The drone pilots wear head-mounted
displays, usually goggles, that make
it possible to fly the race as though
they were in the aircraft. The devices
are called first-person-view goggles,
usually abbreviated to FPV. Mounted
toward the front of the drone is a tiny
camera that transmits images via
radio waves to the pilot’s goggles.
That makes the racing experience
very intense. And to make it exciting
for the spectators as well, they can
switch the frequency of their own
goggles to the channel of the racer
they want to watch. Viewers at home
can also don virtual reality goggles to
experience the thrill for themselves.
“FPV is like having an out-of-body
experience that you get to control,”
explains drone pilot Zoe Zumbaugh.
“When you get good at it, you can go
where you want to go, see what you
want to see. It changes your entire
perception of the world.”
Racing drones are small (the most
popular size is 250 mm, or just under
10 inche s). T hey have a front- mounte d
camera and are usually configured in
the shape of an H, which has more
room for equipment than the X shape
preferred for photographic drones,
which are built for hovering. Racing
drones accelerate faster than any
Formula One race car: DRL’s Racer4
can go from 0 to 90 miles per hour
in less than a second. It takes little
more than blinking at the wrong time
to crash one into a concrete pillar or
a row of neon tube lights. The extreme
performance of these quadrocopters
is the result of their special design.
Their frames are made of ultra-light
carbon fiber, which imparts maximum
stability despite the light weight. The
drones are driven by four rotors (that
is why they’re called quadrocopters).
The Racer4 model is equipped with
4X Brothe rHobby 2510 1250 k v motor s
and HQ PC 7x4x3 props, which are
responsible for the drone’s extremely
high rate of acceleration. The “brain”
of the drone is the F4 flight controller, PHO
TOS:^ DRL^ (^6);^ You^ Tube.which comes with an accelerometer,
barometer, and gyrocompass. In just
a fraction of a second it can translate
the pilot’s commands and transmit
them to the quadrocopter’s rotors.
The Racer4 is designed for fast repair
following a crash. According to the
DRL, because of its plug-and-play
electronics the drone can normally
be repaired in less than 15 minutes.
The rechargeable high-performance
lithium-ion polymer battery can power
the drone for about five minutes. For
the longer races it must be replaced
during a pit stop. During each race a
quadrocopter is subjected to a huge
amount of stress, especially because
of the pilots’ need for rapid turning
and braking ability. But the high-tech
aircraft also places extremely high
demands on the pilots themselves...THE BREATH CONTROL OF
AN ELITE SHARPSHOOTER
You can see the tension written on
Luke Bannister’s face. Competing in
the first-ever World Drone Prix, the
15-year-old has made it to the final,
and now he must hold his own against
some of the best drone pilots in the
world. At 1,938 feet long, the custom-
built course for the World Drone Prix
stretches out like a glowing skeleton
with Dubai’s illuminated skyline in the
background. Competing against three
other evenly matched pilots—the best
of the best—Luke is in the final race,
which consists of 12 laps. The young
drone racer gets off to a good start,
leading early on, dominating for much
of the race, and catching up after he
had lost his position due to a pit stop.
To keep a quadrocopter on course
during a drone race, the pilot needs
situational awareness, sure instincts,
and incredibly sensitive motor control.
It takes no more than a millimeter’s
worth of movement of the joystick to
send the drone in another direction.
Combined with extreme acceleration
and high-speed flight, it doesn’t take
much to provoke a mid-air collision.Fingers trembling with excitement are
absolutely disastrous. Like elite sharp-
shooters, drone pilots have to master
breath control and learn to slow their
pulse rate and control their anxiety.
Another “must” is acute spatial and
depth perception. You simply cannot
make a mistake when you’re steering
a 10-inch drone at 90 miles per hour
around a race course. Here the pilot
has the help of a team that at times
can be rather large. The rules require
at least four team members, including
a pilot, navigator, and technical crew;
while the team has to be sponsored,
no fees are required to take part in a
race. Luke Bannister’s team, Tornado
XBlades Banni UK, has 43 members,
and of course that number includes
a navigator. As with motorsport rally
races, the navigator keeps the pilot
informed about the conditions of the
course and all its obstacles.
The 2016 race in Dubai was worth
$250,000 to Bannister, but he hasn’t
left it at that. The young man has gone
on to win one race after another, and
he now has a six-figure income from
sponsoring alone, not counting the
huge sums of prize money for his wins.
In December his XBlades Banni UK
racing team won its third consecutive
Drone Champions League title at the
2019 finale in Salina Turda, Romania,
against top racing competitors from
Denmark, Russia, Japan, and China.
Bannister and his fellow XBlades pilot
Brett Collis tied for the award of Pilot
of the Year. After the event Bannister
commented: “It has been amazing to
be on top and stay on top for so long.”
Following his first big win in Dubai,
Bannister said he was going to be
saving the money that he won. “I have
several more races ahead of me this
year. But first, I am going to catch up
on sleep and focus on school for a
while,” he’d said. The talented young
pilot won more money in one race
than most of his classmates could
even dream of earning in one year.
And that was only the beginning...ideasanddiscoveries.com 73 May 2020