In Europe, where this is being written, and possibly further afield, news reports are again full of drone sightings closing airports. The reports have come from Scandinavia, in particular Denmark, where sightings have been logged across the country. It has been immediately suggested that the Russians might somehow be involved, something they deny, which adds a dangerous geopolitical edge to the story.
To us here at Hackaday, this is familiar territory. Back in the last decade, we covered the saga of British airports closing due to drone sightings. In that case, uninformed hysteria played a large part in the unfolding events, leading to further closures. The problem was that the official accounts did not seem credible. Eventually, after a lot of investigation and freedom of information requests by the British drone community, there was a shamefaced admission that there had never been any tangible evidence of a drone being involved.
In the case of the Danish drone sightings, it seems that credible evidence has been shown for some of the events. The problem is this: just as we saw a few years ago in southern England, and in late 2024 in the US, such things create a fertile atmosphere for mass hysteria. Large numbers of people with no idea what a drone looks like are nervously scanning the skies. Before too long, they are seeing phantom drones everywhere, and then the danger is that a full-scale drone panic ensues over nothing.
Based on our on-the-ground experience of the debacle in the UK in 2018, we hope that our Danish neighbours don’t fall into the same trap as their UK counterparts by escalating matters to a crescendo based on sketchy evidence. We trust that their response will be sober, proportionate, and based on evidence for all to see.
Our concern back in 2018 was for drone enthusiasts who might lose the right to fly, while now it’s more one for all of our collective safety.
I read “Drones near Airport” in the news and have no idea if it is little hobby-level multi-rotors or large plane-sized military UAVs!
For this case in Denmark the drones were described as “suitcase sized” and they were flying around for almost 4 hours. I’m guessing multi-rotor with somekind of combustion engine.
Still baffled that they didn’t track where the drones landed afterwards.
No matter, the idiots in charge will spread fear that little timmy buying his first quadcopter is the one to blame for this so more regulation is needed.
“No matter, the idiots in charge”
The ones doing the manipulation of them aren’t idiots and some of the “idiots” aren’t actually idiots.
Remember the predicted Christmas drone apocalypse of 2015 in the US where it was hyped by the federal government and the mainstream media, always eager for a sensational story line, about the huge threat of toy drones to be gifted at Christmas? Mainly, it was that airliners you’re aboard were going to be dropping out of the sky and drones were going to be falling on people’s heads? Remember that?
BTW, the government of many other countries followed suit based upon that, even adopting the hilarious garbage “calculated” 250g weight limit.
Here’s the sombre video of the associated DOT, FAA, etc. dog and pony show announcing that “crisis”:
DOT-FAA News Conference 10/19/2015
https://youtu.be/wuxtSjwOGhA
That, of course, didn’t pass the smell test for me. BIRDS are -BY FAR- the biggest threat to aircraft and their aerial density is vastly, vastly, VASTLY greater than consumer radio control (RC) hobby aircraft. Accidental collisions of manned aircraft with drones wouldn’t be even remotely as common. The odds were nearly infinitesimal as roughly calculated by me at the time and, later, a US college.
From the FAA Wildlife Strike Database: About 272,000 wildlife strikes with civil aircraft were reported in USA between 1990 and 2022 (about 17,000 strikes at 693 U.S. airports in 2022). An additional 4,800 strikes were reported by U.S. Air Carriers at foreign airports, 1990–2022 (about 230 strikes at 91 airports in 53 countries in 2022).
So, I investigated on-line at that time what the federal government was ACTUALLY worried about and it was trivially easy to find that it was exactly what has been happening in the Ukraine conflict – the use of what had potentially become a cheap, visually guided weapon for lethal purposes.
To help with the hysteria they’d created, one week after a conference in DC about the drone threat, a photo from which, if I recall correctly, hilariously showed a stereotypical cartoon cluster of red sticks of explosive attached to a DJI looking drone, a supposedly drunk employee of the National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency flying what looked like a DJI drone from his balcony at night, and I think it was even a drizzly night, “lost control” of it and -just happened- to end up crashed on Obama’s White House lawn, very close to the White House.
How convenient.
The FAA’s mandatory RC PILOT (NOT “drone” registration as was intentionally implied) registration was to “prove” the pilots had read the safety rules about drone flying by visiting the FAA site where they were posted, paying $5 to fund the site and register to somehow “prove” they actually read the rules, rather than just getting a free flyer with any purchase of an RC aircraft weighing 250 grams or more, the pulled out of their arse weight limit (I read the absolute JOKE of a study/report which “calculated” it).
I noticed ALL of this at the time and I and a few other people warned in RC forums what was actually going on, but no one listened.
Thus, RC hobbyists stupidly (“but it’s only five dollars”) PAID to allow the federal government to register THEM (NOT their drones) and thereby get their nanny state feet in the door of an incredibly safe hobby, VIOLATING a CONGRESSIONAL rule at the time that the FAA was required to be HANDS OFF on the RC hobby. That’s just as they would love to register every gun owner, something that is equally ineffective in preventing the misuse of guns as would be the registration of RC pilots against the intentional misuse of RC aircraft because, for some strange reason, criminals simply ignore laws. Gun owners have powerful lobbies to prevent useless registration. RC flyers didn’t and don’t.
