June 11, 2015 • 27 mins
It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie: don your FPV goggles, grab your controls and race your quadcopter drone through a city, vying against other drones for the coveted first place title. But here's the thing: drone racing is real, and you can participate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. I welcome
with car stuff. I'm Scott and I am Then we've
got our super producer Noel Brown here with us as well.
Most importantly, you're here, which makes that car stuff Scott.
(00:24):
I have a question for you before we get started.
All right, man, what's your favorite type of racing? Favorite
type of racing? I would think an Indy car? IndyCar. Okay,
you know, every so often I come back and check
with you on that because I I have historically been
a little bit more of an F one fan, so
(00:44):
so I just dropped by it. Ever, see if if
you're I thought you were more of a NASCAR guy, Ben,
I thought, I know you like Nascar. I do like
NASCAR's in my blood. But you think F one maybe
tops NASCAR. Going back and forth, Man, honestly, I'm just
I'm trying to find my and that is further complicated
now by today's topic. You know what I gotta I
(01:05):
gotta admit today's topic, this is what we're gonna talk about,
is incredibly impressive. It really is. I mean to watch this,
I get lost in the YouTube videos of these people
doing this, uh, this type of racing. It's it's incredible
to watch. And it's so much like the movies, like
the like the the sci fi scenes that we've seen
(01:27):
so many times. Oh yeah, like Star Wars. It's get
a video game, asspell specifically the star of the Star
Wars series, the return of the Jedi movies. I'm talking about,
like the speeders cycle scenes in the woods. This is
just like it. I mean, it's it's identical. What what
was that the forest of Indoor? I think I don't know.
Star Wars fans, it was good to get out return
(01:48):
of the Jedi and speeder cycle. All right, well, uh,
Star Wars fans, I apologize in advance if I have
if I have messed up something. But it doesn't say
on the paper, Ben, But what we're talking about? What
are we what are we really talking? What we are
talking about drone racing, And uh, I guess this would
be like quad copters, you know that type of type
of drone, not the not the slow moving ones that
(02:11):
you probably are familiar with. No, no, no, little, A
little bit smaller, much leaner and faster, yes, much faster
and typically homebuilt. They'll buy kits and and create the
you know, they have the the optimum weight, and they
have the optimum motors used and the propellers used and
all that. So a lot of people like to buy
kits and put them together, um, you know, or piece
(02:31):
those kids together. Whether but we're talking about unmanned aerial
vehicles or ua V s. UM it's the quad copters.
Maybe that's the best way to say it. And the
only experience that I have with drones and drones are
becoming huge recently. They're the news about them as far
as like the f A lightning up on some of
the restrictions that they had on drones prior to this
in the United States. Is that, um, it's going to
(02:54):
be able to be used a lot more now for
small businesses to be able to use in that industry. Short,
whether it's photographic, whether it's for inspection purposes, um, you know,
whether it's for UM. I don't know. On tourism, maybe
not really, but tourism is a possibility though. And then
there's also you know, the big debate about drone delivery systems, right,
(03:17):
and they've really loosened up on the restrictions, right yeah, Yeah, Listeners,
you'll recall that SCOTTA have done some podcasts on drones
and ua v s before. Uh we what we found
was that the technology is not the obstacle. The big
obstacle to drones historically has been in the past few years,
(03:38):
it's been bureaucracy, or it's been regulation regulations a better
way to say it. I think. So I say bureaucracy,
it sounds like I just want some Lord of the
Flies drone situation going on. And I get I get
it that you know, there's some important uh safety issues
there that you know, you don't want to fly too
close to an airport, you don't want to fly too
high because it will interfere with aircraft that that are
(03:59):
you know, on flight patterns that are supposed to be
in that zone. UM. I don't know all the specific details.
And this has all been changing as we're reading this podcast,
as as you know, it's it's happening. And I have, however,
been hearing a lot about companies that are going to
be using drones in the near future for um, like
for railroad track inspections. You know that they can they
(04:19):
can fly these drones down sections of the railroad that
um uh you know, a really isolated places, very very
it's difficult to get people out to them, but it's
really easy to fly a drone over them and just
visually inspect the track and make sure that nothing is
you know, out of out of whack there. You know what.
Another really cool thing that's happening with drones. Drones are
revolutionizing film industry, independent film stuff. Like before I'm gonna
(04:46):
say we because I've worked with some people and some
different things, Uh, we're able to get these overhead shots
now that would have been would have taken a helicopter essentially, yeah,
or they would have taken you know those big crane
booms that you yeah, and and you're limited or a
fearless cameraman. Yeah, well that's true, but you're limited. You're
limited to how high you can get that crane to
(05:07):
go exactly. And with the drone, it it's uh, you know,
wide open, you know, as far as as the height
you can go, well sort of wide open. I mean
I think there's still restriction on the height, but instrictions,
but it's pretty intense. I mean it's way way up there.
