Entry #3 Is Drone Racing the Sport of the Future?

Over the last few years the popularity of drones have increased dramatically. Amazon has been selling upwards of 10,000 drones a month since it began carrying them. Not to mention the company has also began testing to have drones make package deliveries for their prime customers. Everyone from the military to your next door neighbor seems to be utilizing drones in some way. So what’s next for drones? Well, besides some tighter restrictions from the FAA that is. How about high speed drone racing? 

The Drone Racing League (DRL) is currently on the forefront of making that a reality. In the video to the right, we are shown some pretty cool footage that looks straight out of a movie about the distant future. Highly skilled pilots dawn a visor over their eyes and take control of a little high speed quad-copter drone. They race through abandoned buildings and empty stadiums at speeds of 100mph+. The pathway is clouded with smoke and illuminated by neon lights that tell the racers which way to go. As you can imagine there are crashes and carnage aplenty.  

The video is pretty compelling and if you’re thinking, “This will never actually be a thing.” you should know that investors have already started lining up. The owner of the Miami Dolphins and the lead singer of Muse has already dropped a payload of cash into the development of the sport.

The lead Singer of Muse thinks drone racing is fly!

     DRL has already planned six tournaments around the US for 2016. The first race will be held at Sun Life Stadium in Miami near the end of February. Don’t think you’ll be able to buy tickets to go watch it in person just yet though, they are still working out the bugs to make it more of a spectator sport. They will however, be recording the whole event and publishing it to YouTube.

Now you may be thinking, “Well I could do that!” and maybe you can. That’s actually one of DRL’s current goals; they plan to start gathering some pilots for the league. If you think you have what it takes, you can go check out their website and apply to be a pilot. They have a first person view (FPV) drone simulator that will let you feel what it’s like to be behind the goggles. Check it out here.

Think you might want to dabble in drones? You can learn more about them and check out some of the best options on the market by watching the video below.