Horizon

This programme contains some strong language.

So if you lean forward to the camera here, you'll see that

it's detecting the two of us.

So that's what the robot is seeing.

Effectively, it's recognised that we're human beings.

It's quite terrifying having a drone fly directly at you.

It's completely flying on its own around me.

There's a technology revolution going on in our skies.

Drones are smarter, faster, cheaper,

and much more widespread than ever before.

That's so, quick isn't it?

It's doing barrel rolls.

Wow!

They are destined to transform all our lives in many positive ways,

from delivering parcels and urgent medicines

to helping with emergency relief and search and rescue.

With drone technology evolving so fast, governments and the

aviation industry are scrambling to understand the potential risks.

Already, the skies above the UK are busier than they've ever been.

That is an air disaster that's waiting to happen.

It's not IF this happens...

..it's WHEN this happens.

And we all saw how easily drones can be misused to cause chaos

during 36 hours of crisis at Gatwick.

All flights in and out of Gatwick

have been suspended after two drones

were seen flying near the runway.

Police say it is a deliberate act of disruption.

It's absolutely ludicrous.

You see there - delayed, delayed, delayed.

People have been messaging us this morning, saying

it feels like terrorism.

I'm Aldo Kane, a former Royal Marines Commando,

and now, a high-risk advisor.

I want to know just how real the threat is.

Do our airports have the right defences in place

to keep us safe from this newly-emerging threat?

And what would really happen if a drone hit a plane?

Three, two, one.

That looked catastrophic.

Drones do present a threat to all types of aircraft.

I'm heading to some of the world's leading research facilities

to see where this technology is going.

So, it's a dune buggy with a laser on top?

That's right.

And I'll also investigate how this new tech

is being weaponised by terrorists.

So, we're talking off-the-shelf weaponised drones.

These drones would come over, start dropping bombs.

Two, three, four bombs on top of us.

It still makes my heart beat faster.

We're entering a new age of drone technology,

and I want to find out how, and if, we can keep ourselves safe.

I spent ten years in the Royal Marines as a sniper.

I'd say, operationally, around the world from Northern Ireland,

to Iraq, Middle East,

and everywhere in between.

My job now, since leaving, is a high-risk advisor.

So, I assess the hazards that go with people operating and working

in some of the most extreme places on the planet.

As someone who spends a lot of time on airplanes, I was shocked

by how easily a small drone could bring Gatwick - one of

the world's biggest airports - to a standstill.

So I want to find out what the risk is posed by this tech revolution,

and also what we can do about it.

Over the last decade, drones were born out of developments

and technology driven by mobile phones.

They rely on small and cheap computer chips, GPS units

and camera sensors that were developed to fit into smartphones.

They're already being used for organ transportation,

design and agriculture,

search and rescue.

And in the future they'll be taxiing us around.

Drone sales are predicted to reach over five million worldwide by 2020.

There are also more airplane flights,

so the skies are getting more crowded.

It's easy to see the potential risks.

We don't even know for sure what the effects of a drone colliding

with a plane mid-flight could be.

So I'm on my way to a little-known impact test facility

used by the defence and aerospace industry to measure the strength

of plane structures and engines.

I'm joining one of the UK's leading collision and impact

test scientists, Dr Ian Horsfall, who is running a test

to investigate the problem.

Afternoon.

Hello, Aldo. Dr Ian Horsfall, how are you?

Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you.

How you doing, guys?

So, this is Jed...

Hi, Jed, nice to meet you. How are you? Yeah, not bad, thanks.

What is this?

So, this is the star of the show today. This is one of the largest

air cannons in the United Kingdom.

It's capable of throwing a kilogram-sized projectile

at supersonic speeds, if we wanted it to. Wow.

I mean, that's a big barrel, isn't it? Yes.

What length is it? The barrel?

This is six metres long.

It's like the barrel of a main armour on a tank, or something.

Yeah. So, the speed of the projectile that comes out of here will be...?

Today, we're going to aim for 120 metres per second,

which is about just under 250 knots. Right. Which is a typical speed

an aircraft would be doing in the

So, we're going to recreate a plane coming into land or taking off?

And it's that point where the drone then hits the plane?

Yes.

The test will help to illustrate how much damage a drone could do

when hitting a plane,

by comparing it to another well-known threat to planes...

..birds.

Birds and planes collide every few days at airports in the UK.

And planes are designed specifically to be able to withstand the impact.

To start off with, we're going to do a test using

a gelatine bird simulator.

And if you hold the drone...

The drone and the gelatine, both about a kilogram each.

So that's got, like, mushy properties of a flying bird.

Whereas this - man-made plastic and metal.

So, if this goes straight onto those trestles...

The target that we'll be firing at today is the horizontal stabiliser

from the tail area of an old, small business plane.

Watch that there.

We want, like, a good strike on the leading edge.

That looks good, that looks nice.

The gelatine bird is then packed into a sabot,

an aluminium casing that fits snugly into the barrel of the cannon

so it can be fired smoothly.

So, if you two wouldn't mind walking into the observation room

while I just make the final checks. All right.

Yeah, so the breach is shut, the gas is on.

Take it off safe.

And charge the gun up.

OK, we're ready.

Ready?

This is quite exciting.

Firing, three, two, one.

Oh, wow. Well, that...

Trigger is safe. Look at that, the damage on the...

So, it has perforated the skin.

It's stopped on the front of the spar inside,

so it hasn't perforated the primary structure.

The important fact is that the control surfaces

at the back still work, no damage has been done behind this line,

so the structure's intact.

And we would hope this would still be perfectly controllable.

So it would probably be some vibration and some buffet,

but it should be capable of landing again.

And this is? That's the remains of the bird. It's the remains?

Impact scientists like Ian know quite a lot about bird strikes

on planes, but they don't yet fully understand the effects of drone strikes.

Shall we see what the drone does, then? Yes.

But we need the drone to be small enough to fit

into the barrel of the cannon.

We're going to break it up into its component parts, and what we're

particularly interested in is the motors,

because these are the hardest and densest part of the drone.

And also its battery.

And previous has work shown that those are the components we're most worried about.

The rest the drone is relatively lightweight. Cool.

So, we're going to smash that up, stick it all inside

one of these cannons, and then fire it at the wing. Yes.

There's a job for you. Perfect.

This will be fun.

Pretty robust!

There we go.

That's one of the motors off.

So, we've got the motors.

And these are solid metal, and with that sharp bit there on the front.

Four of these.

A battery, which is about a third of the weight of the drone.

And the motherboard, or the circuit board, and then more

bits of plastic here.

We then packed the drone parts into the sabot with some adhesive foam

to keep them from rattling around.

OK. Yeah. Now we're just going to wait for that to foam up.

I see it coming out the side.

And once the foam had set, we were ready to fire.

So that is one drone good to go.

Ready to go. All right.

OK.

So we're all good? We're all good.

The drone is loaded.

OK, piston coming forward!

So, it gains pressure.

And this glass is...?

Yeah, it's ballistic glass.

Ballistic glass. Good.

It's, like, quite nerve-racking, isn't it? It is!

In three,

two,

one...

Wow...

Box safe and trigger's safe.

Compared to the last one, that looked catastrophic.

Well, you've got drone parts well and truly embedded in there.

The difference between this and the bird is the bird stopped

as soon it hit the main structure of the horizontal stabiliser.

Whereas, in this case, the motor has penetrated through.

And there's...