Down With Drones

Whether the classic style used by David against Goliath, or the more modern surgical tubing, wrist braced slingshot; these are effective against small low-flying drones. A few hours a day of practice and a rather surprising range can be reached with these primitive weapons.

Giant bubbles make weird reflections, take up space in the sky and pop leaving sticky soap on drones for other items to stick to; all of this can lead to one thing - drones going down! Plus it's fun and it's science!

Much like giant bubbles or snow, filling the sky with bubbles creates an environment hazardous to drone flight. Oops, crash landing!

Spray silly string all over a drone and it will get gunked up and fall out of the sky. Or maybe just have the camera blocked. Or maybe you'll just look silly.

How would Katniss Everdeen deal with a drone she wanted to evade? She'd bring it down with an arrow shot from her handmade bow. You might not be Katniss, but you can use the same tactic on small to midsize drones. Aim for the engine or the propellers.

WARNING: PETA will hate you for doing this.

Get medieval on that drone. The Arbalest is a surprisingly effective solution to throwing a projectile at a low flying drone. Plus you get points for style.

If you can spread a sticky line across the flight path of a drone you can bring it down, using a lever thrower (atlatl) to give you extra range will probably be necessary. This tactic is probably not useful on any sizable drone.

A blast of radio frequency energy will scramble most drones circuits (probably not the case with MILSPEC equipment) rendering them helpless and disoriented.

If you throw a blanket over a drone it will go to sleep.

If you happen to get buzzed by a drone while practicing your backhand you may be able to turn the tennis ball launcher on the drone.

This one will require some research. 1. Exhume the corpse of Nikola Tesla 2. Learn the secrets of wireless energy transfer 3. ??? 4. Take that drone down

This one works best if you have harnessed the power of lightning.

This is supposedly what Iran used to bring down the drone known as "The Beast of Kandahar". Although it seems more likely that they used GPS Jamming.

This tactic is most probably what was used to bring down the US observation drone known as "The Beast of Kandahar", it involves replacing the satellite signals form GPS with false ones to guide the drone to a particular location.

Primitive but effective.

Like fly fishing? Get out your rod and reel and practice casting at drones. Probably only effective against small low-flying, low-powered and unarmed drones.

Throwing balls of yarn so that they unravel in midair in the path of the drone. Could be good for mass urban demonstrations. Probably not effective beyond 30 feet or so.

Gloppy stuff from the birdlime tree that you launch at birds (or drones) to bring them down for collection.

Light weight wires strung between buildings, trees, and other obstructions. Braided picture wire is good for this. Really only effective in locations where a small low-flying drone would be following a trail or otherwise be guided into the wires.

Model rocketry is a fun educational hobby - physics, explosions, outdoors! And gee, you might just hit or interfere with a drone.

Like many hunting techniques, boomerangs would be useful in downing drones or other machines that are hunting you! They also have the advantage of being primarily thought of as toys, not weapons. And they always return to you when you throw them!

Those huge floppy men, known as air dancers (Airdancers -TM), tube dancers, tube men or Mr Floppy are great for drawing attention to your business, or getting tangled up in a drone trying to mind your business

Sticky glitter gets everywhere and sticks. It fouls control surfaces, coats sensors and clogs engine air intakes.

If you jam the signal to the drone, it won't know where to go and will eventually run out of fuel and come down, if it doesn't crash into something first!

Large sweeping lights in the night sky will discombobulate flying drones - and likely nocturnal animals as well!

Throwing nets is an old hunting tactic for both birds and mammals. No reason it wouldn't work with a drone as well! Variations include cannon netting and rocket netting where cannons or rockets rather than human power are used to launch the nets.

Solar balloons, also called solar bags, are objects that float on a string using solar power. Like other floating objects they can interfere with a drone's view or by colliding the string or balloon with the drone itself.

Kite design that allows for guiding a kite with a cutting wire or a string dipped in powdered glass. In using this against drones the goal would be to collide the string with the drone, or flying the kite into it to damage the drone.

Spectra is popular for use with fighting kites in the US, but as you may have noticed many of these tactics involve some sort of line, why not use something that is battle proven! Spectra is 1/3rd the size of similar strength Dacron or monofilament, which means more height on less bulk. Created by Izorline who calls it "Brutally Strong" and reports that it "has been field tested under extreme conditions longer than any other braid!!!"

Paint over the camera and sensors and the drone can't see anything. Even if that doesn't bring it down, it can't spy on you.

Whether using an air rifle or a traditional firearm, rifles go the distance and good marksmanship can cripple or bring down almost any airborne object.

Whether you shoot rock salt, bean bag rounds, slugs or traditional bird shot, the shotgun has long been the home defense weapon of choice as well as a standby for hunting; of course such a versatile weapon will bring down a drone! Skeet!

If a goose can take down a 747, imagine what a flock of crows can do to a drone! Even without knocking them out of the sky birds can interfere with drone operation.

Helium party balloons are widely available in the US, and can be an effective aerial obstacle, particularly if combined with glue lines or netting.

Releasing a flock of doves will surely interfere with drone operations and may even knock it out of the sky. Known as release doves, wedding doves and funeral doves, these doves (really a type of rock pigeon) are regularly released in flocks for fun or ceremonial occasions. What better occasion than a drone sighting?

A primitive hunting weapon consisting of two or three weights joined by lines; it is given momentum by being whirled around the thrower before being released.

Dogfight! Like Snoopy versus the Red Baron you can go up in the air and dogfight against enemy invaders with your very own radio control airplane. Drone verse drone (or R/C plane)

Sky lanterns are like miniature flame powered hot air balloons, just the thing to interfere in nighttime drone operations! Plus, it is hard to go wrong with flaming flying objects when you want to down a drone! Also known as Kongming Lantern or Chinese lanterns, they are used in many Asian festivals.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Department took out a drone by the simple expedient of crashing it into a full scale armored assault vehicle. (see http://www.examiner.com/page-one-in-houston/drone-crashes-into-swat-team-tank-during-police-test-near-houston) Not sure how you're going to arrange an assault vehicle to attract the drones; but if you happen to have one handy drones seem to have a strong attraction to them. Perhaps a model will do?

Most drones seem to have been designed or tested for desert use, mess them up with some snow!

Cook that Drone for dinner or at least jam all signals to it resulting in a crash!

Drone call home? Oh, wait that was ET. However, setting a homing pigeon on a direct path with a drone might not be very good for the pigeon but it could take down that drone.

Confuse a drone about which way is up or flash a laser in its eye. Either way, you might get it down. If all else fails, it's a heavy object to chuck at it.

Pop a small (or large) advertising blimp into a drone's airspace and down they both go. Bonus points for using the smiley face blimp. Or if that doesn't appeal, you can always hide your actions from overhead surveillance with a suitably stationed blimp.

If you have the sK1lLLz, you can write a computer virus to hack the drone control software and bring it down.