SUSPECTS?
Posted on 01/26/2015 12:38:14 PM PST by Seizethecarp
At some point Sunday night, someone flew a small drone onto the grounds of the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the drone -- or, to remove the ambiguity of that overly broad term, the small quadcopter -- posed no threat to the building or its inhabitants.
The incident raises the question: Could a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pose such a threat? To answer that, we need to know the answer to three other questions. How far can a UAV fly? How is it controlled? And: What can it carry?
Could a larger drone approach the White House at night, unseen? Maybe. But it would likely require the use of a pre-programmed path -- and it's likely that any such attack could be thwarted.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Hmmm...could it be that the new owner of the WaPo, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos is bending over backwards to damp down any panic over small drones buzzing around posing any danger to anyone, particularly to POTUS Barry, even though there is a strict NOTAM no-fly zone even at low drone level elevations for miles around DC???
BTW, there were TWO WAPO articles today in quick succession reinforcing the harmlessness of the drone crash at the White House today...
“A good comparison would be the cinematography community that uses these,” he said. “You can certainly lift 25 pounds and have an aircraft that weighs another 15, so a 40-pound device.”
It seems like 15-20 pounds of c-4 would blow a pretty big hole in a building?
Interesting. Assuming there’s no payload on the device, I guess skin is kryptonite to all those whirling blades. They’ll instantly stop and not cause any harm. /sarc
Bull Cheese.
The number of times the White House airspace has been breached numbers in the thousands. They can’t ready enough F-16 Interceptors to chase off the weekly count of small aircraft that inadvertently cross the no-fly zone.
One of these days, it won’t be an accidental fly-over.
And now? Now they can’t keep drones off the White House Lawn?
Hoo Boy.
Several drones are able to carry pay loads above a pound. This creates the possibility of a drown fitted with a small pipe bomb. I’m not thinking that it would be very effective and it would have to get really close to do any real damage, but ......
And now that Josh Earnest was weighed in stating there is no threat to the White House; I’ll certainly sleep better tonight.
And I hope the Obama’s will too.
The article said some small drones can carry 25 lbs!
More BS from the biggest BSer’s of all time. That is White house press secretaries. They can BS better than a used car salesman.
Don’t listen to what the guy says. Just used common sense for this one. It all depends on who is controlling the drone and what that persons resources and capabilities are. Joe six pack is not going to do much damage with a drone. But China or Russia could sure as heck take out the white house if they so desired. Many not so friendly groups and countries could do some pretty terrible things with a drone.
The chances of a drone actually finding the Obamas at home in the White House is minute. They vacation constantly.
A M18 claymore mine only weighs 3.5 lbs. A couple of these mounted to a drone frame, pre-program the flight path, fly it low and between the trees, have it come up on an outdoor gathering, fly up to 100 feet before it is fired. Could cause quite a bit of damage. Of course, getting hold of a claymore mine is a bit of a problem for most people.
I’m not even sure how you would be able to detect and/or defend against such an attack.
The threat is small because drones are super-easy to spot above the fairway...
So if it sprays some sort of chemicals? Virus’?
Most likely some kid flew his quad beyond the distance of his transmitter/controller and it eventually ended up on the WH lawn......LOL!
That happened to my little brother once. Back in the 70's when he was a teenager living in Venice, FL, he used to build radio controlled balsa airplanes then fly them with a club he belonged to. Evidently one day when flying, his plane got too far out in the distance and he lost control of it and it just kept going and going, and going..........out over the swamps and he never saw it again....LOL!
Build a massive tennis court screen enclosure over the WH grounds...
I don’t know, but if one of those can get there to the WH and can carry that much...it’s a problem.
Yeah, scary thought.
The potential for trouble has existed for years. Go to a radio-controlled aircraft meet sometime. Those guys are flying small jet aircraft and others have live TV cameras aboard. There is no limit but the imagination what you could do for a few thousand dollars.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.