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>High risk locations. Dense metro downtowns, sports stadiums, government buildings, large public utilities (nuclear power plants), etc. You take out dense metr

>High risk locations. Dense metro downtowns, sports stadiums, government buildings, large public utilities (nuclear power plants), etc. You take out dense metro downtowns and I think that's perfectly sensible. It doesn't require any kind of licensing, or national database, or wide scale distributed systems of any kind. Drones are off limits in the those areas just like aircraft are. If you have an automated defense system and you need a drone for some exceptional reason, you clear it with whoever manages the local system and they install a friend or foe transponder on the drone. Wide scale drone licensing enforcement isn't required or effective if your goal is to protect high threat targets from drone attacks. It solves completely different problems. >No, I'm just noting that however we deal with this for aircraft might help here, since the same rules apply. You need a much higher density of radar installations, with an exponentially higher cost since drones are much smaller than aircraft. >$8 billion That's off by a few orders of magnitude if you're talking about a wide-scale system including towers, radar, personnel, drone take down capability etc... >10+ lbs of payload for something that would want the maximum blast radius and power, or the maximum directed penetration for hard targets You’re still talking pipe bomb levels. It’s still much more effective to leave a bag in a trashcan in a crowded space. > A few grand ($3k-$6k) gets you 20 lbs of payload easily (and more if you need it), from multiple manufacturers.[1] $10k seems to get you like 40 lbs or more. You're looking at a list of maximum payloads from the marketing department. Not maximum realistic operational loads. And the drones with 40lb payloads are huge. >It's a real attack vector, and if there's no mitigations, There are no feasible large scale mitigations that are effective enough to change the calculus. Again if you’re talking local mostly automated drone defense, then sure that’s feasible and probably necessary at some point.

kbenson 8y ago
I'm not feeling this is a particularly constructive discussion anymore. You seem to be picking specific statements to counter, while ignoring the context of the statements and explanations that address your counterargument I've made in a prior comment or within the same comment. For example, drone payload, where you focus on smaller sizes, and say they can't do much damage, and then either ignore larger size payloads as marketing lies (with no evidence to back it up, or to at least show actual payloads in practice), or that those drones are huge... which would make them easier to track, which was one of my earlier points that makes the system easier to develop. Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect. Time an again, I've tried to come up with real data or approximate numbers, with all calculations and reasons for such outlined so you or anyone else could question where you thought my assumptions were wrong, but I haven't seen that. Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning.
- learc83 8y ago
  I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads. You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload". >Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters. > Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning. You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site. I clearly explained why that is too low. Increasing the density of radar coverage to handle drones above 400', trained personnel, towers, and drone take down systems are going to cost a lot more than you think. You can believe me or not, but I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads. I know you weren't the prior commentor. This is a long discussion. I expect you're reading the prior comments in the same direct thread. When I've specifically addressed an item, in the thread, or even in the same comment, to have that ignored is... frustrating. > You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload". I didn't pull that number out of my ass. It was actually a conservative number, based on what I saw some models as capable of (but could not find good pricing info for). For example, the VulcaUAV Airlist model advertises a payload capacity of 25kg (~55lbs).[1] > That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters. Not just hobby drones, all drones. I expect there to to be a lot of commercial drone usage in the future. If they are all licensed, then the costs are limited to applying towards the small hobby usage, but overall U.S. drone usage, which I expect to be substantial compared to hobby use. I've explained this multiple times. > You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site. I've explained what type of hardware I expect the system to require, including multiple cameras per station. I've given a guesstimate as to the number of installations required. I've guessed at a per-station cost, and thus a total system cost. Your counter of "it's off by a few orders of magnitude" is in my opinion not sufficiently explained by personnel and countermeasures, since a few order of magnitude is at a minimum 100x off (and then if I assume you used a meaning of "few" that includes 2 as the minimum). I do not believe training existing personnel that are already stationed around every location (police!) you would want these and providing additional devices and training constitutes hundreds of billions of dollars. > I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have. No, you haven't provided any idea of what you think it would actually cost to have personnel on site and have them trained and outfitted. If you had, I might have been able to point out that we already have officials that serve a very similar purpose that could be used, the police, and that I don't think training and outfitting would be nearly as costly. I think $100 billion would be an fairly extreme upper bound of this system, but that's not a few orders of magnitude, it's one, and surmountable over time with a tiered rollout IMO, if it's event that high. For example, the FAA alone out of all the DOT agencies has a $16 billion annual budget.[2] In 2018 the U.S. spent over $90 billion on transportation in the federal budget.[3] In the end, I doubt we're going to convince each other of anything at this point, and I've lost the desire to continue. We should just agree to disagree. :/ Feel free to address any of the points I've made here though. I'll read the response and consider the points, I just don't think I'll respond. 1: http://vulcanuav.com/aircraft/ http://vulcanuav.com/aircraft/ 2: https://www.transportation.gov/mission/budget/fy-2019-budget-estimates https://www.transportation.gov/mission/budget/fy-2019-budget... 3: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_fy18 https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_f...

