I just saw this on our local news and was surprised nobody else had posted it here yet.
Easily the truly stupidest idea I have ever seen - Dutch Police train Eagle to take down drone.
Better than the UnAmerican Eagle in the Our Man Flint Movies (that dates me a bit I'm afraid.)
https://www.newsledge.com/eagle-drone-takedown/
Might be Ok with a $30.00 toy, but even a phantom would/could seriously damage an Eagle and a heavy quad or X* could cut it to ribbons.
This is right up there with introducing rabbits or cane toads to Australia (and that worked out so well).
Managed to offend three groups at once with this one, Animal rights People, Us and sane people everywhere and the news media is eating it up.
I used to think it was because anything sensational attracted them, now I think it's because they are just plain stupid.
I happily invite all comments, pro or negative to this post, you can see my stand, but I can't help but feel that most of you will be pretty disgusted by this as well. :)
Best Regards to you all,
Gary McCray - DronesAreFun
Comments
Angry Birds Do (see my comment on page 2)
I have the catapults but NO , I will not launch rabbits. they dont have the range !
LOL......don't give ideassss!!!! :(
Barbarism on animals. What comes next? A catapult that launches rabbits against drones?
After watching it again its obvoius that it wont work anyway. Each time the eagle catches it the copter pilot throttles down. The eagle would just let it go if it cant hold it in flight if the bird thinks its going to crash. Still such a dumb idea though.
Drones are fun, Eagles are beautiful, Dutch police are idiots.
Now you got me thinking!
Could we train a flock of Canada geese to fly over top of the drone and crap it into the ground ?
(Their crapping power is truly prodigious).
George
Poor man's guided missile!
Plenty of unwanted pigeons around these parts. Or Canada geese, for the big jobs.
Now, we just need a system for capturing the 'ammo' on-site.
George
I guess that would be a more appropriate usage of birds to shoot down a drone ??
It's just an interesting thought experiment.
High tech systems, deployed by humans, have a tendency to go wrong. And presumably, if a drone needs to be brought down, the stakes may be very high.
If I were responsible for planning such a response, I'd probably want as many independent, redundant approaches available as feasible.
Pointing a focused beam from the ground (or a gun, for that matter), is probably the best candidate for a primary system.
But it's not foolproof, of course. Just off the top of my head - what happens to a laser-dependent approach if the nefarious party has shielded the electronics with, say, a mirrored, hemispherical dome covering the bottom of the central frame? I don't know, of course. I'd be reluctant to bet my life on a predictable outcome.
Or the GPS has been shielded by a well-designed ground plane against EMF coming up from below?
Or, the operator indeed loses control of the drone, but the authorities don't possess control, either, and the payload is dangerous and 'running loose'?
Or the drone is flying fast, in a built-up area, and the authorities have a couple of seconds before it disappears behind buildings/a forest/hills/cross-country...
An eagle would laugh off the operator's attempts to evade. :) Much more so than ground-based humans.
It needn't be any kind of kamikaze mission. Fly over top, repeatedly, with detachable 'danglers'. Something any bird of prey would handle with ease, in theory.
Now, on the other hand - it seems to be very hard-wired for them to actually physically attack flying objects. They seem to even enjoy it. So can they even be trained to not attack - just fly overhead?
I have no idea.
George
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