Sigwx

tinkicker

Most air traffic radar these days is "secondary" which means electronics on the aircraft pick up the radar signal and send back a pulse of information. It relies on the co-operation of the aircraft to figure out where it is. There is still 'primary' radar where the electronic signal is bounced off the structure of the aircraft, but they are not designed to look at drones which are tiny compared to airliners. Gatwick has a 10cm primary radar (well I think it has.. did last time I looked anyhow) but how it works compared to target size, the amount of reflected radar energy and so on is really really complicated, in a nutshell it won't see much below the size of a truck.

Military radar is designed to find un-cooperative targets, but drones are still tiny and really hard to find even with new radars. In addition we (the UK) have ignored our air defence capability for a very long time as we've been in a benign international environment so we don't have much in the way of mobile radar systems. We have cutting edge stuff on ships... but Gatwick is a long way from the coast, we have very few ships and ships are slow.

Of course the real issue is even if you do install a radar capable of spotting a Drone measuring under a meter across... how do you stop it from alerting every time a pigeon wanders past.

Sigwx

jlemon

Having just retired from a large, worldwide helicopter operator serving the oil & gas industry (which also performs SAR work in the UK), this continues to be a very worrisome possibility in the rotorcraft industry, especially should a drone impact the windscreen.

We also worry about bird strikes as well. Several years ago a competitor's helicopter operating in Louisiana had a red tail hawk strike the windscreen of one of their Sikorsky S-76 helicopters while the aircraft was in flight. The hawk came through the windscreen and caused the helicopter to crash. No one survived the impact. A red tail hawk is similar in size and weight to many of the smaller drones.

Sigwx

NWIFlyer

Having been at LGW this morning, and now waiting to take off at LHR, I'm not sure the message about being able to reticket on still scheduled flights is getting through to those on the ground. I had to show the lounge ticketing agent the advice on the BA Trade website before he'd do anything, so it might be worth you pulling that up.

Sigwx

jowlymonster

I guess that's not an implausible motive, actually. Although for full effect, they'd have needed to target all major airports at once!

SteveF

Assuming that it's Plane Stupid or a similar group I'm surprised that they didn't target one or more other airports at the same time for maximum effect.

corporate-wage-slave

If it is today's fiight then the agent probably hasn't see update 3 which allows for rebooking (update 2 was shorthaul only). However update 5 has just been released which puts the matter beyond question. I'll post that separately. Hang up and call again.

Leaping_Deere

It's all rather odd. If you were out to make a political statement wouldn't you be taking credit for it on social media for as much press attention as you could muster?

At what point do the drone pilots get bored and go home? They seem to have the crew at LGW on the ropes

Flying out of LHR tomorrow so I'm watching this slightly uneasily, hope all those effected get sorted as quick as is possible

DaveS

Ironic that some of the adverts embedded in this thread are for drones.

SteveF

If they're making a political and/or environmental protest then I suspect they won't.

corporate-wage-slave

Customer Guidelines number 5 (always quote this since information is being revised very frequently at the moment).

Anyone going to or from LGW today or tomorrow (Friday 21 December) - if your flight is operating you can now rebook on to other dates up to and including 5 January. This applies to revenue, trade and redemption (Avios) tickets. Your start and end point must be the same, ditto for any stopovers over 24 hours, but that would still allow a swap between LHR / LCY / LGW and/or EWR/JFK for example.

If your flight is cancelled, you can have the above option, or a rebook at a later date, or a refund.

EDIT: They have turned on Involuntary Refunds in Pegasus, which may allow you to see the refund component on BA.com. Doesn't always work mind.

Tafflyer

The trade policy has just changed to include bookings for tomorrow and now a different agent told me I have to get the ticket changed at the ticket agency. This is BA at their worst again. Obviously they can't do anything about the drones, but they can put policies in place to help rather than hinder their customers.