Tokyo police are using drones with nets to catch other drones

[hitekker]

I recall that in the beginnings of World War I, planes were primarily used as surveillance tools. So the germans and french would send their planes above a battlefield, and the pilots would see each other, sometimes even wave at each as they passed by.

A little bit later someone brought a shotgun on one of the planes and the rest is literal history.

[adrtessier]

I'm very curious as to what the reaction was of the first pilot that was shot at. My guess is he was probably be thinking more "Wow, what an asshole," than he would be thinking that the aggressor's action makes sense in the context of war.

[lotharbot]

The version of this I heard is that the first air-to-air shots were fired during the Border War (US / Mexico) in around 1911 or 1912. Somebody unloaded his six-shooter and didn't hit a darn thing.

Just before WWI, Caproni designed an airplane with a machine gun mounted above the propeller [0], but the military wasn't that interested in it. It wasn't until the invention of the interrupter gear (credited in part to Roland Garros and part to Anthony Fokker) that air-to-air combat got to be really deadly, on account of pilots being able to fire accurately at other aircraft.

[0] http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/caproni-ca20

[HelloMcFly]

I heard bags of bricks were one of the first weapons brought to the skies. This is the type of thing prone for many apocryphal stories.

[chippy]

I heard that they were dropping hand grenades and bombs on people below before shooting other planes in the air.

[dutchbrit]

People will probably start building bigger drones with bigger nets to catch the police drones. It's just a matter of time.

[informatimago]

or smaller drones to go thru the nets. or drones that don't look like drones:

http://www.mybionicbird.com/

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp

[jayd16]

Begun, the drone war has.

[Scarblac]

The ancient profession of netmaking will be completely relevant to high tech. Science fiction writers give up.

[ekianjo]

Or you know, swarm the skies with tons of small drones making it impossible for the police to catch them all at once.

[mrfusion]

Or bring scissors to cut the net?

[decentrality]

Or drones with blades that cut as they turn.

[HillaryBriss]

None of these countermeasures will matter after the Tokyo police start injecting stomach acids that digest the victim drones from the inside out.

[anonfunction]

Short clip of the drone catching a drone:

https://gifs.com/gif/pYYzXr

[michaelcampbell]

Seems it would be equally effective, and a lot less weight, to just drape a bunch of monofilament lines below rather than a full-on net. Those would get tangled in the "bad" drone's rotors well enough, I'd reckon.

[adrtessier]

Running steel cable or nets, instead of monofilament wire, is pretty much SOP for denying an area from rotorcraft. There's a pretty cool article on Wikipedia about prison escapes by helicopter [1] that explains how this is often implemented in high-security correctional facilities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_helicopter_prison_esca...

[shpx]

But then you don't get the reusability, unless you have spools and can cut the lines, which probably gets you back to the weight of a net.

[leereeves]

A modern version of barrage balloons.

[bookmarkacc]

Is flying your drone away from the nets resisting arrest?

[galapago]

Game of Drones!

[samstave]

This is beyond funny/awesome to me. Apologies that this doesnt add anything to the discussion other than my own feelings about the comic-like start to the anime-style-cyberpunk-future we have all been subconsciously building for the last 70 years....

[tibarun]

Do checkout: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1155690... which is linked in that same article. It makes me wonder if these drone-catching techniques will be focused on Fukushima/nuclear related protests or fly-overs to get independent radiation measurements.

[BorisMelnik]

The only next counter-logical (criminal) course of action I can think of is counter thieves using drones with nets to catch the police drones with nets.

[tajen]

Or laser immolation? Or a cloud of little wires to clog the propellers? Magnetic attack? Helium balloon defense? As someone said above: Begun, the drone wars have.

[usrusr]

Can't decide between "fascinating high-tech solution (drone)" and "fascinating low-tech solution (net)". Which one is it?

[HillaryBriss]

I don't know but my gut reaction to the video was: "That is so f---ing cool I can't even believe it."

[awqrre]

Something like this seems like it would be more efficient: http://www.cadincadout.com/dronedefender-radio-gun-waves-dow...

[kalleboo]

That seems dangerous if the quadcopter falls down in the middle of a freeway or something

[shmerl]

It reminds me Watchbird https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579

[npunt]

Watching this gave me a distinct "the future is now" feeling. Odd-shaped hovering craft designed to take down other hovering crafts would look at home in most scifi movies.

[maaku]

It's official: we're living in the future.