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This is incredibly stupid. As I've posted elsewhere here, drones have a chance to outfly and outmaneuver the golden eagles used in the program. Then, assuming t

This is incredibly stupid. As I've posted elsewhere here, drones have a chance to outfly and outmaneuver the golden eagles used in the program. Then, assuming the eagles catch up, they still have to deal with blades - with wingtips spinning at hundreds of miles per hour. There's no way they can survive the blades: every bird I've seen that encounters a UAV either was instantly killed or permanently disabled. I've worked with drones enough to know what will and won't stop them. A bird won't: it'll brush the blades and fall to the ground in a bloody mess. A bullet will. Bullets are tried and true technology, we know how to use them, they're not ridiculously expensive, and they will certainly take down any drone of reasonable size. This is PR, plain and simple. There's no other explanation for it, unless France's air force is hilariously incompetent, which I would doubt.

spiderfarmer 10y ago
"The military is designing mittens of leather and Kevlar, an anti-blast material, to protect their talons" Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s Maybe it won't work for all drones, but bullets would drop drones into the crowds below, so the idea catching them in the air is not that stupid. It's just one of the ideas the police is exploring.
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  If a bird catches a UAV, it's not going to be able to carry it off either. Golden eagles in particular cannot carry very much. You can find videos of them using their impressive wingspan to momentarily generate enough lift to carry dogs or goats, but that is only momentary. As you can see here [0], golden eagles can't even carry 1kg for more than a brief amount of time. And you've got to be kidding me. "Mittens of leather and Kevlar"? How about you put on some leather-kevlar gloves and then try to touch a spinning blade, with the tips going hundreds of miles per hour. It would be like a heavy caliber bullet against a bulletproof vest. This is PR, plain and simple. It's completely and totally ridiculous and wouldn't work unless the 'terrorists' were completely incompetent and flying tiny drones. (I'll remind you that a tiny drone can't carry much payload, which would probably be the purpose of a terrorist attack.) Somewhere, entirely separate from the people working on this PR project, someone in the French military is hopefully looking at realistic ways to take down drones safely, e.x. bullets. But I can only hope that this isn't a serious effort and is only PR, otherwise I'd be extremely worried. [0] https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-bald-eagle-carry.html https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-bald...
lumberingjack 10y ago
Ya but these birds are not just any old birds they eat wolves for dinner

spiderfarmer 10y ago

"The military is designing mittens of leather and Kevlar, an anti-blast material, to protect their talons" Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s Maybe it won't work for all drones, but bullets would drop drones into the crowds below, so the idea catching them in the air is not that stupid. It's just one of the ideas the police is exploring.

owenversteeg 10y ago
If a bird catches a UAV, it's not going to be able to carry it off either. Golden eagles in particular cannot carry very much. You can find videos of them using their impressive wingspan to momentarily generate enough lift to carry dogs or goats, but that is only momentary. As you can see here [0], golden eagles can't even carry 1kg for more than a brief amount of time. And you've got to be kidding me. "Mittens of leather and Kevlar"? How about you put on some leather-kevlar gloves and then try to touch a spinning blade, with the tips going hundreds of miles per hour. It would be like a heavy caliber bullet against a bulletproof vest. This is PR, plain and simple. It's completely and totally ridiculous and wouldn't work unless the 'terrorists' were completely incompetent and flying tiny drones. (I'll remind you that a tiny drone can't carry much payload, which would probably be the purpose of a terrorist attack.) Somewhere, entirely separate from the people working on this PR project, someone in the French military is hopefully looking at realistic ways to take down drones safely, e.x. bullets. But I can only hope that this isn't a serious effort and is only PR, otherwise I'd be extremely worried. [0] https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-bald-eagle-carry.html https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-bald...

lumberingjack 10y ago

Ya but these birds are not just any old birds they eat wolves for dinner