I was writing an insurance application on a woman's front porch yesterday when she pointed out a drone over the yard across the street. Looked like it was watching us and was about 50' up. But we weren't saying or doing anything worth observing, unless the drone was trying to get her banking info.

There was an old farmer that sued that AF for flying too low over his house….United States v. Causby…. That should provide a precedent to sue some peeping toms.

Side note. My uncle flew 52’s during nam and he would always chuckle at the story of flying from Fairchild down south at tree top level…

I would have made a move on that. But you have said you work in some seedy areas so that might invite more trouble than you need. Around here, as bad as I talk about it, I would have followed that m'fooker.

I know some military types who think quite a lot of the work coming out of Anduril Industries. A very interesting company, they were founded by Palmer Luckey, who at 16 began building VR headsets and eventually the Oculus Rift (which I only know about because my son and his friends in college strapped one on to me - wow). Anyways Fakebook bought him out for $700M in 2014 (when he was 21!)

Anyways, in 2017 he started Anduril Industries, which specializes in "autonomy-focused defense technology." They are a happening company - I suspect we will see quite a lot from them as time goes on!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KX0ji1sAXl8?si=NpGrsNHbigmF-zHF" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's another with both Anduril anti-drone technology (the Anvil is heavy and just slams into any "bad guy" drones), as well as some fun attempts by YouTube engineers:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SrGENEXocJU?si=umbJ65L3ZCXRQ1Ig" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

One more - I promise - this stuff is awesome!

"Malicious actors are increasingly using state-owned and commercially-available drone technology to threaten the personnel, infrastructure, and assets of the United States and our allies around the world. Anduril Industries has built a family of systems to counter such threats — and we’re thrilled to welcome the newest addition to that family: Roadrunner.

Roadrunner is a modular, twin-jet powered autonomous air vehicle with extraordinary performance at low cost. Vertical takeoff and landing capability gives Roadrunner the flexibility to rapidly launch from and safely return to any location, pairing high subsonic speed with exceptional agility and stability.

Roadrunner-M is a high-explosive interceptor variant of Roadrunner for ground-based air defense that can rapidly identify, intercept and destroy an array of aerial threats, including large aircraft that are up to 100 times more expensive, or be safely recovered and reused at near-zero cost.

Roadrunner and Roadrunner-Munition (Roadrunner-M) is an operationally-assessed and validated capability that is ready to deploy today."

That Roadrunner is the bomb (so to speak):

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/al9ITeP4fUA?si=YfTQJqXPMXK1VlJx" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If really annoyed, get your drone to follow their drone from above, get landing location, take pics, be creative...

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/04/24/army-has-officially-deployed-laser-weapons-overseas-combat-enemy-drones.html?amp

I’m very interested in lasers and other directed energy weapons, for anti drone.

Granted, as an investor in US defense stocks, it warms my heart to see a million dollar missile expended on a $10,000 drone. But self interest aside, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

https://theaviationist.com/2024/04/27/ukrainian-yak-52-vs-russian-uav/
something slow for the mission

Anduril is one of the new companies trying to upend the military acquisition cycle.

They are working with the Australians on an underwater drone, https://www.anduril.com/article/first-ghost-shark-debuts-in-australia/ . Ahead of schedule and on budget, must be fiction. :D

I've said it years ago in other threads on a controversial topic.
The US is lucky it has a shooter problem instead of more creative alternatives.