Finally, immediately after the mandatory registration was enacted, ALL RC flying within 30 MILES of DC and -ONLY- DC was BANNED (later lifted). Does that finally prove what the politicians were actually worried about ten years ago?
So, what’s the big deal about registering?
Well, for a while, your pilot registration number was allowed to be hidden in, for instance, the battery compartment. Now, it must be visible on the exterior of the aircraft.
Let’s say that someone doesn’t like you much and puts your number on a fingerprint-free RC aircraft and flies it some place it -REALLY- shouldn’t be? That’s the reason the number was originally allowed to be hidden.
Second, that registration opened the door to where you are now with a constantly growing number of mandates and being restricted, at least in the US, from many past flying locations, often limited to just club fields where you are required to pay for membership and join the useless RC organization that didn’t effectively fight that registration nanny state foot in the door.
Winston, I agree with everything you wrote except this; “Gun owners have powerful lobbies to prevent useless registration. RC flyers didn’t and don’t.”.
The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) (www.modelaircraft.org) a United States based organization, has been fighting for the rights of flyers of model aircraft since 1936. I have been a member on and off since I was ten, and support their lobbying efforts to maintain access to the US aerospace. while their results have been mixed their efforts need to be supported.
“BIRDS are -BY FAR- the biggest threat to aircraft”
Clearly, bird regulation is overdue.
A reason I hate twinjets.
Sully might have stayed dry if he had been in an L1011
Until they happen for real. Are they willing to ignore when the wolf actually shows up?
naaah, we’re looking for an excuse to justify spending billions of euros in rearming europe, the scapegoat will be Russia.
Are there any closeup videos or photos available?
Get three drone racing pilots. Make close-up photos and get them to land.
Or just crash them if you are not able to track them.
No close-ups that I have seen. And they didn’t even try to hide. They were blinking with red and blue light the entire time while hovering around the airport.
They should have followed the drones home, maybe with another drone, and prosecuted the guys with the controller.
Given they appear to have been deliberately causing disruption at the airport, I doubt they’d collect the drones afterwards, they’d be disposable for the mission.
What credible evidence? Blurry photos of what looks like navigation lights above an airport?
Unfortunately the authorities fail to realize that blanket banning has no real effect on rogue operators who can build and fly their own drones without respect for safety or laws, or to intentionally threaten. Permissive legislation allowing for responsabile use of drones along with better monitoring of critical flight zones is more effective strategy to curbing rogue operators.
Okay, then tax drones and drone components to pay for the better monitoring of critical flight zones.
So Danes don’t have any air defense capabilities?
In broad terms: nope.
Various governments have reduced the Danish Military to the point, where a politician suggested years ago to replace it with an answering machine: “We surrender! Please invade in an orderly fashion”
I’m really curious, when an economy has switched to be primarily services based, what is the value proposition of spending any money on military?
It’s kinda same as wasting money teaching people CPR/maintaining an ambulance service. When you don’t need it, it takes time and resources.
If you don’t maintain it and need it, it will come back and haunt you
To be fair, even back in the 1960’s the joke was that the Danish Military consisted of two buttons, one connected to Russia and one connected to the US, that sent “we give up” messages. That’s when I first heard it from my uncle.
the millitary are not allowed to act in peace time.
One could always argue that this was an act of war. It would have been a great way to show the people to be in control situations like this. What I learned is to better have a Slingshot ready as I have to rely on my own in terms of drone defense. (a shotgun would be better, but there is no second amendment for europe…)
People invented t-shirt cannons for this use case. Not exactly, but close enough.
Slingshots are illegal (thanks to ANTIFA) in Denmark.
Official advice is to keep stock for 3 days. Then what? The Government will save us? Hardly.
I suspect that the list of people who have these specific air defense capabilities, and have them where they need them, is actually pretty short.
The sorts of systems that give you wide area coverage(radar installations dispatching either larger SAMs or fighters) tend to either not work or be absurdly uneconomic against very small targets(along with the risk to people and objects nearby, some fragmentation warhead that was specced to reliably kill a strategic bomber or saturate a volume sufficient for decent hit chance against a fighter is not a good neighbor); and the options suitable for small targets need to be placed very thickly and still tend to either be of tepid effectiveness against all but really amateur jobs(eg. the little RF jammers that basically rely on the drone doing something stupid if it loses its link with the controller or its GPS fix) or still pretty disruptive(smaller SAMs, autocannons, lasers or microwaves at levels that actually damage electronics).
It doesn’t help that most of the options are expensive and disruptive enough that having them and actually trying to use them probably creates additional options for someone just looking to hassle you on the cheap. If someone learns that they can get you to close the airport and spin up the 20mm too readily you’ll probably be inundated with every creative variation of ‘cheapest possible combination of some LEDs and a radar cross section’ whenever someone wants a laugh, probably multiple times per week.
