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Comment by tbonza | Hacker News Reader

It's a good point. Terrorizing an urban population with $200 drones doesn't seem like an unrealistic scenario. How would a tool like the F-35 be used to combat this situation? I think it would be fairly useless.

Here's a link to an article about a cheap drone being shot with a Patriot missile: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940

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You think that F-35s, specifically designed for shooting other aircraft out of the sky, would have trouble shooting down drones?

Yes, we aren't going to risk $150M+ planes at low altitude trying to shoot $200 drones with a gun that only carries a few seconds of ammo, or try destroying them with million dollar air to air missiles.

The F35 is entirely unsuited for low altitude operations, or dog fighting with other fighter planes. It's only good for hiding miles away at higher altitudes and firing missiles.

He said a $200 drone, which would be something similar to the tiny, low-flying commercial offerings. You couldn't take that out with an F-35 without destroying an entire city block along with it.

An A-10 could probably deal with it, but yeah, it'd also obliterate anything in the background.

They would. They're terrible at it, and they're probably no better at shooting down a 1 foot wide drone than they are geese.

They're designed to shoot jets and helicopters, big things with a well-defined thermal or radar image.

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