El Paso drone shoot down, at it again

B

Barrett50

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Oct 3, 2024
Messages
701
Display Name
Barrett50
Another day, another fracas down in old El Paso.

abcnews.com

Dept. of Defense shoots down Customs and Border Protection drone near El Paso: Officials

Ranking members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure released a statement on the incident on Thursday.
abcnews.com abcnews.com

Summary; DOW laser type asset shoots down a CPB drone asset.

My only question is - who/how many will get fired for this? (hint, the whole number less than 1).

Queue the cartoon calliope music.
 
I damned near hit a drone yesterday. About 9 miles sound of HWY, at 3500ft. Big damned black egg-shaped thing with red lights on it. Hovering, as far as I could tell. Whipped past my left wing, probably 50ft away. Got my heart rate up a bit, for sure. Between that and dodging student pilots doing maneuvers all over the place, I'm not sure if I prefer ADSB telling me just how close and fast they're closing, or whether I preferred the blissful ignorance of the "silver bullet" days!
 
Was it in our out of the mode-C veil? I thought inside they must have a squawk and ADS-B to operate? That's a rough environment to operate GA.
 
godzilla-let-them-fight.gif


And if that was my personal plane guess sucks for be me?
 
SkyGazer said:
Simple. DoD and DHS really don't talk with each very well.
Click to expand...
Understatement of the week. We're def not friends in my corner of the world, that much's for sure. #TeamDoD

And yes, the Coasties are good people and their mission is top notch; they should have never got rolled under that umbrella of unvetted clowns.
 
Last edited:
At short distances, with modest attenuation due to air, those MiL lasers can cut through our Al like butter. It would torch my dry wood airplane instantly. This kind of cowboy, shoot first ask questions later is no way to run a defense system.
 
Barrett50 said:
At short distances, with modest attenuation due to air, those MiL lasers can cut through our Al like butter. It would torch my dry wood airplane instantly. This kind of cowboy, shoot first ask questions later is no way to run a defense system.
Click to expand...
Its like giving a 6 year old matches and a can of gasoline. What could go wrong?
 
AvNavCom said:
I damned near hit a drone yesterday. About 9 miles sound of HWY, at 3500ft. Big damned black egg-shaped thing with red lights on it. Hovering, as far as I could tell. Whipped past my left wing, probably 50ft away. Got my heart rate up a bit, for sure. Between that and dodging student pilots doing maneuvers all over the place, I'm not sure if I prefer ADSB telling me just how close and fast they're closing, or whether I preferred the blissful ignorance of the "silver bullet" days!
Click to expand...
Did you report it to ATC?
 
kkoran said:
Did you report it to ATC?
Click to expand...
I was already descending and had an initial call-up on the HWY CTAF so I broadcast the location on that frequency, since most folks flying in that area and roughly at that altitude are on 122.7. At least give some folks a heads-up. I did consider coming up on the local SFRA frequency to advise ATC, but it was a very, very busy day and I needed to concentrate on a safe pattern entry. In retrospect I wish I'd hung a hard left when I saw the drone and circled it while I advised ATC. Perhaps I should file a NASA report.

Infuriating though. Kind of nuts that we now have to worry about solid objects just floating in the sky in random spots.
 
AvNavCom said:
I was already descending and had an initial call-up on the HWY CTAF so I broadcast the location on that frequency, since most folks flying in that area and roughly at that altitude are on 122.7. At least give some folks a heads-up. I did consider coming up on the local SFRA frequency to advise ATC, but it was a very, very busy day and I needed to concentrate on a safe pattern entry. In retrospect I wish I'd hung a hard left when I saw the drone and circled it while I advised ATC. Perhaps I should file a NASA report.

Infuriating though. Kind of nuts that we now have to worry about solid objects just floating in the sky in random spots.
Click to expand...
Might want to contact FSDO about it.
 
I was on with Dover approach on Saturday and heard them advise an aircraft of a "possible drone or balloon" at altitude :-/

So, who's going to gin up a remote id receiver that spits out data in GDL39 format?
 
A CF like this in the civ world would almost surely cost someone of middle-high rank their job(s). This inter-agency stupidity continues unabated because no one with a GS designation(or Mil OCS grad) is ever worried about paying a mortgage. They can continue to screw up on a national scale, in huge public visibility and just say; 'oh well, we had a meeting, shook hands, ate a donut and then went back to our desks. It's all good.' At a min the DOW should have cashiered an O-6 and sent them to count bullets in MN. Similar for the CBP. But no - this chicken-spit system of job protection in the govt is part of the reason our republic is so costly incompetent.
 
Is it DOD or Homeland? Asking because Homeland having access to weapons, USCG excepted, is pretty universally recognized as a horrible idea. Those guys make Moe, Curly and Larry look like members of Seal Team 6, and that's really not being fair to Moe, Curly and Larry.
 
US Department of Justice (DOJ) has many component agencies under its domain, including; The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) plus Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along with the other many DOJ alphabet law enforcement agencies (FBI ATF DEA etc).

From what I understand the only agencies that have received any significant funding under this administration (the big beautiful bill) are DHS, ICE and USCBP.
 
Rick A said:
US Department of Justice (DOJ) has many component agencies under its domain, including; The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) plus Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along with the other many DOJ alphabet law enforcement agencies (FBI ATF DEA etc).

From what I understand the only agencies that have received any significant funding under this administration (the big beautiful bill) are DHS, ICE and USCBP.
Click to expand...
You sure they report to DoJ? I thought they had their own Cabinet-level Secretary and not a Director.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top