What’s the obstacle against downing illegally flown drones?

It would not be hard to hit a drone. just because somebody couldn’t on YouTube struggled mean it is hard. I highly doubt they were a sniper.

People who shot regularly shoot shotgun take out targets that are considerable smaller and faster than Drones (clay targets, game birds). The limitations on shotguns is a short range. And even shorter lethal range on metal/polymer drone. A net from a shot shell is going to have terrible ballistics.

A rifle would have the range, but not a smart idea to fire rifles at a shallow angle into the sky.

The difference is these days you have computers that can reduce the workload required to fly them.

There's also ones who have had success. I'd say there is a certain knack to it.Like at the start when the Russkies started launching shahed drones they nearly all got through, now most get shot down.

The laws on this appear vague and or inadequate.

the citizens information site I don’t see much…

but elsewhere, a drone site based in another jurisdiction say the law HERE is .. “ you must not fly a drone over private property unless authorised by the owner “

So what you can or can’t do as a home / property owner to protect your privacy / property ?

1. call the Gardai and inform them someone is flying a drone over your garden / property ? You’d likely be hours down their list of priorities.
2. establish contact with the operator. Let them know you value your privacy, property and personal safety and they are to desist flying the drone over / at your property. They’ll know this….What if they don’t comply ?
3. Establish that the drone is causing a tangible threat to the health and wellbeing of you and others and choose to disable it manually using say another object. But you are requiring the drone to be low enough to meet your 3 wood or baseball bat.

on further reading…

“The Criminal Law (Defence and the Dwelling) Bill 2011 allows a homeowner, tenant or visitor in a dwelling to defend themselves with reasonable force” … my interpretation of that is a drone being flown with disregard for the safety of those in situ at private property, the drone can be legally disabled.. it’s a threat…

If you wanted to go that route, it becomes a self defence situation. I think that where you’d struggle.

It could fall out if the sky in to you head. But it would be much easier for you to go inside rather than take it down. It’s a hard case that you had no other choice.

It shouldn’t be there. Just like somebody shouldn’t trespass on your garden, but if they do it doesn’t give you carte blanche to beat the crap out of them.

This notion of shooting down drones with shotguns or rifles or birds of prey is ridiculous. All you need is another drone. One with the adequate radar and speed to locate and immobilise the problem drone.

That is grand for cheap ass drones piloted remotely, requiring a constant radio connection.

You can get drones that can be pre-programmed with a flight path and they will fly autonomously without external signals. Jamming won't do anything to those. There are microwave weapons though that can fry their electronics.

Look at what the ukrainians are doing with commercial quadcopter drones modified to drop RPG rounds. Each drone costs only a few thousand but they can do precision strikes and survey the damage instantly.

In the wrong hands cheapish commercial drones can be as lethal as artillery.

Exactly. They all come to the same conclusion its not viable. I think the experienced shooters are surprised at how hard they to hit reliably.

This why air to ground automatic systems basically fire thousand of rounds at something (radar directed). Which is only viable on a battlefield or at sea.

Those microwave directed energy things even, would be too dangerous to use in the proximity of an airport. They could fry the electronics of an aircraft too, or even damage electronics on the ground. A human operated unit would be too prone to accidental damage to things, so it would have to be a radar controlled weapon.

It is simply not feasible currently. It is not a commercially available technology yet.

Attacking with a drone is a better option. A sacrificial drone could track and collide with the offending drone at high speed, a sort of kinetic impactor drone. Again, it would have to be radar controlled as it would be impossible to hit a drone if piloted by a human.

But this would be ineffective in the event of a disruption involving several drones. The defending drones would be quickly consumed. Even 10 or 20 cheap expendable Aliexpress drones would easily overcome such a system in minutes.

Again, similar was done with with the attack on a port in Crimea where Ukraine sent a barrage of cheaply made expendable, drone boats against the port. There was so many that the port's defences which included anti ship missiles and radar guided gunnery, were simply overwhelmed. While many drones were knocked out, many more slipped through, sinking and damaging many Russian ships moored in the port.

I think drones are shaping up to be a major hazard as they are versatile, remote operated or even autonomous and expendable.

I think it showed up a lot of Russian military systems like the Russian warship Moskva are in a poor state with dated technology. China has a drone carrier and the US has been testing drone fleets and the defense of the same.

Certainly in a civilian scenario its much more difficult.

There doesn't seem to be a one size fits all solution ,

guns seem to be out .

Microwaves to fry them in the sky sounds unbelievablely risky when you consider that there are low flying aircraft about

Hawks and birds of prey ,possible but I assume risky for the birds , and you'd probably still have to shut down the airspace in case your hawk flew into a plane .

Small portable jammers look positive , again probably need the airspace closed to use , but seem relatively simple and could be just left in a jeep or car that patrols the perimeter ( obviously trained staff )

I'm sure someone will come up with an anti-drone grenade , that just drops a cloud of fibers for the drone to fly through , it's prob already out there - but again a risk - and you're not going to give a grenade launcher to just any DAA security officer .

that cloud of fibres idea is excellent. You could have it as deployed from a drone, where it tracks over or ahead of a drone and releases a cloud of long fibrous threads that will tangle up in the rotors.

Or you could have it in a cannister shot out of some sort of air cannon and the cannister bursts open in proximity to the drone. Not very hazardous and has a much bigger kill radius that any sort of firearm.

You could have some sort device on the launcher that tracks the drone and tells you the altitude and range, and then the launcher will set the time on the cannister so that it'll burst open near the drone.

It's obviously spiderman and his fired webs reference.

There's been systems that fire nets at drones for a few years. Don't seem to caught on.

I assume take off is more critical. Plane is heavier, more fuel onboard and power is more critical in taking off than landing. Theres a point of no return in taking off, when you are too fast to stop and any problems require a circle back to the runway. At the same time a safe landing isn't something you can skip.