It's not like it's like thirty feet like you would
be with the boom camera. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking hundreds
of feet and so it was only a matter of time,
(05:27):
of course, before somebody said, you know what, having one
drone poking around the sky is kind of cool, and
I like that. It scares my dog, But uh, why
don't I get to drones and race them? Because that's
what happens with every vehicle. Here's where I was confused
when I first heard about this. I was thinking, Okay,
the drones that you and I are familiar with are
(05:48):
the ones that maybe the ones that just I'm familiar
with are the kind that we see overhead at some
of the car shows that we go to, you know,
when they're allowed, because they're not typically allowed, but we
have seen them. They're very slow moving, they're very they're
very um, very quiet, they're silent. They it's like they're
they're hovering. They're barely moving. They're hovering. They kind of float, yeah,
(06:09):
very softly, have a soft cant to their motion. It's
almost like a like a jelly fish in the sky
or something that's they're so soft, they're like they're just
barely moving and smooth motion and everything. And that's where
the smooth video, right, Yeah, and they look slow. Yeah,
they really do look slow. But these are not exactly
what we're talking about. The quod copters that we're talking
about have more of a like a rectangle body in
(06:32):
the middle with you know, all the guts all the
stuff in it on four corners. They kind of go
out at angles, maybe forty five degree angles. Um rotors
that are motors that stick up with with propellers on
them and four of them. Very small, but they are
sometimes they're covered, most times they're most time they're not,
and they rotate. Yeah they oh, yeah they can. They
have full flexibility, they have full articulation, and so you
(06:55):
can get these things to be extremely maneuverable left, right, up,
down any direction you want. Yaw all of those all
of that, and it's really important for this type of
racing because, um, when you get a few of them
together and you want to raise them, you can take
them out to an open field and race them. That's
one thing, sure, But you could also take them to
a place where maybe you set up a few obstacles, like, hey,
(07:15):
wouldn't be cool if we went under this, uh, this
hoop that we set up. That would be a lot
of fun. Or you could take them to the forest
and raise them on trails, which I really like. That's
that's kind of the Return of the Jedi. Think you
can take them to an old factory and raise them
in and out of the broken factory windows and down
the corridors. It's amazing. I've seen some incredible stuff recently
(07:36):
in the last week or so. And when I say
that it looks a lot like you know that that
Return of the Jedi scene, the speeder bike scene, it
really does. And what really adds to it is that
there's more than one and that you know you're in
this uh, this enclosed area like and I say in
closed because you're on a wooded trail maybe, but it
gives you an incredible sensation of speed because you're an
(07:57):
open field. You could be going pretty fast and you
kind of get the idea that you're going fast. But
when you've got things that are whizzing by you at
at the greatest speed by the camera, because these all
have cameras on the right that I'm so glad you
said that we were skipping a whole bit of this.
I gotta I will catch up that we'll catch up
right now. But um, when you're in the woods with
other people. Maybe one of the best things to see
(08:17):
is like when they're when they're one is chasing another one.
It has there has to be too really to make
it to give you that same impressional almost like a
dog fight. It is so cool, really really need to watch.
So um. Yeah. So, as we said, they've got the
cameras mounted there on the rectangular body. They've also they
go um. A lot of people are already asking us,
because they know this is a racing podcast, got uh,
(08:40):
how fast can these things go? Excellent question. We're talking
up to a hundred miles an hour, not scale miles
per hour, hundred miles flying through the woods at one
hundred miles an hour. Now that may seem incredibly insane,
and it really is. What we're talking about. Um trails
so that you know they're leader there, canopy is cleared
(09:01):
above and around them, so they have a clear they
can see on the ground the pathway, they know where
they're going. And you might think, well, that's really interesting.
But here's one thing you haven't told me is that
if you're standing in one spot racing these and it's
it's going down a wooded trail and you have to
make a turn left or right? How do you know
that's right? So this is this is maybe the coolest
part of this whole thing. I think maybe this is
(09:22):
really the goggles that you wear with these things, and
their first person view goggles, which means you're seeing the
flight of this craft as if you're sitting in a
driver's seat in the drone. Yeah, you're flying your own
spacecraft essentially, and we're not talking about just like a
little flimsy thing that your own glasses or something. These
are like these are wrap around your head. You don't
(09:44):
see anything except the view from the drone. So when
you're you're flying one, typically you're sitting in a in
a chair. This is so weird too. You see a
group of guys flying these in a race. They're all
lined up in in chair. Yeah, they're like a little
band stand together almost. Yeah, this is range. They they're
in chairs and they've all got their heads down with
their hands and their controllers as far as like you know,
(10:04):
to go left, right, up, down, whatever. But they've all
got these goggles on with antennas and they're talking to
each other and laughing and having a good time. But
they're not watching the race itself. They're not. They're you know,
in a typical RC race up until this point, sure
you would be watching what's going on in front of you.
You'd have to see the car, the boat, the airplane,
whatever you're racing this one, you you're looking. They almost
(10:28):
look down into their own lap. I guess when they're
when they're doing this typically, right, Yeah, they're they're kind
of subconsciously, I think, maybe looking down at their control pads.
But this, okay, so where do we go because I'm
super excited about this. Well, they have well they have
two cameras. We should say that, Oh that's a really
good A lot of these and not all of them,
but you know, the ones that they want to record
the action have two cameras. So they will have a camera.
(10:50):
One camera that's almost like a surveillance camera. It's very small,
very small lens. It's very lightweight. It's very easy for
the drone to carry obviously. And one thing that the
um that this this built in lens that that comes
with the kids typically will have is the ability to change.
And I don't know how to say this exactly right,
but when you're going from a light area to a
dark area. It adjusts appropriately so that you're not left blinded.
(11:14):
I guess when you immediately come out of the woods
into a clearing, uh, you know, it's like you can't
see anything for a second. This adjusted it accommodates for that. Um.
The other thing is that a lot of people are
are attaching go pro cameras to their to their drone
and these things can carry it, and that's something you
got to factor in. I guess as far as when
you buy your your motors and your props that you're
gonna be carrying a little bit of extra weights, and
(11:35):
as far as balancing all that weight, it has to
be a very balanced machine, I know. Um. But to
record that activity, a lot of guys use the go
pro system so that they can then you know, take
that home and enjoy that upload at whatever they do,
which is why you can see so much I think
amazing is a fair word. You can see so much
amazing footage from drone races on YouTube. It's fair to
(11:59):
say that you and I were bowled over when we
found just how much of this stuff was already out there,
and that they're already racing collectives and groups designed just
for drone racing. It's kind of a fringe group right
now though. It's because you've got your drone pilots and
you've got your your drone racers that come out of
that group. And then out of the drone racers, you know,
(12:19):
the ones that are that are heads up watching what's
going on out in the field. Out of that group,
you have your FPV drone racers. First person view, yeah,
first person of view drone racers. So they're the ones
that with the goggles. I mean those goggles are five
hundred bucks. Yeah, at least they're they're they're expensive. That's
kind of a starting point. So, um, it's a cool
thing to have. It's really interesting. But I think that
(12:40):
once once you switch over to being an FPV drone racer,
you don't go back to being a heads up drone racing.
