What’s the obstacle against downing illegally flown drones?

The fees and chance to be caught are so low it encourages scrote agendas for all sorts of protests, it should be a minimum of 5 years in jail for first offence and 25 years for 2nd given the costs and safety risks associated with it.

I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on in Ryan’s head so we are beyond the realms of guessing. I’d suspect it’s the fear of the drone falling from the sky on to a person or persons or property or moving vehicle causing a loss of life.

Overall I’d suggest this is simply people flying their drone initially for fun to have a look at the airport from above but that has now developed in to lads doing it to be the cool kid in the gang saying they shut the airport down. This is Dublin after all where brain dead people have thrown buckets of paint from flyovers on to cars, rocks through windows, pointed lasers at drivers on the M50 etc etc.

Everyone needs to get serious and quickly about this matter before serious damage is done or loss of life occurs. There has been multiple confirmed drones that have affected aircraft in or near Dublin airport over the last 2 years. I’ve seen many on social media say “there’s been no pics so therefore it isn’t true”, it 100% has happened on multiple occasions.

Theres a few issues at play here and it's all down to politics.

Firstly, the IAA are the authority over drone use in this country and issue drone licences. They also have the power to prosecute illegal drone usage and have done so in the past (news articles on Google)

Then we've the DAA who run the airport. Neither the DAA or IAA are state funded, earning their money from airlines and commercial activities.

We've had drone issues before but no equipment to jam the signal of a drone and command it to land since. I suspect neither of these bodies responsible for drones and the airport, want to fork up the money for such a system.

They are waiting on the govt to act andd enter discussions on the issue.

We've seen the red "no drone" signs erected at the airport in the media of late. Red ones with the IAA logo. They quote a statutory instrument.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/si/563/made/en/print

This gives the IAA power to prosecute illegal drone use. It doesn't say they can take a drone out though. Again, the IAA have distanced themselves in the media from this and talk about the guards. Who don't have any more legislative power than the IAA do.

Finally, if well organised, this person could be tuned in to Air traffic control. Fly the drone up for 30 seconds, once it's reported by a pilot etc, brng it down, disruption & mission accomplished. You're not going to get a target on it within 30 seconds.

Which brings us back to drone jamming technology as the only long term solution and that is a financial football at the moment.

Edit to add: I'm unaware of the penalties in the SI but I can already presume they're fairly watery. Even if they were hefty, highly doubt anyone will get anywhere near the penalty for a first offence, as with everything.

I really hope law in the future allows for shooting those things down over any private land, regardless of whether you're IAA or not.

It's an entertaining, fun outdoors hobby I get that. Just do it over your own land, or a public space, and the hell away from the airport.

Also jamming them should not be illegal. If you want to fly your drone that's good for you, if I want to fly my jamming signal that's good for me too :p Not sure why we assume drones have rights.

Kenny Jacobs on the radio this morning explained that in the case of LHR & LGW it's the Metropolitan Police that have (been given) the power/authority to bring them down using jammers etc.

It can be done, it just comes down to how you set up the legal framework to implement it, as in who yo0u give the power to and how it's defined. It needs to be on a solid legal basis, which is why it will take time. We are rarely fast at this kind of thing in this couuntry.

Legit brand ones are.

Plenty are not

DJI are, but I suspect cheaper 'toy' models aren't.

Applying your logic to aircraft generally and you'll see where it falls down.

I disagree, because aircraft, ships, cars are regulated, registered vehicles with admin, taxes, insurance, certification, maintenance. And they carry people, who have rights.

Drones can't be both treated as toys when it comes to regulation, but extended rights as if they were something more. If downing a drone is to be treated like downing a plane then drones need to be equally regulated to one. Otherwise they are toys and we don't need to apply special laws to them.

On a side note, by all means if an unregistered , unmanned plane makes it's way to Irish airspace please I hope to God there is a procedure in place to shoot it down. I very much hope the logic applies just so.

Drones are regulated, register and licensed. So kinda I’d debunks everything you said there.

Paying vehicle tax and insurance isn’t the reason why you can’t shoot at places or cars. So not really relevant. Neither is maintenance, strange one that. You would be permitted to down unmanned vehicles, so also irrelevant.

Some flying objects may have to be dealt with. But by the authorities, individual land owners as it flys over their gardens. That’s the point, it’s not your airspace. You dint hold special rights over it.

you have no rights to the airspace above your property. nor rights to the contents of the ground below. if the neighbour was using the drone to film you then you could probably get a restraining order against that.

The current legal issue is that the drone is private property so even if it is downed and the owner prosecuted, its still his gear, same as having you car towed, still your mo-mo.

There was a case where a farmer took the 12 gauge to a drone and he was done for damaging private property.

As noted earlier Ryan will wait till an Airbus 380 goes down before anything is done

totally forgotten that bit !

Might be no harm to regulate drones at point of sale. Ensure only Drones with safety features can be sold in Ireland like the DJI Drones.

Your neighbour doesn’t have the rights to the airspace, but it doesn’t follow that YOU have the right to do as you please in the airspace either.

Even if it was a designated public airspace, you wouldn’t have the right to perv in his windows, no more than you would from a public green area.

There are laws describing how much airspace is included with land ownership. It’s not as simple as X metres though. A city block zoned for high rise would own much more airspace than a rural field.

Drone Jamming/Capturing technology is already in use in the State, and is in use at some Government owned buildings. So why not the airport

https://www.thesun.ie/news/9444084/inside-irish-prisons-criminals-drones-smuggling-drugs/#:~:text=A%20NEW%20battle%20of%20the,installed%20in%20six%20prison%20sites.

The regulations state no drones to fly within 5km of an airport (unless <1kg AND <15m), so that means anyone in parts of Finglas, Santry, Swords, or Ballymun would be in breach for flying their drone anything over 15meters and I'm sure that happens daily. I've seen lots of aerial photos of property for sale in the area taken from well over 15m.

But if your drone is <1kg AND <15 meters off the ground AND you're not being a hazard to aircraft, you're allowed to fly near an airport. I've seen people do this several times at various layby's at Dublin Airport, usually just hovering a few meters off the ground.

I wonder how many of the reported incidents so far were actually drones being hazardous to aircraft and how many were people just reporting people for having a drone hover a few feet off the ground? I know the reports last weekend were all stood down very quickly.

im wondering does this have anything to do with the significant rise in complaints from the public due to the rise in traffic

seen that alright

That is laughable. We have people in this country deliberately committing crimes to try and get into prison during the cold winters. They cannot get in because the system is overcrowded and bursting at the seams.

That someone would get any sort of custodial sentence at all, let along the lunacy of 25 years, it fairy tale thinking.