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Comment by Zenst | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how drones would fair flying thru this, as on scale a locust in relation to the engines upon a drone is large in relation of a bird to an aeroplane engine.

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Not well, there are documented cases of locust swarms bringing down small planes, and causing emergencies on large planes.

...as recently as 2 weeks ago, no less https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51098209

Thank you, suspected as much but just didn't know. Was pondering drone fishing fleets harvesting such swarms, back to the mental drawing board then for me.

I understand that, we can make 'high protein flour' out of crickets[1] it seems like we should be able to process Locusts into some sort of protein source for human consumption.

But it is really hard to actually visualize/imagine these swarms without actually being there in one. The amount of infrastructure you would have to deploy essentially on a short term basis[2] is really infeasible with current technology.

[1] https://www.cricketflours.com/

[2] Swarms are a function of environmental conditions, they grow exponentially but they die quickly when conditions change, it is the series of monsoons at the right time that have made this one so big. In "regular" years they are much smaller.

Locust are crickets so yes you would be able to

That would mitigate the problem, but I don't think that could be used as a food source to replace what they destroyed, they eat up to their own weight per day, however insect digestion is pretty inefficient, they leave a lot of nutrients behind, so eating them up would only partially replace the losses.

Also catching a substantial fraction of a swarm that is spread over a very very large area and moves by up to 150 km a day would be very hard, and is largely impossible currently.

Exactly. The thought though was that if you created systems for processing locusts into flour around the area then that might incentivize people to catch and bring them locusts. If that became a regular thing it would keep populations down so that even in ideal swarm conditions the growth would not be as severe.

And it could provide an indigenous economic stream, always a good thing in Africa.

Honestly I think battery-powered drones with hardened or screened props would have the best shot against locusts. One of the main vulnerabilities for aircraft is the need to intake fresh air for combustion. This doesn't apply to drones. They also navigate using RF sensors and fly slow enough to avoid much collision damage. The locusts might start landing on them which could easily become incompatible with controlled flight, but that's the only thing that comes to mind.

It seems a bit tone-deaf to worry about drones when this could trigger severe food shortages.

How so? They didn’t say the safety of drones are more important than the people of East Africa. Drones could very well be used to help combat this crisis. Have you considered not being upset just for the fun of it?

Thank you for asking that and my apologies for not initially providing a context and by that poor omission opening up the very valid and fair possibility that I was being callous and uncaring. Also thank you for taking the time to raise that question instead of blindly judging and running with the worst case presumption, thank you.

I was thinking along the lines of fishing them as a food resources and drones with nets, but before I ran with that was wondering how well a drone would cope with such swarms and not something that the net did not offerup as a clear answer, either.

[EDIT ADD first paragraph ]

Ah, I see. I thought it was a random musing. My apologies then.

That being said regardless of the efficiency of such a solution I suspect that the scale of the invasion would make it hard to make a difference lest you have an army of drones at your disposal. The area to cover is insanely large.

No apology needed, and thank you for taking the time to comment your thoughts as without such feedback I would never of been able to clear things up.

[EDIT ADD] Indeed, if anything I should apologize as I'd left no context behind the question and leaving that open left the possibility of callous unthoughtfulness and you most kindly and rightly so, raised that aspect. Many would of just gone with a downvote - presumed the worst and ran with it in sillence, so again thank you for taking the time to question that. If I could mod you up more for that, I would.

[EDIT ADD - I was able to edit my initial reply as did seem you was being unfairly judged and I hope I've addressed that]

I think something more like a kite rig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_rig, but a net would be good. if they could be "thrown" up in the air quickly, have a sort of sticky inside so locust would be caught better, as they filled the net the net would become heavy and be brought down. The net should then be easily detachable somehow, attach another, throw up into the swarm.

Swarm passes by, the kite netters have a couple tons of locusts netted, a good harvest.

on edit: personally like because has such a 50s sci-fi feel to it.

I like the idea of kites, was thinking rockets and large net.

As for the Sci-fi, soon as you mentioned that I oddly thought of Dune, probably the rare resource mining aspect of such swarms and climate comparison going on there.

Big fabric rotors, like those used on old windmills or a VAWT could scoop them out of the sky.

I just had a dig into what altitude they fly at and 2,000 meter ceiling would make things more complicated.

Hot air balloons dropping nets, or some weather balloons - again tethered. Though would probably want to run with hydrogen for costs, just safety and training go up, so greater initial costs there. So many details.

Kinda gets down to sky versions of submarine nets in predictable flight paths into crop area's as being the best spots to set such trapping nets up.

Though if it turns out you just need to lay down football sized green carpet and that attracts them - well that opens up other avenues in trapping or indeed - zapping them once they touch down.

That sounds like industrial production of kungu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunga_cake

This has already been addressed by Zenst, but this is a forum with a lot of engineers. Of course zenst was thinking about whether it's viable to use drones as a locust prevention measure, but you first have to start with whether drones can even fly in a locust swarm.

Get out of here with your pre-judgement

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