We admit to not being entirely sure whether or not the clip we'd just watched (which you can also view right here below) was a joke, or if that very serious - almost grave - sounding narrator was actually being serious and not just mocking it.
Yes, drones have become a bit of a pest, and it is indeed only a matter of time until one of them involuntarily produces a serious accident or crash, but from that to building specially designed weapons that disable them, it still seems like a long way to go.
Naming your product SkyWall and using a similar font to the one appearing in the James Bond movie with a close-sounding name - Skyfall - isn't helping when people are already confused whether they should believe what you're saying or just smile and comment "good one" or "you almost had me there." But that's exactly what British company (again these Brits with their sense of humor) OpenWorks Engineering did with its latest product.
Essentially nothing more than a net-firing gun, the SkyWall100 is highly technologized and excessively militarized in looks and presentation. Resembling something you would expect to see in a video game where you're fighting aliens, the SkyWall has a matte black finish and comes in a hard case with foam molding. If the drone had feelings, it would certainly be very impressed by this show of force.
It is gas-powered and uses an intelligent programmable projectile that can be recovered and reused. The launcher can be easily reloaded to deal with multiple targets, if for some reason you're faced with a drone infestation of biblical proportions. The whole rig is said to weigh about 10 kilograms (22 lb) and is designed to be portable and operated by one man.
A clever optic targeting system will emit a beep when the target is locked on, informing the user to push the trigger. The projectile flies towards the target, opening the net as it gets closer to capture the unwanted flying object. A parachute is then deployed to allow the safe recovery of the drone for identification. After seeing those guys training eagles to take down drones, we thought fighting copters couldn't get any cooler than that. We were wrong.
This is clearly some serious business, but we've just watched the clip a second time, and we still giggled. Give it a try. It's better than most movie trailers we've seen lately.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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