Drone Racing - The Sport of the Future?

Yep, including one I can connect the drone's own flight controller to, so I can use the real transmitter. Haven't tried it yet though.
 
Grall said:
@tongue_of_colicab
I disagree! Air racing from the early decades of the 20th century was plenty exciting; now imagine with several times the relative velocity, with you as a spectator onboard the aircraft! :p

While there's plenty excitement in fiery destruction of vehicles (and potentially drivers) in racing, that's not the prime driver for people watching I think - or so I hope anyway.
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Except you are not on board the aircraft, you are looking at a screen and lacking the physical experience.

There is an Universal Studios close to where I live and most of the rides there are screen/3d based. The ones that have (slightly) moving seats/cars along with some wind effects to a fairly convincing job but it still doesn't come close to roller coaster.

Same as going to a live concert, motor race or air show is totally different than watching it on a screen, even if it is VR. You just can't mimick a fighter jet passing by with after burners. It's also much more difficult to relate to the person flying a drone vs somebody piloting a jet or race car. Those people are putting themselves at risk unlike some block sitting in a chair somewhere fiddling with some sticks flying his drone.

Thats why I think drone racing should be more action packed.

I'm sure drone racing can get pretty popular. It is interesting on different levels (e.g. racing, technical side etc) and probably one of the cheaper sports you can get involved requiring machines.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Except you are not on board the aircraft, you are looking at a screen and lacking the physical experience.
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VR headsets is absolutely not equal to 'looking at a screen'...as evidenced by the multitudes of youtube videos of people falling over while wearing these things, going through rollercoaster simulators, scary monster games and the like. :p

I think you're over-analyzing the situation. You don't need to be ON the drone or be buffetted by jetblasts to experience the thrill of speed.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Except you are not on board the aircraft, you are looking at a screen and lacking the physical experience.

There is an Universal Studios close to where I live and most of the rides there are screen/3d based. The ones that have (slightly) moving seats/cars along with some wind effects to a fairly convincing job but it still doesn't come close to roller coaster.

Same as going to a live concert, motor race or air show is totally different than watching it on a screen, even if it is VR. You just can't mimick a fighter jet passing by with after burners. It's also much more difficult to relate to the person flying a drone vs somebody piloting a jet or race car. Those people are putting themselves at risk unlike some block sitting in a chair somewhere fiddling with some sticks flying his drone.

Thats why I think drone racing should be more action packed.

I'm sure drone racing can get pretty popular. It is interesting on different levels (e.g. racing, technical side etc) and probably one of the cheaper sports you can get involved requiring machines.
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It's also easier, more accessible, less hassle, less intimidating, than normal rc plane.

It can take off, fly, and land with just a touch of virtual button or a map.
 
Davros said:
That removes a lot of the skill required though even when compared to a standard hellicopter
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Whether or not a drone has the capability to tap a button to hover/land/go-here doesn't change any skill required to fly it if you choose not to use said feature (which of course is irrelevant for drone racing).
 
Yes it does because drones use 4 rotors they do not suffer from the following effects

retreating blade stall effect.
The imbalance of lift created by the fact rotor blades travelling foward produce more lift than the blades traveing backwards this effect will
cause the helicopter to roll and the pilot to needs apply constant cyclic corrections.

Hovering and Translating Tendency
During hovers, helicopters with a tail rotor tend to drift to one side because the tail
rotor “pushes” the craft sideways. This is called translating tendency. Helicopters
with blades that rotate counterclockwise (most helicopters built in the U.S.) drift to
the right. To compensate for this drift, the pilot can tilt the entire rotor disc to the
left. This causes the main rotor to apply more force against the tail rotor.
 
I'm not comparing the difficulty of drones vs rc planes vs rc helicopters. They each have their own difficulty levels, drones likely easier than others. I'm merely stating that you don't have to use built-in actions like "land" or "go here and hover", you can fly yourself (again obviously irrelevant for drone racing).
 
Drone racing in a swarm? Drone action with scripted movements?

Like playing those skate games. You race got points. You do "action", get points?

It's a drone. Can't it means we could have a race that is not the usual 'classic' race?
 
The ease or difficulty of doing something becomes irrelevant the moment it becomes a competition. Whats easy is so for all adversaries, just as much as what is hard. The real challenge is always being better than the others.
 
Davros said:
Yes it does because drones use 4 rotors they do not suffer from the following effects
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No, not really.

A F1 race car is arguably much easier to drive than it is to fly a real-life helicopter. Does that "remove much skill" from F1 racing, in your opinion? The oddball peculiarities inherent to helicopters has nothing to do with the skill required in racing - if anything, not having a lot of wonkyness inherent to the aircraft you're flying improves its ability to race and makes the race more interesting as pilots are less likely to fuck up over what is essentially a technicality. Like many technical innovations in F1 racing improved that league, one could say.
 
Cars being "too easy" to drive is one of the main complaints about why F1 isn't as fun to watch as compared to the old days. Drones are already pretty reliant on electronics as they cannot stay in the air without it (unlike heli's) , taking that too far will make it uninteresting to watch because everybody would be able to do the same thing. People watch sports because it involves people playing at a level they cannot reach themselves.

If electronics prevent pilots making basic mistakes I'd say that makes for a very uninteresting sport.
 
hmm a weeks ago my dad crashed the drone when mapping something. Now i just got my hand on it and..

wow! everything is intact despite 3 propelers has became flat (it flipped upside down and the propelers still running when on asphalt).

now still strungling to clean all the sands... cleared most of them using sewing thread. Gonna go to tire-pump-service tomorrow to blow the remaining sands.
 
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