petaluma1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...bably-illegal/

What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks to fftusa.org

goalie

Bolding mine: More like what will go wrong if you ask me <smdh>

84fiero

For a moment I thought I'd fallen into a time warp and it was April 1st.

Boggie Dog

Seems like management of airspace would be an FAA responsibility.

And why are there so many excess FAM's that TSA can staff VIPR teams and now a planned drone shoot down team. Shouldn't FAM's be assigned to flight duties or taken off the payroll?

Want to see the acronym for this group!

84fiero

Drone & Unmanned Munitions Management Integrated Effects Squad - DUMMIES

SaigonExile

It won't be long before one of these idiots hit a plane.

Boggie Dog

FAM's?

Bearcat06

Hate to tell you but the FAM numbers are way down...... and slowly going down even more with folks hitting retirement age.

They haven't had a hiring class in two years or so....

If you are on a flight and you think its a FAM.... probably a Fed or someone local flying armed.

Boggie Dog

Yet TSA contemplates using FAM's in a new ground job. There is a question of how useful their air role is and a transition to ground duties might be an indication of TSA's thinking.

Bearcat06

I personally think when the mass retirements come in the next two years or so when the ones originally hired after 9-11 are able to do the 20 year LEO Retirement, its going end up going back to the way it was....

A 100 or so out there floating around mostly covering OCONUS flights.... and that's it.

Boggie Dog

.

I know two FAM's who have retired in the last year or so. Both moved from another agency after 9/11 during the big hiring push. I don't think either stayed any longer than needed to hit minimum retirement time. I certainly don't think using FAM's to interdict drones is a good use of available resources.

looker001

I own a drone that been custom build for me. Good luck to them shooting it down. They have better chances of hitting an airplane.

Boggie Dog

I believe that work is underway to interfere with the radio control systems of drones. Of course doing that could have a several pound object falling out of the sky in an uncontrolled manner. Operators who fly near airports or other unsafe manners should be arrested and charged with a crime.

Bearcat06

That makes me chuckle as we a DOD are having issues and trying to come up ways to interdict drones at our bases..... (and that is very open source).

I seriously doubt the clowns at TSA are doing something above and beyond to support FAMs sitting on their fat asses at Airports watching for drones.

That sounds more like a FAA gig (which where the FAMs should go back to.... but that's another thread).

gsoltso

Like you, I am not thinking the primary interdiction will be "bang bang shootemup". I think the primary format will be using some form of radio wave interference first, then if there is a scenario where someone is in danger, then resorting to "bang bang shootemup". I agree with you that consistent arrest and prosecution should be ramped up for this type of occurrence - the problem is, it can be nigh on impossible to track who is controlling them. The tech is better now than when I was young and running RC airplanes, some of these things have a pretty serious distance capability - which makes finding the operator more difficult. There are no easy solutions for this challenge, and it seems to be increasing of late. Some of these are innocent folks just trying to get cool pictures of airplanes - some have had nefarious purposes. The primary challenge is stopping these types of situations from happening, then, finding the folks doing it, with a compounding challenge of figuring out which ones have innocent intentions, and which ones don't.