It doesn't. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like
you you stay that way. It's been described. There's this
great article we read drone Racing Star Wars Style in
the Snowy Bronx by a guy named Jason Cobler, and uh.
He describes this as a set mint of a segment
(13:01):
of the growing but still relatively small drone racing industry,
and in this uh you can find you can find
some great links to more resources. But one thing that
fascinated me was that they also that there's already a
vernacular kind of like slangs that's that's starting to grow
around this. Uh. My favorite is, uh there's a guy
(13:22):
named Ryan Gury I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Ryan,
who's one of the founders of a company named drone Craft.
They design customized racing drones and uh he he is
picturing a a future that is very much like NASCAR,
where there will be circuits racing in the US, Canada,
(13:42):
maybe other places. But my favorite, my favorite slang term
I learned so far was uh he he said he
knows people who he and other people can do a
move that he calls the oil change. That's where you
fly your drone at speed under a car without hitting
the undercarriage or the pavement. Wow. That that's pretty impressive.
(14:05):
That is really impressive. I mean I would be scared
just because I would, you know, I'm I'm so cheap man.
I don't want to buy a drone and then break it. Okay, Well,
here's the thing with the drone racing is that all
of these guys no matter where where you see them,
they're they're always always pulling those things off the side.
Because here's here's what happened. You'll be racing into the
woods and yeah, you'll contact a branch, a low hanging brain,
(14:26):
you'll clip, or you'll hit another drone. That happens as well.
You know, they bump into each other because there's there's
no sensation of where someone is behind you. You You don't
have like a reverse camera as well as far as
I know yet. Um, but you know, accidents happen, you
know you'll know where it is because you saw it
go down. Because you know, even if it's way out
at the end of the course, you'll know where you
are roughly, yeah, because you know you've got this camera
(14:48):
view of where you were. Um. Also well, the LEDs
that they attached him, which is another thing that we
want to talk about. But um, these guys all bring
extra parts and lots of them they bring. They bring
boxes of extra parts like propellers, and they bring extra arms,
you know, to mouth the motors right. Um, you know,
just because they know that accidents happen like this and
they want to be able to you know, keep racing
(15:09):
during that day, they'll bring extra batteries. Um, it's just
kind of a known risk that you take. And I
guess once you have maybe damaged, when one of your
craft to the point where you can't really use it
anymore and you're gonna buy a new one, then you
keep the old one for extra parts, you know, for
more extra parts or parts for your friends that have
that same model. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of the community
that it is right now. There's definitely the I'm glad
(15:30):
you said that, because, especially with the first person drone racers,
you can see that there is a tight knit community
and it seems like it's pretty collaborative and people are
always tinkering. One thing I was impressed by is that
the vast majority of these drones are made at home
or assembled at home. And it's something that I think,
(15:53):
you know, it sounds like it's expensive, but compared to
buying an Indy car, it's pretty I've got a rough
guestimate of prices here if you want to Yeah, and
here's the radio system you have to buy. You know,
the control that used in the hand. Um that can
vary anywhere from like, you know, a hundred bucks up
to whatever you want to spend. All this equipment is
(16:14):
is from a starting point up to as much as
you're willing to spend on it, because you can get
the latest and greatest and best right and there's always
going to be that extra stuff. As far as the
racing drones go. Uh, you can buy one complete and
I think I saw the lowest price one that I
saw complete was about three bucks. That sounds like a
lot of money. You can build You can build one
for less for approximately two fifty dollars up. So these
(16:37):
are again these are all and up prices um. And
the thing about building one if you're if you're really scared,
you know, about doing something like that, and you think,
I've never really I've never flown a drone, how could
I build a drone? They make it pretty easy for
you as far as the kids that they provide, and
you can build one in about half a day. And
you know, just about anybody can do it. If you
can put together a simple model, you can put together
(16:57):
a drone. Believe it or not. It's easy or than
you think. The FPV goggles, which you know for this
type of race and we're talking about, is essential. Five dollars.
That's the that's the big ticket item. And I know
there's other stuff that goes along with this, you know,
the batter reason, the quick chargers and all that. But um,
that just gives you a general idea of the cost
of this. So we're talking. If you want to get
(17:18):
into it, I'm gonna just ballpark this Like thousand and
twelve hundred bucks would get you a really nice set
up and you'd be able to go to uh, you
know field somewhere and raise your drone. But you've got
to have friends that are willing to do the same thing.
You know, like if it would it would be fun
to do it, It wouldn't be more fun if you
had three or four friends that were willing to do this,
to race and be competitive and go out of weekends
(17:39):
and and have a good time, find different courses. Um,
you got to make sure that you block those courses off.
You know when we talk about racing through woods and
undercars and stuff like that, You've got to make sure
that no people are involved. Don't want any you know,
any drone to face contact happening because that would be
no fun. I mean, these things are pretty they're flying
at a hundred miles an hour. They've got exposed rotors. Yeah,
(18:00):
don't know what they weigh. I'm guessing a couple of
pounds each probably, Yeah, if that they could do some
substantial damage if it hit a person, well sure, we'll
also we should say, just to respond to the weight
part there, we should also say that many of these
copts are are drones rather heavily modified. So, for instance,
(18:20):
although quad copters are the most common, you'll hear about
hexicopters even with uh with that would be you know,
with six different rotors, and with that modification there comes
some different way. I heard there was this one reporter
of this guy who maybe it was from the same article,
who was modifying one of his drones to carry up
(18:41):
the sixty eight pounds. With that kind of strength for
a drone that really could do some serious damage if
it hits a person, Oh definitely. You know what, And
this makes sense because when we were looking at drone racing,
I also found this other subgroup, and I actually was
I was pretty interested in this initially. I so I
looked this the term up drone dog fights because I
was wondering if anybody was dog fighting with drones and
(19:03):
it turns out there are people that are doing that.
