Learn to fly
“Pilots need skillful hand/eye coordination and steady nerves to race. When using first-person view technology, the human brain actually believes it’s in the cockpit, creating an intense experience demanding full focus and attention. It takes an incredible amount of muscle memory and practise to be able to pilot with precision. Throttle management and thrust vectoring are skills that develop over time.
“On the DRL simulator, aspiring pilots can learn how to fly without the extensive repair time or cost required on a real drone. We also use the simulator for esport tournaments to recruit new pilots around the world.
“From there, pilots can find FPV meet-ups all over the globe. Groups like multigp.com, miniquadclub.com and fpvlab.com are great places to start. Racing can consist of a professional competition like DRL, a few friends getting together in a field, or just freestyle flying – doing tricks and sharing the videos online.” For more information, and to download the DRL simulator, visit thedroneracingleague.com
My simulator experience in a nutshell? Put it this way: I have little confidence about flying a real racer.
Easy glider
Rocking up to Allianz Park in London, I’m introduced to Matt Evans, professional drone racer for the DRL and the only UK pilot for the 2017 season. He’s a rock star in this world, and a brief demo of his insane freestyle skills – from tight figureeights around the rugby posts, to the aptly-named ‘Puker’ – suggests he’s one to watch.
This year, the DRL has introduced the Racer3 drone, which all pilots fly to ensure a level playing field. It glows with 209 LEDs and is loaded with top tech, including a high-end F3 flight controller chip and SPI MPU6000 stabilising gyro. A custom made five-cell Pulse battery generates 7,000kg of static thrust, resulting in 0 to 80mph in under a second. While the Racer3 isn’t commercially available, I’ll be put in charge of one today. I hope the carbon fibre frame and tough polycarbonate shell are ready for me!
Kicking off, Matt grabs the chunky FrSky Taranis X9D Plus controller, complete with LCD telemetry display, eight programmable switches and haptic feedback, to demonstrate the basics of hovering. He makes minute movements on the quad bearing-mounted sticks to keep the Racer3 sitting poker straight in mid-air.
Now it’s my turn, and I’m feeling the pressure. I get airborne, but my clumsy thumbs have the Racer3 swaying wildly. I kick myself for not spending more time with the simulator. Matt tweaks the controller’s stick sensitivity and, with a less ham-fisted approach and faster reflexes, I regain control of the drone. Matt is impressed and suggests we get the FPV goggles. Game on!
The chunder games
With gates and cones laid out in a figureof-eight track, Matt dons his Fat Shark Dominator HD3 FPV goggles. These particular goggles are popular among drone pilots for their clear 800 x 600 SVGA display and 16:9 option in HDMI mode. I go for Fat Shark’s Transformer goggles instead. They’re £250 cheaper than the HD3 ones, and the detachable LCD monitor can be tripod-mounted if you can’t stomach the full FPV experience.
We both tune into the Racer3’s camera feed and Matt flies so smoothly it’s like the drone is attached to rails. FPV feels like riding up front on a rollercoaster, but with zero G force. It’s bizarre, but incredibly immersive. After three minutes the battery is dead. Time for a fresh one, then my turn.
Flying straight ahead with goggles isn’t particularly tricky, and I adjust to the first-person view quickly, but I revert to over-enthusiastic, fumbling movements as soon as I’m required to steer. One minute I’m a few feet off the ground, the next I’m getting an aerial view of the pitch. I have to remind myself there’s a 90mph bladed weapon hurtling through the air somewhere above me.
I swap to the HD3 goggles and try again. The image is clearer, the goggles more comfortable and my overall perspective is dramatically improved. I manage to stay airborne for longer, making corrective manoeuvres more instinctively than before. I line up to a gate, hit the throttle and power forward. I glide through, but the excitement clouds my concentration and the Racer3 plummets, spinning across the turf.
With some perseverance, I start hitting gates with greater precision and speed, throwing in passable turns where necessary. I’ve definitely caught the drone racing bug but, as far as this mission goes, I’m a long way off racing for real.
Flying without wings
It’s now a few days later and I’m determined to continue developing my skills in my own time. I find a safe, remote space and unbox the ViFly R220 drone and FlySKY i6-VF controller bundle. The drone’s 220mm carbon fibre frame is smaller than the Racer3, and the supplied Li-Po battery powers eight minutes of airtime, making the R220 the perfect practice tool. FXT’s Marvel Vision FPV goggles are a doddle to set up, too, and, while the 480 x 272 pixel resolution doesn’t match the Fat Shark V3’s they’re more than adequate to improve with.
I want to show my friends my newfound skills, so I strap GoPro’s Hero 5 Black action cam to the ViFly’s supplied mount and set it rolling with the “GoPro, start recording” voice command. I’m impressed with how much control I’ve learned in a short time, and the GoPro’s 4K footage looks epic.
Whilst I won’t be turning pro anytime soon, this has been a fun experience and I’ll be tuned in when the Drone Racing League 2017 kicks off on Sky Sports in June. In the meantime, you’ll find me practising my inverted backflips ready for DRL ’18.