Yesterday, one of the runways for Schiphol Airport (The Netherlands) was closed for 45 minutes due to a drone sighting, by both pilots and plane spotters. Immediately it was mentioned “this was probably a hobby drone and possibly not a Russian threat”. Later in the day the conclusion was made it was probably not even a drone but a balloon. Quite the subdued and rational response! https://nos.nl/l/2584249
Meanwhile, Israeli drones bomb the Gaza relief flotilla. Perhaps Denmark is looking in the wrong direction?
Your evidence that these are Israeli drones is? The last ‘drone’ attack they screamed wolf about was a flare misfired from one of their boats. Made good publicity for them! Using Occam’s razer – doesn’t Israel have better things to do than drone attack the flotilla, when the flotilla poses no harm to Israel?
That the flotilla is on course to Gaza which has no ports makes you question the point of their mission where they have essentially zero aid on board anyway. If Israel is worried then they’ll just peacefully board their ships when they get near Gaza like they did last time.
To add to the mockery I assume you’ve heard the tale of the Moroccan backers getting angry as they weren’t aware there there was an LGBT person onboard the flotilla until they outed themselves recently – LGBT sadly not being very welcome in some areas of the world still, but ironically very welcome in Israel.
Your evidence that it was a flare? It’s what the government of Tunisia claimed it could have been, with no evidence either, and with the potential motive of not admitting its own inability of stopping attacks on its own territorial waters.
There have been multiple attacks over multiple days, how many flares can you shoot wrong?
In the latest episode, a ship’s cable has been damaged too. They’re now being followed by Italian’s navy, should they need to be rescued.
It looks like a flare (simply falling, burning, lights up on the deck in the colours of a flare, caused minimal damage), whereas a drone wouldn’t already be on fire whilst gently descending and would cause significant damage given a direct hit.
Again the latest apparent drone attacks are hardly likely to be Israel, see above. In a Swedish newspaper today there were calls on the government to protect Swedish citizens onboard. The only problem there is the Swedish government foreign department specifically states you should not travel to Gaza due to the current situation, and when you begin travels to a destination on the no-travel list then you’re on your own.
My personal thought is that since Israel seems to have said they would jail Greta this time they likely now would rather back out, but they can’t because of the PR, so what can they do? Perhaps make up stuff in an attempt to have an excuse to back out? If so I can see the logic.
Could also be the usual making-themselves-seem-important stuff of course.
But whatever the case I believe the Tunesians since they would not likely be aiding Israel with lies.
There used to be guys that patrolled airfields with a piece of tech they called “shotgun” to remove pesky avians that were a hazard to aeroplanes.
“Our concern back in 2018 was for drone enthusiasts who might lose the right to fly” let these guys fly their drones, but also let householders/land owners shoot them down when they infringe their air space. I do have a drone myself, but dont fly it over other people’s property.
Just fly it at a designated R/C airport … like the rest of us do. Problem is solved. Anyone caught not flying in the designated area and not licensed to do so… throw the book at ’em. Drones are the bane of our ‘normal’ R/C hobby. They cause more problems…. And we the r/c hobbyist get the bad rap, for flying are airplanes and helicopters at the club field away from people and housing… (should not be classified as drones).
I fully agree with you. Fly it over your land, not mine.
Wait, they couldn’t track the drone and its pilot with the remote ID beacon? I am baffled!
Harder than it sounds: gotta know where to point the antenna. Chances are you cant without actually sighting
Direction finding with antennae was a thing back in WWII.
How soon they forget.
Is RDF no longer a thing?
Good question!
I suspect it costs money to have trained DF operators and suitable gear on standby so governments would rather pass blanket bans and look indignant when violations happen.
Oh no, won’t somebody think of the nerds?!!
Not a hack.
Yes it is.
Its LISP, Lots of Infernal Stupid Posts.
At least in the comments.
Surely just a coincidence but a Russian Naval vessel from Kaliningrad was spotted in Danish waters this week with its AIS sneakily turned off.
Why would a Russian naval vessel ever have AIS on while they have a freaking war on their ass?
Do US ships around Yemen have AIS? Or how about the ships in the Mediterranean near the hot spots? And how about the ships near Venezuela? I can’t imagine they would really. Broadcasting yourself as a target doesn’t seem ideal. And not only are they constantly harassing the Russian in the Baltic sea region (and the Russians pushing back, but that’s not the point here), there is also the revelation of those NATO discussion on the idea of taking over the Kaliningrad Oblast and how it could be done easily. Keep you AIS off Russian navy, is my advise.
‘Loose blips sink ships’
I wonder how many of the drone sightings are drones looking for other drones.
It is turtles all the way down except at the bottom, the gorillas die in the winter because it is too cold.
we recently saw a HaD post about measuring a humans pulse with WiFi.
I expect something similar to be done with cellular radio towers sooner or later.
They already have directional antennas, MiMo, probably beamforming / phased array antenna and whatnot – detecting drones and tracking them doesn’t seem that far fetched.
They had pager triangulation and intercept way back in the 90’s.