Um they're using things like right now, they're using things
like NERF darts and disks and stuff like that. But
there's someone out west. I don't remember exactly where I
saw this, but they were mounting and this just goes
along with what you were just talking about carrying heavy weights.
They've a mounted a paint gun to their I'm just
wondering how you can fire it without messing up the
(19:24):
flight of the drone and what they said it it
took many many try you know, trialing air over and
over and again they failed and then finally they got
it right and they filmed it and it's online. You
can watch somebody with a drone with a paint gun
attached to it, and they they attacked another drone and
they attacked a human on this paintball. Course he was
trying to shoot it get away and you know, trying
to run away from the drone, and it was just relentless.
(19:46):
I mean, he could follow him and shoot him at will.
And I think the way that one worked was one
person operated the drone, the other person operated. Just you
have a gunner, that's right, that's kind of you decide
when to fire because you can't really remove your hands,
you know, quick enough, think enough what you're seeing to
to make it work. Um interesting turn there, I guess,
I mean it was, it was. It was really fun
(20:07):
to watch, and all this stuff is fun to watch.
And I mentioned just briefly the L E d s
on these things. That has another level. So so they
have LED lights in the back and front. So when
you're racing in a group of let's say you've got
six or eight drones, you could have six or eight
different colors of L E d s on the on
the drones as well. And we're talking like big bands
on the back end of the drone. That's what really
(20:28):
gives you the sensation of the Star Wars. It looks
like the back of the Millennial Millennium Falcon. Yeah. And
the and again the chase scenes that you see with
these that's the greatest is when one is chasing the
other one. You get the perspective from the back person
the one chasing. It's just so cool to watch. And
the way it zips and they're so um um erratic
(20:49):
in the way that they move that it's just fun
to watch. I mean, and they're still navigating a very
complex course in the woods. You know what, would be
a lot of fun, man, And I don't know if
we could pull this off. Guys, maybe maybe you can
tell us if this would be worth it. Uh, it
would be a lot of fun, Scott, if you and
I could get maybe tech stuffer forward thinking to be
in a drone racing circuit with us. How long do
(21:11):
you think we could get away with doing it in
this new building before you got in trouble, you know what?
That's the other thing is that I've seen people doing
it in parking structures, and as you know, our parking
structure is loaded with columns. We've talked about that on
this Yeah, it is. It's difficult to navigate because it's
every other parking spot and very tight together because it's
an old building. I mean, I have a hard time walking,
(21:32):
you know, you can't walk in a straight line without
hitting a post. It seems like it's it really is true.
So it would be so much fun. And I've seen
people racing in underground parking structures with these things. It's
it's a perfect place for it. It's like, uh, the
urban version of the forest. Yeah, we've got our obstacles, yeah, exactly.
And one last thing that I want to mention that
I found. It's another drone drone related iyem, I guess,
(21:55):
and it's not really racing, although these guys like to
find formation. They fly things called zephyr drones. And you've
ever heard of the zephyr drones. They look like the
I guess sort of in a way. They look like
the old stealth fighters, you know. The flying wing looks
like one big wing. It's almost like a like an
arrow shape. And these things are they're big, and they
(22:16):
can fly long, long distances. And I'll give you an
idea of how long you can watch the guy you
know who's running this thing on YouTube or whatever. He
can can watch him take off from a field and
you can see a mountain in the distance. He flies
to the top of that mountain, and this is how
far he can control this. He flies to the top
of the mountain, also staying relatively low at the time,
and then he'll get to the top of the mountain
(22:37):
and turn it back around towards him and let it
just kind of drop down the face of the mountains,
staying extremely low, like right over the canopy or the
rocks or whatever, and you get the same sensation as
you know when you watch those those guys in the
wingsuits flying and they jump off the top of the
mountain and they fly like right above the surface and
they're they're barely make d teen. Dean Porter actually recently
(23:01):
passed away from that. I heard that that's right in
an accident. Um. But that's the sensation you get from
the video camera view of this. It's like, Um, I
want to say it's called canyon racing, but I don't
think that's it. Um. They get to the top of
the mountain and then they can I think I saw
one where they even cut the power and they just
coasted down and what you can do kind of a
flying wing. Yeah, and several of these, you know, they'll
(23:22):
they'll get eight or ten of them together and they'll
try to fly in formation and it sort of works,
sort of doesn't work. You know, they can get close,
but not exactly a tight formation like you think, like
you know, the blue angels or you know the thunderbirds
would fly. It's it's really interesting. So wait, so how
big do you think they are? Well, they're big there.
I mean when you when they're standing on the ground.
I mean if the if the point is facing up
and you got the wing tips on the ground, Um,
(23:44):
they're they're waist high up on the end. It's probably
you know, six ft seven ft tall because they're huge.
And the thing with those is versus the quad copters
that we're talking about. The quad copters that we were
spending most of this podcasts on are extremely maneuverable all directions.
They can hover raving well with these these Zephyr type
of drones. And I know that's probably a brand name,
(24:05):
and there's do you have to do? You have to
give them a throw? No, you can take them. You can.
They can take off on the ground, and they are um,
they rely on you know, constant forward motion. They have
to be in motion over to fly, like like a
shark was swimming and breathing, yes, exactly right, yeah, or
an airplanet to fly. It has also an airplane a
little bit more relatively well maybe, but I like the shark.
