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.

alternatives

Like bean bag guns? Tennis ball launchers? Or maybe expanding foam pellets from a pb gun?

Cow poo launcher?

Or if the person is endanger lives or about to... shoot them.

extremist sports?

Put be down for target shoeing.

Retiarus?

Best not - it might remind ne'er-do-wells that the nets were most commonly fought with Tridents. Britain's so called Indepedent Nuclear deterrent would then have to be put to rather more entertaining use.

Flames, well because...

RETIARUS

is the finest acronym the reg has yet suggested. Contrived yet appropriate; you've put the professionals to shame with that one. Outstanding!

Air fishing...?

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.

Military is just paranoid.

Military is paranoid about people visiting Area 52 now that area 51 fad has died.

Acme Equipment?

A comedy sink plunger attached to a long rope, possibly fired from a crossbow would enable the troops on the ground to reel the intruder in quite effectively.

A net?

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.

'chutes

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.

Blow hard

Just get a big fan and blow them back the way they came!

Acronym?

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.

Brilliant

Lewis, a joy to read as always.

PS I have some of what your having ><

What's wrong with

...a harpoon gun? If they can handle whales, they must be able to deal with a ULM.

Net based aerial combat

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?

Use old technology

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.

non-lethel? Until you hit te ground, or the fence, or a tree...

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.

why not just use that heat-gun thingy?

as above.

I liked the PLUMMET acronym...

Since we can't call the launcher a Spider-Man (tm) anyways...

Black Chopper, because I would fly very close to this 'tard and blow him away with my silent rotors!