OpenWorks Engineering SkyWall100

The SkyWall100 from OpenWorks Engineering (United Kingdom) is a shoulder-fired net launcher using compressed gas. It throws a net with a parachute (projectile SP40) that catches a drone and brings it down in a controlled way; a targeting aid supports aiming. The manufacturer names police, events, prisons and the military as fields of use.

The effect range is about 100 m; that is the order of magnitude of a short-range tool, not of a system for protecting a site. The unit weighs 12 kg according to the data list, and the trade press quoted about 10 kg (22 lb). Reloading takes 8 s. The parachute on the net is meant to recover the captured drone instead of letting it fall, which matters where people are below. The SkyWall100 is hand-held.

A net launcher also intervenes in a drone's flight and is therefore an active countermeasure. For destroying, disabling or taking over drones, Poland applies Art. 156ze of the Aviation Law (Dz.U. 2025 item 179), which reserves this to designated state bodies. In Germany the federal and state police are in principle responsible for hazard prevention, and § 15a LuftSiG governs help from the armed forces as administrative assistance. Operating jammers is reserved to authorities: in Germany under § 91 TKG, in Poland under Art. 42 of the Electronic Communications Law (Dz.U. 2024 item 1221). For event organisers, only detection functions generally come into consideration in Germany and Poland.

In a compressed-gas net launcher, seals and valves wear, gas cylinders have to be inspected and refilled to the manufacturer's rules, and the nets and parachutes of the projectiles are consumables. Weight over longer deployments, user practice with the targeting aid and proper storage of the projectiles matter.