(24:26):
I like the shark example too, But but you're right,
you have to be in constant motion because without air
going over that wing, it doesn't doesn't work, it doesn't
stay in. But the quad copters, that's what makes these
so unique and so fun is that you can just
about do anything with them. And I'm so I don't
know if i'd say addicted, but I'm hooked on watching
row racing footage because they've got crash compilations, they've got
(24:49):
close call compilations. Um, there's all different manufacturers that make
these things, and people trying out different things in different
settings like urban exploration settings. Um, they fly in and
out of this factory. You know, like the guy maybe
a quarter mile away and he's flying this drone, it
just at lightning speed through a factory because he knows
there's no windows. So I'll shoot into a window and
(25:11):
down the hallway and then out another window on the
other side, and then go two d feet in the
air around the top, you know, like spend on, come
right down to the roof, and then and then divert
away and come back to where he's standing. It's just
the coolest thing to watch. And then you throw two
or three more in there, maybe four more in there,
and have them race on a on a set path
with l ed s and everything, and you know, these
close calls. It's so much fun to watch. We have
(25:33):
to do it if if we can. If we can
find a way to do do it, we have to do it.
And uh, for those of you out there listening, uh,
this is usually the point where we say, we hope
you enjoyed hearing this as much as we enjoyed making it.
But I don't know if I don't know, if you can,
because this one was really cool. Please if you have time,
go check out some of the YouTube clips I'll be
(25:55):
I'll probably be posting a couple of like the Real
Choice winds. Uh is that right in in a little while. Yeah. Yeah,
with your with your full set up there, you're gonna
buy today. Oh no, not that I'm doing things that
are already on YouTube. Oh yeah, I thought I thought
you were saying you're gonna definitely do this and you're
gonna be posting some incredible scenes from this building. Man,
I mean, I you know, that's a that's a good
(26:17):
thing to do. I'd love to do that. But if
I if I buy a quaecopter, I'm gonna have to
buy it the way people bought Harley's in the seventies,
you know, one to drive, one for spare parts. You know.
I gotta tell you, though, you were too far off
when you said that this building, this this building would
be so much fun to explore. It's just got that
much open space and there's still areas. There's even an
(26:38):
office next to us that is just wide open with
the doorway to the outside. If you open that up
and flew in and out, it would be rich with
material here. I really think it would be. Yeah, and
we can totally avoid gain in any trouble because we'll
just put like a little post it on our drone
that's his property of Jonathan Stricklin. Perfect perfect plan. Uh.
And if you have any ways to amend that plan,
(26:59):
or if you have any experience flying a drone, want
to tell us a little bit about it, we'd love
to hear it. You can find us all the usual
places on the internet, the books of face, the tweet spaces.
You can visit our website. That's right, we have our
own website car stuff show dot com where you can
check out this as well as some of our earlier
work on unmanned aerial vehicles. And if you want to
(27:21):
write to us directly, or even better, send us a
video of drones or drone racing that you enjoy, uh,
then we would love to check it out. Our address
is car stuff at how stuff work dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
(27:42):
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. I welcome
with car stuff. I'm Scott and I am Then we've
got our super producer Noel Brown here with us as well.
Most importantly, you're here, which makes that car stuff Scott.
(00:24):
I have a question for you before we get started.
All right, man, what's your favorite type of racing? Favorite
type of racing? I would think an Indy car? IndyCar. Okay,
you know, every so often I come back and check
with you on that because I I have historically been
a little bit more of an F one fan, so
(00:44):
so I just dropped by it. Ever, see if if
you're I thought you were more of a NASCAR guy, Ben,
I thought, I know you like Nascar. I do like
NASCAR's in my blood. But you think F one maybe
tops NASCAR. Going back and forth, Man, honestly, I'm just
I'm trying to find my and that is further complicated
now by today's topic. You know what I gotta I
(01:05):
gotta admit today's topic, this is what we're gonna talk about,
is incredibly impressive. It really is. I mean to watch this,
I get lost in the YouTube videos of these people
doing this, uh, this type of racing. It's it's incredible
to watch. And it's so much like the movies, like
the like the the sci fi scenes that we've seen
(01:27):
so many times. Oh yeah, like Star Wars. It's get
a video game, asspell specifically the star of the Star
Wars series, the return of the Jedi movies. I'm talking about,
like the speeders cycle scenes in the woods. This is
just like it. I mean, it's it's identical. What what
was that the forest of Indoor? I think I don't know.
Star Wars fans, it was good to get out return
(01:48):
of the Jedi and speeder cycle. All right, well, uh,
Star Wars fans, I apologize in advance if I have
if I have messed up something. But it doesn't say
on the paper, Ben, But what we're talking about? What
are we what are we really talking? What we are
talking about drone racing, And uh, I guess this would
be like quad copters, you know that type of type
of drone, not the not the slow moving ones that
(02:11):
you probably are familiar with. No, no, no, little, A
little bit smaller, much leaner and faster, yes, much faster
and typically homebuilt. They'll buy kits and and create the
you know, they have the the optimum weight, and they
have the optimum motors used and the propellers used and
all that. So a lot of people like to buy
kits and put them together, um, you know, or piece
(02:31):
those kids together. Whether but we're talking about unmanned aerial
vehicles or ua V s. UM it's the quad copters.
Maybe that's the best way to say it. And the
only experience that I have with drones and drones are
becoming huge recently. They're the news about them as far
as like the f A lightning up on some of
the restrictions that they had on drones prior to this
in the United States. Is that, um, it's going to
(02:54):
be able to be used a lot more now for
small businesses to be able to use in that industry. Short,
whether it's photographic, whether it's for inspection purposes, um, you know,
whether it's for UM. I don't know. On tourism, maybe
not really, but tourism is a possibility though. And then
there's also you know, the big debate about drone delivery systems, right,
(03:17):
and they've really loosened up on the restrictions, right yeah, Yeah, Listeners,
you'll recall that SCOTTA have done some podcasts on drones
and ua v s before. Uh we what we found
was that the technology is not the obstacle. The big
obstacle to drones historically has been in the past few years,
(03:38):
it's been bureaucracy, or it's been regulation regulations a better
way to say it. I think. So I say bureaucracy,
it sounds like I just want some Lord of the
Flies drone situation going on. And I get I get
it that you know, there's some important uh safety issues
there that you know, you don't want to fly too
close to an airport, you don't want to fly too
high because it will interfere with aircraft that that are
(03:59):
you know, on flight patterns that are supposed to be
in that zone. UM. I don't know all the specific details.
