SBminisguy | 14 Oct 2024 10:14 a.m. PST |
OK, come clean, who did the drone swarm fly-overs of Langley AFB and other US installations? <q<Mysterious Drone Fleet Breaches U.S. Military Airspace for 17 CONSECUTIVE DAYS Without Deterrence For 17 consecutive nights, a squadron of mysterious drones breached the airspace over Langley Air Force Base, home to some of America's most advanced military assets. Despite the base's state-of-the-art defenses, military personnel were left perplexed and concerned, watching each night as the drones crossed Virginia's restricted airspace without deterrent. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the bizarre drone activity has left military commanders, including U.S. Air Force General Mark Kelly, scratching their heads. Kelly watched in disbelief as drones zoomed across the night sky at more than 100 miles per hour. link
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Editor in Chief Bill | 14 Oct 2024 1:28 p.m. PST |
Oddly enough, North Korea is also complaining about drones overflying their capital, blaming South Korea. |
Silurian | 14 Oct 2024 3:08 p.m. PST |
Seems incredible they don't have the authority to shoot them down! That seems just nuts. |
Shagnasty | 14 Oct 2024 6:22 p.m. PST |
I thought we had some electronic device that would crash them! |
OSCS74 | 14 Oct 2024 6:23 p.m. PST |
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Grattan54 | 14 Oct 2024 6:29 p.m. PST |
My vote, China. Just like their balloon. They upgraded. |
John the OFM | 14 Oct 2024 7:45 p.m. PST |
Yeah. Shoot them down. Collect the debris and discover they were assembled from Radio Shack components. |
Major Mike | 15 Oct 2024 6:41 a.m. PST |
Give me a helicopter, two shotguns and men that know how to shoot them and I'll solve the problem. |
SBminisguy | 15 Oct 2024 8:23 a.m. PST |
Grattan54+1 -- could also be Iran or Russia. But whoever it was, the US Military DID NOT RESPOND! By the way, the articles on this keep saying "100mph" as if that's impressive -- that's basically the same speed of a light aicraft, and there are literally dozens of models of off-the-shelf drones you can buy that can go 100mph with a 45-60min endurance. Some are cheap, some are expensive for civilians like this one for $12,000 USD on AMAZON, but has an endurance of 120 minutes, 4K x50 optical zoom camera, and GPS navigation.
link But with the resources and programming skills someone can exploit our abject stupidity and link these drones together into a drone swarm to perform recon and even strikes, or do the same thing as POV recon/strike like we see in Ukraine. |
Inch High Guy | 15 Oct 2024 8:26 a.m. PST |
Seems a rather simple proposition to RF/DF the controller or use a counter-battery radar system to find where they are landing. |
David Manley | 15 Oct 2024 9:43 a.m. PST |
Probably some other part of the DOD that want increased funding for its counter drone programme😛 |
Silurian | 15 Oct 2024 10:24 a.m. PST |
There has to be a little more to this than we are hearing about, surely. By now they must know where they are coming from and landing, right. Surely… |
SBminisguy | 15 Oct 2024 10:32 a.m. PST |
There has to be a little more to this than we are hearing about, surely. By now they must know where they are coming from and landing, right. Surely… Probably. Is this DOD scaring up drone defense funding? Is this an adversarial power scouting us out, but Team Biden is too embarrassed to confess that China or Iran, with whom they are supposedly making good diplomatic progress, is behind it? The China Spy Balloons would have been kept secret except normal people saw the dang things and embarrassed the Biden Admin to take action. |
LostPict | 15 Oct 2024 3:53 p.m. PST |
Drone encroachment is nothing new. Assuming this is a defense issue, it's not too different from Soviet era aircraft penetrating US airspace in the bad old days. DoD has sufficient technical means to deal with most drones in terms of detecting, tracking, developing a fire control solution and killing them. That said, both kinetic and non-kinetic kills could result in undesired collateral damage on the base or in the surrounding civilian areas. If the drones are from an adversary, then using technical means reveals capability best kept for wartime. Generally, DoD passes this stuff to FAA and FBI who have the jurisdiction to deal with the criminal usage of drones over restricted airspace. In the meantime me and mine shake our fists at nuisance drones while shouting, "Get Off My Lawn!" But that does not generate headlines or draw viewers and readers. |