. How do you effectively ban drones from being brought within a certain distance of an airfield? Safety is first always in everything aviation related and they simply can't allow planes to fly.

They'll be doing everything they can, nobody wants this level of disruption. Feel really sorry for the airline ground staff who will be getting it in the neck from lots of irate passengers over something which really isn't their fault.

I hate drones. More and more this summer when I have been out and about somewhere nice there’s a drone buzzing about. On the beach, by a loch...nice for the drone flyer having film of the beautiful spot, crap for all the rest of us having our lovely day at the beautiful spot being ruined by a noisy drone buzzing about. Ban them all! (Bah humbug)

What I don't understand is how someone is managing to keep these drones airborne for so long. My understanding was that the battery life was about 2 mins for a two hour charge?

I know they are not constantly in the air - but even so they must have a fair few.

I’m swinging between feeling sad that we won’t be going and murderous to whichever wankers flying that drone.

I'd go with murderous. I'm sorry that it's been ruined for you.

Whoever it is has more money than sense, from what I've read online (which may or not be accurate of course) it's likely to be £4k-£5k drone which can fly for longer/with a shorter charge time.

I would guess there's a few drones, and they don't need to have been in the air for long.

As long as they get seen a few times over say half an hour, then they can be on the ground charging while planes remain at a standstill. Then a couple of hours later off they fly again.

Which suggests they aren't from far away, the operator must be physically close by.

Which suggests they aren't from far away, the operator must be physically close by.

I'm surprised they haven't managed to find the operator(s) - at night I'd have thought a heat seeking camera would have helped so obviously there are other reasons at play which are beyond my knowledge. Either way, a lot of people are working very hard as a result of this fiasco caused by some incredibly selfish muppets.

Listening to local radio (Sussex) the police have 20+ units on the ground looking for the operator(s).

But the area round Gatwick is both dense with housing & also a lot of wooded countryside as well. Needle in haystack comes to mind.

Listening to local radio (Sussex) the police have 20+ units on the ground looking for the operator(s).

There goes their Xmas leave as the bill for this climbs ever higher. The idiots doing it must be delighted. If/when they find them they should be charged with terror offences even if they are 'only' hobbyists behaving like dicks.

I believe that drones can be operated via 4g rather than radio, so the operator could in theory be literally anywhere.....

Perhaps the telecoms companies could help track down the operators then? Maybe that is far fetched.