And this has all been changing as we're reading this podcast,
as as you know, it's it's happening. And I have, however,
been hearing a lot about companies that are going to
be using drones in the near future for um, like
for railroad track inspections. You know that they can they
(04:19):
can fly these drones down sections of the railroad that
um uh you know, a really isolated places, very very
it's difficult to get people out to them, but it's
really easy to fly a drone over them and just
visually inspect the track and make sure that nothing is
you know, out of out of whack there. You know what.
Another really cool thing that's happening with drones. Drones are
revolutionizing film industry, independent film stuff. Like before I'm gonna
(04:46):
say we because I've worked with some people and some
different things, Uh, we're able to get these overhead shots
now that would have been would have taken a helicopter essentially, yeah,
or they would have taken you know those big crane
booms that you yeah, and and you're limited or a
fearless cameraman. Yeah, well that's true, but you're limited. You're
limited to how high you can get that crane to
(05:07):
go exactly. And with the drone, it it's uh, you know,
wide open, you know, as far as as the height
you can go, well sort of wide open. I mean
I think there's still restriction on the height, but instrictions,
but it's pretty intense. I mean it's way way up there.
It's not like it's like thirty feet like you would
be with the boom camera. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking hundreds
of feet and so it was only a matter of time,
(05:27):
of course, before somebody said, you know what, having one
drone poking around the sky is kind of cool, and
I like that. It scares my dog, But uh, why
don't I get to drones and race them? Because that's
what happens with every vehicle. Here's where I was confused
when I first heard about this. I was thinking, Okay,
the drones that you and I are familiar with are
(05:48):
the ones that maybe the ones that just I'm familiar
with are the kind that we see overhead at some
of the car shows that we go to, you know,
when they're allowed, because they're not typically allowed, but we
have seen them. They're very slow moving, they're very they're
very um, very quiet, they're silent. They it's like they're
they're hovering. They're barely moving. They're hovering. They kind of float, yeah,
(06:09):
very softly, have a soft cant to their motion. It's
almost like a like a jelly fish in the sky
or something that's they're so soft, they're like they're just
barely moving and smooth motion and everything. And that's where
the smooth video, right, Yeah, and they look slow. Yeah,
they really do look slow. But these are not exactly
what we're talking about. The quod copters that we're talking
about have more of a like a rectangle body in
(06:32):
the middle with you know, all the guts all the
stuff in it on four corners. They kind of go
out at angles, maybe forty five degree angles. Um rotors
that are motors that stick up with with propellers on
them and four of them. Very small, but they are
sometimes they're covered, most times they're most time they're not,
and they rotate. Yeah they oh, yeah they can. They
have full flexibility, they have full articulation, and so you
(06:55):
can get these things to be extremely maneuverable left, right, up,
down any direction you want. Yaw all of those all
of that, and it's really important for this type of
racing because, um, when you get a few of them
together and you want to raise them, you can take
them out to an open field and race them. That's
one thing, sure, But you could also take them to
a place where maybe you set up a few obstacles, like, hey,
(07:15):
wouldn't be cool if we went under this, uh, this
hoop that we set up. That would be a lot
of fun. Or you could take them to the forest
and raise them on trails, which I really like. That's
that's kind of the Return of the Jedi. Think you
can take them to an old factory and raise them
in and out of the broken factory windows and down
the corridors. It's amazing. I've seen some incredible stuff recently
(07:36):
in the last week or so. And when I say
that it looks a lot like you know that that
Return of the Jedi scene, the speeder bike scene, it
really does. And what really adds to it is that
there's more than one and that you know you're in
this uh, this enclosed area like and I say in
closed because you're on a wooded trail maybe, but it
gives you an incredible sensation of speed because you're an
(07:57):
open field. You could be going pretty fast and you
kind of get the idea that you're going fast. But
when you've got things that are whizzing by you at
at the greatest speed by the camera, because these all
have cameras on the right that I'm so glad you
said that we were skipping a whole bit of this.
I gotta I will catch up that we'll catch up
right now. But um, when you're in the woods with
other people. Maybe one of the best things to see
(08:17):
is like when they're when they're one is chasing another one.
It has there has to be too really to make
it to give you that same impressional almost like a
dog fight. It is so cool, really really need to watch.
So um. Yeah. So, as we said, they've got the
cameras mounted there on the rectangular body. They've also they
go um. A lot of people are already asking us,
because they know this is a racing podcast, got uh,
(08:40):
how fast can these things go? Excellent question. We're talking
up to a hundred miles an hour, not scale miles
per hour, hundred miles flying through the woods at one
hundred miles an hour. Now that may seem incredibly insane,
and it really is. What we're talking about. Um trails
so that you know they're leader there, canopy is cleared
(09:01):
above and around them, so they have a clear they
can see on the ground the pathway, they know where
they're going. And you might think, well, that's really interesting.