kbenson 8y ago

I'm not feeling this is a particularly constructive discussion anymore. You seem to be picking specific statements to counter, while ignoring the context of the statements and explanations that address your counterargument I've made in a prior comment or within the same comment. For example, drone payload, where you focus on smaller sizes, and say they can't do much damage, and then either ignore larger size payloads as marketing lies (with no evidence to back it up, or to at least show actual payloads in practice), or that those drones are huge... which would make them easier to track, which was one of my earlier points that makes the system easier to develop. Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect. Time an again, I've tried to come up with real data or approximate numbers, with all calculations and reasons for such outlined so you or anyone else could question where you thought my assumptions were wrong, but I haven't seen that. Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning.

learc83 8y ago
I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads. You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload". >Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters. > Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning. You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site. I clearly explained why that is too low. Increasing the density of radar coverage to handle drones above 400', trained personnel, towers, and drone take down systems are going to cost a lot more than you think. You can believe me or not, but I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads. I know you weren't the prior commentor. This is a long discussion. I expect you're reading the prior comments in the same direct thread. When I've specifically addressed an item, in the thread, or even in the same comment, to have that ignored is... frustrating. > You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload". I didn't pull that number out of my ass. It was actually a conservative number, based on what I saw some models as capable of (but could not find good pricing info for). For example, the VulcaUAV Airlist model advertises a payload capacity of 25kg (~55lbs).[1] > That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters. Not just hobby drones, all drones. I expect there to to be a lot of commercial drone usage in the future. If they are all licensed, then the costs are limited to applying towards the small hobby usage, but overall U.S. drone usage, which I expect to be substantial compared to hobby use. I've explained this multiple times. > You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site. I've explained what type of hardware I expect the system to require, including multiple cameras per station. I've given a guesstimate as to the number of installations required. I've guessed at a per-station cost, and thus a total system cost. Your counter of "it's off by a few orders of magnitude" is in my opinion not sufficiently explained by personnel and countermeasures, since a few order of magnitude is at a minimum 100x off (and then if I assume you used a meaning of "few" that includes 2 as the minimum). I do not believe training existing personnel that are already stationed around every location (police!) you would want these and providing additional devices and training constitutes hundreds of billions of dollars. > I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have. No, you haven't provided any idea of what you think it would actually cost to have personnel on site and have them trained and outfitted. If you had, I might have been able to point out that we already have officials that serve a very similar purpose that could be used, the police, and that I don't think training and outfitting would be nearly as costly. I think $100 billion would be an fairly extreme upper bound of this system, but that's not a few orders of magnitude, it's one, and surmountable over time with a tiered rollout IMO, if it's event that high. For example, the FAA alone out of all the DOT agencies has a $16 billion annual budget.[2] In 2018 the U.S. spent over $90 billion on transportation in the federal budget.[3] In the end, I doubt we're going to convince each other of anything at this point, and I've lost the desire to continue. We should just agree to disagree. :/ Feel free to address any of the points I've made here though. I'll read the response and consider the points, I just don't think I'll respond. 1: http://vulcanuav.com/aircraft/ http://vulcanuav.com/aircraft/ 2: https://www.transportation.gov/mission/budget/fy-2019-budget-estimates https://www.transportation.gov/mission/budget/fy-2019-budget... 3: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_fy18 https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_f...