Tech from 1000BC
How about a flaming arrow?
That'd certainly convince the floating miscreants to get the hell down to the deck ASAP when their chute is being engulfed by flames.
The US Air Force security police have issued a requirement for a portable net-throwing gun able to bring down parachutists or people in motorised hang-gliders - apparently without killing them. The Security Forces Center, responsible for equipping the USAF's security police, refers to the proposed tangler-gun as a Counter …
Presumably, the design is expected to incorporate a balistic recovery parachute system, like the one increasingly used on small GA airplanes.
However, in that case such BRS (parachute, rocket motor, activation system) will have to travel to the target together with the net, and it weighs about 40kg.
If a 40kg projectile will hit you (or you will hit a 40kg projectile) while flying at, what, 60kt, you will likely not need any recovery system at all, whether at 500ft or 5ft above ground.
A number of rapid firing guns that fired (biodegradable) sticky balls around an inch or two in diameter. Fire enough of these (dependent on target) to immobilize/ bring them down, say 20 or 30 for a parachutist, 200 for an ultralight.
Better for simply covering a large area, may not be so good in cold/wet environments.
A series of nets tied to the ground at one end, and rockets at the other end, that detect a target and shoot up in front of target at an appropriate time. Better for long-term installations and larger targets, though expensive for large installations.
Blimps or balloons with booms dangling many chains underneath (or something).
Optimus Prime?
ttfn
If you want to arrest somebody that happens to be on a parachute, forcing the said chute not to fulfill its desired function of lifting would be fatal, yes?
How about some anchoring method, like a grappling hook (preferably hurling it at his trousers, for everybody amusement) or some fly fishing hooks /barbels?
In this fashion, he would still have some buoyancy, while at the same time he could be reeled in like a fat fish.
The scene would pretty much look like a amazingly large kid's fly kite, which would be comical, in the least.
Mine is the one floating the wind.
Can't see a net working, as everyone else has mentioned it will stop what lift they have and they'll come down rather rapidly and no doubt messily. Maybe they need to think beyond a net and use some kind of expanding foam solution which solidifys quickly in the air. Either deployed from a hose pipe (squirt the annoyance in the air), or maybe some kind of foam grenade. Fire at whomever, and a big ass foam snowball falls to earth with a thud, but less damaging to the occupant than hitting the ground as a pizza.
As someone who has done skydiving - both tandem and solo - when you are at <500ft, you are already preparing to land (unless something has gone terribly wrong), so their requirement of "able to bring down parachutists" is like a cow's opinion (a moo point).
My thinking is that they should have the net attached to a lookout tower in such a way that once entangled, the perp can be reeled in (faster than 9.8m/s/s!) and left to dangle until such time as people can be bothered to recover the net.
An alternative, for a mobile installation, would be to monitor the height of the entangled perp and launch a suitably sized rocket to provide adequate (but not excessive) lift when the perp is <50ft from impact, giving them a nice soft landing (the net being on elasticated string attached to said rocket).
Simple.
Or fire shards of glass at the perp, then blame it on the locals throwing bottles over the fence, but it may only work in rough areas.
CULAPS? I see what they did there. By engineering it so that the "U" and "L" both come from the same word "UltraLight", they've ensured that nobody can insert additional words for "N", "T" and "F" in-between.......
Humourless bastards. I reckon they've been reading El Reg and wised up to us.
Have the USAF cops not heard of black helicopters?
Just fly one over the alien intruding whatnot and the downdraught from the rotors should do the business. Heck, if they flew it at angle, they could even force the whatnot to come down beside the mess hut or whatever location was most convenient.
Whilst holidaying in New Zealand a few years ago I remember being shown a device used to capture wild animals. It was a net launcher fired from a helicopter!
There was also a photograph of a fool who had fired the net into his own rotor blades with entirely predictable (non leathal I might add!) results!
Perhaps these people could learn something from the Kiwis, they seem to have a handle on net launching technology!
And if any 'tards want to start squealing 'we have net launchers here in wiscon-tah already' I dont give a f*ck. I saw them in NZ, thats where they are prom AFAIK. That is the end of this matter.
Word.
Black helicopter....well a helicopter that shoots nets to catch miscreants....what else was I going to put?
As you noted, the "non-lethal" thing is to avoid criticism from the wooly-gilet goat rearers, so it just needs to look like it's not been designed to kill. The fact that it will cause death at every use is, well, how do they say? A regrettable side-effect?
Anyway, I think the non-lethal aspect was not especially wanted in the first place. Sticking a bullet in the head of a ultralight-mounted kamikaze bomber, at a 500 ft altitude, is a _bad_ idea. Trapping him in a net (Which will make him fall right where he is, or that you can subsequently drag anywhere you want with a wire) is much better for obvious reasons.
Why not just use a spear gun with a cable? If it tears the airframe, it'll come down the same way as the net approach. If it just passes through the framework, then you can reel them in alive. If it hits a person, whoops. If they are in some kind of flying car it should penetrate it and stick to it, and you can once again reel it in.
<----U-----....................... ME
They say the thing should be light... but that wouldn't necesarily take down a flying car then. unless it was tethered. A spear would fly better than a net. Gravity will take care of a parachute.
Spiderman 1and 2 - along with a few spliffs - the designers came up with a new idea for trapping miscreants in flight.
Could have been worse, if they'd been watching The Fly it would have been a fly-swat the size of half a football pitch (U.K. pitch that is. I'm unsure of the same area in micro-Wales' )
Use a water cannon.
The ammunition is cheap & it's an established means of 'non-lethal crowd control'.
If your target then falls to his death that is then a matter for regret - but the method has a long track record of use in detering demonstrators on the ground, and it's not your fault the guy was flying high.
Until you hit the ground. Your stripping away control as well as lift and a fall from 30 feet can kill you quite easily.
That the problem with these systems which are more correctly called "reduced lethality" weapons. If they weren't potentially lethal they'd let Joe/Jane Average carry them concealed.
As the owner of an ultralight trike, let me assure you that causing me to lose all lift at 500 feet is a death sentence. Not instantly, I'd probably get to live for a few minutes after impact... I believe it possible that I could be doing faster than terminal velocity...
So please, if you want me out of your airspace, be a man and just shoot my ass down. I knew I wasn't supposed to be there.