But here's one thing you haven't told me is that
if you're standing in one spot racing these and it's
it's going down a wooded trail and you have to
make a turn left or right? How do you know
that's right? So this is this is maybe the coolest
part of this whole thing. I think maybe this is
(09:22):
really the goggles that you wear with these things, and
their first person view goggles, which means you're seeing the
flight of this craft as if you're sitting in a
driver's seat in the drone. Yeah, you're flying your own
spacecraft essentially, and we're not talking about just like a
little flimsy thing that your own glasses or something. These
are like these are wrap around your head. You don't
(09:44):
see anything except the view from the drone. So when
you're you're flying one, typically you're sitting in a in
a chair. This is so weird too. You see a
group of guys flying these in a race. They're all
lined up in in chair. Yeah, they're like a little
band stand together almost. Yeah, this is range. They they're
in chairs and they've all got their heads down with
their hands and their controllers as far as like you know,
(10:04):
to go left, right, up, down, whatever. But they've all
got these goggles on with antennas and they're talking to
each other and laughing and having a good time. But
they're not watching the race itself. They're not. They're you know,
in a typical RC race up until this point, sure
you would be watching what's going on in front of you.
You'd have to see the car, the boat, the airplane,
whatever you're racing this one, you you're looking. They almost
(10:28):
look down into their own lap. I guess when they're
when they're doing this typically, right, Yeah, they're they're kind
of subconsciously, I think, maybe looking down at their control pads.
But this, okay, so where do we go because I'm
super excited about this. Well, they have well they have
two cameras. We should say that, Oh that's a really
good A lot of these and not all of them,
but you know, the ones that they want to record
the action have two cameras. So they will have a camera.
(10:50):
One camera that's almost like a surveillance camera. It's very small,
very small lens. It's very lightweight. It's very easy for
the drone to carry obviously. And one thing that the
um that this this built in lens that that comes
with the kids typically will have is the ability to change.
And I don't know how to say this exactly right,
but when you're going from a light area to a
dark area. It adjusts appropriately so that you're not left blinded.
(11:14):
I guess when you immediately come out of the woods
into a clearing, uh, you know, it's like you can't
see anything for a second. This adjusted it accommodates for that. Um.
The other thing is that a lot of people are
are attaching go pro cameras to their to their drone
and these things can carry it, and that's something you
got to factor in. I guess as far as when
you buy your your motors and your props that you're
gonna be carrying a little bit of extra weights, and
(11:35):
as far as balancing all that weight, it has to
be a very balanced machine, I know. Um. But to
record that activity, a lot of guys use the go
pro system so that they can then you know, take
that home and enjoy that upload at whatever they do,
which is why you can see so much I think
amazing is a fair word. You can see so much
amazing footage from drone races on YouTube. It's fair to
(11:59):
say that you and I were bowled over when we
found just how much of this stuff was already out there,
and that they're already racing collectives and groups designed just
for drone racing. It's kind of a fringe group right
now though. It's because you've got your drone pilots and
you've got your your drone racers that come out of
that group. And then out of the drone racers, you know,
(12:19):
the ones that are that are heads up watching what's
going on out in the field. Out of that group,
you have your FPV drone racers. First person view, yeah,
first person of view drone racers. So they're the ones
that with the goggles. I mean those goggles are five
hundred bucks. Yeah, at least they're they're they're expensive. That's
kind of a starting point. So, um, it's a cool
thing to have. It's really interesting. But I think that
(12:40):
once once you switch over to being an FPV drone racer,
you don't go back to being a heads up drone racing.
It doesn't. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like
you you stay that way. It's been described. There's this
great article we read drone Racing Star Wars Style in
the Snowy Bronx by a guy named Jason Cobler, and uh.
He describes this as a set mint of a segment
(13:01):
of the growing but still relatively small drone racing industry,
and in this uh you can find you can find
some great links to more resources. But one thing that
fascinated me was that they also that there's already a
vernacular kind of like slangs that's that's starting to grow
around this. Uh. My favorite is, uh there's a guy
(13:22):
named Ryan Gury I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Ryan,
who's one of the founders of a company named drone Craft.
They design customized racing drones and uh he he is
picturing a a future that is very much like NASCAR,
where there will be circuits racing in the US, Canada,
(13:42):
maybe other places. But my favorite, my favorite slang term
I learned so far was uh he he said he
knows people who he and other people can do a
move that he calls the oil change. That's where you
fly your drone at speed under a car without hitting
the undercarriage or the pavement. Wow. That that's pretty impressive.
(14:05):
That is really impressive. I mean I would be scared
just because I would, you know, I'm I'm so cheap man.
I don't want to buy a drone and then break it. Okay, Well,
here's the thing with the drone racing is that all
of these guys no matter where where you see them,
they're they're always always pulling those things off the side.
Because here's here's what happened. You'll be racing into the
woods and yeah, you'll contact a branch, a low hanging brain,
(14:26):
you'll clip, or you'll hit another drone. That happens as well.
You know, they bump into each other because there's there's
no sensation of where someone is behind you. You You don't
have like a reverse camera as well as far as
I know yet. Um, but you know, accidents happen, you
know you'll know where it is because you saw it
go down. Because you know, even if it's way out
at the end of the course, you'll know where you
are roughly, yeah, because you know you've got this camera
(14:48):
view of where you were. Um. Also well, the LEDs
that they attached him, which is another thing that we
want to talk about. But um, these guys all bring
extra parts and lots of them they bring. They bring
boxes of extra parts like propellers, and they bring extra arms,
you know, to mouth the motors right. Um, you know,
just because they know that accidents happen like this and
they want to be able to you know, keep racing
(15:09):
during that day, they'll bring extra batteries. Um, it's just
kind of a known risk that you take. And I
guess once you have maybe damaged, when one of your
craft to the point where you can't really use it
anymore and you're gonna buy a new one, then you
keep the old one for extra parts, you know, for
more extra parts or parts for your friends that have
that same model. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of the community
that it is right now. There's definitely the I'm glad
(15:30):
you said that, because, especially with the first person drone racers,
you can see that there is a tight knit community
and it seems like it's pretty collaborative and people are
always tinkering. One thing I was impressed by is that
the vast majority of these drones are made at home
or assembled at home. And it's something that I think,
(15:53):
you know, it sounds like it's expensive, but compared to
buying an Indy car, it's pretty I've got a rough
guestimate of prices here if you want to Yeah, and
here's the radio system you have to buy. You know,
the control that used in the hand. Um that can
vary anywhere from like, you know, a hundred bucks up
to whatever you want to spend. All this equipment is
(16:14):
is from a starting point up to as much as
you're willing to spend on it, because you can get
the latest and greatest and best right and there's always
going to be that extra stuff. As far as the
racing drones go. Uh, you can buy one complete and
I think I saw the lowest price one that I
saw complete was about three bucks. That sounds like a
lot of money. You can build You can build one
for less for approximately two fifty dollars up. So these
(16:37):
are again these are all and up prices um. And
the thing about building one if you're if you're really scared,
you know, about doing something like that, and you think,
I've never really I've never flown a drone, how could
I build a drone? They make it pretty easy for
you as far as the kids that they provide, and
you can build one in about half a day. And
you know, just about anybody can do it. If you
can put together a simple model, you can put together
(16:57):
a drone. Believe it or not. It's easy or than
you think. The FPV goggles, which you know for this
type of race and we're talking about, is essential. Five dollars.
That's the that's the big ticket item. And I know
there's other stuff that goes along with this, you know,
the batter reason, the quick chargers and all that. But um,
that just gives you a general idea of the cost
of this. So we're talking. If you want to get
(17:18):
into it, I'm gonna just ballpark this Like thousand and
twelve hundred bucks would get you a really nice set
up and you'd be able to go to uh, you
know field somewhere and raise your drone. But you've got
to have friends that are willing to do the same thing.
You know, like if it would it would be fun
to do it, It wouldn't be more fun if you
had three or four friends that were willing to do this,
to race and be competitive and go out of weekends
(17:39):
and and have a good time, find different courses. Um,
you got to make sure that you block those courses off.
You know when we talk about racing through woods and
undercars and stuff like that, You've got to make sure
that no people are involved. Don't want any you know,
any drone to face contact happening because that would be
no fun. I mean, these things are pretty they're flying
at a hundred miles an hour. They've got exposed rotors. Yeah,
(18:00):
don't know what they weigh. I'm guessing a couple of
pounds each probably, Yeah, if that they could do some
substantial damage if it hit a person, well sure, we'll
also we should say, just to respond to the weight
part there, we should also say that many of these
copts are are drones rather heavily modified. So, for instance,
(18:20):
although quad copters are the most common, you'll hear about
hexicopters even with uh with that would be you know,
with six different rotors, and with that modification there comes
some different way. I heard there was this one reporter
of this guy who maybe it was from the same article,
who was modifying one of his drones to carry up
(18:41):
the sixty eight pounds. With that kind of strength for
a drone that really could do some serious damage if
it hits a person, Oh definitely. You know what, And
this makes sense because when we were looking at drone racing,
I also found this other subgroup, and I actually was
I was pretty interested in this initially. I so I
looked this the term up drone dog fights because I
was wondering if anybody was dog fighting with drones and
(19:03):
it turns out there are people that are doing that.
Um they're using things like right now, they're using things
like NERF darts and disks and stuff like that. But
there's someone out west. I don't remember exactly where I
saw this, but they were mounting and this just goes
along with what you were just talking about carrying heavy weights.
They've a mounted a paint gun to their I'm just
wondering how you can fire it without messing up the
(19:24):
flight of the drone and what they said it it
took many many try you know, trialing air over and
over and again they failed and then finally they got
it right and they filmed it and it's online. You
can watch somebody with a drone with a paint gun
attached to it, and they they attacked another drone and
they attacked a human on this paintball. Course he was
trying to shoot it get away and you know, trying
to run away from the drone, and it was just relentless.
(19:46):
I mean, he could follow him and shoot him at will.
And I think the way that one worked was one
person operated the drone, the other person operated. Just you
have a gunner, that's right, that's kind of you decide
when to fire because you can't really remove your hands,
you know, quick enough, think enough what you're seeing to
to make it work. Um interesting turn there, I guess,
I mean it was, it was. It was really fun
(20:07):
to watch, and all this stuff is fun to watch.
And I mentioned just briefly the L E d s
on these things. That has another level. So so they
have LED lights in the back and front. So when
you're racing in a group of let's say you've got
six or eight drones, you could have six or eight
different colors of L E d s on the on
the drones as well. And we're talking like big bands
on the back end of the drone. That's what really
(20:28):
gives you the sensation of the Star Wars. It looks
like the back of the Millennial Millennium Falcon. Yeah. And
the and again the chase scenes that you see with
these that's the greatest is when one is chasing the
other one. You get the perspective from the back person
the one chasing. It's just so cool to watch. And
the way it zips and they're so um um erratic
(20:49):
in the way that they move that it's just fun
to watch. I mean, and they're still navigating a very
complex course in the woods. You know what, would be
a lot of fun, man, And I don't know if
we could pull this off. Guys, maybe maybe you can
tell us if this would be worth it. Uh, it
would be a lot of fun, Scott, if you and
I could get maybe tech stuffer forward thinking to be
in a drone racing circuit with us. How long do
(21:11):
you think we could get away with doing it in
this new building before you got in trouble, you know what?
That's the other thing is that I've seen people doing
it in parking structures, and as you know, our parking
structure is loaded with columns. We've talked about that on
this Yeah, it is. It's difficult to navigate because it's
every other parking spot and very tight together because it's
an old building. I mean, I have a hard time walking,
(21:32):
you know, you can't walk in a straight line without
hitting a post. It seems like it's it really is true.
So it would be so much fun. And I've seen
people racing in underground parking structures with these things. It's
it's a perfect place for it. It's like, uh, the
urban version of the forest. Yeah, we've got our obstacles, yeah, exactly.
And one last thing that I want to mention that
I found. It's another drone drone related iyem, I guess,
(21:55):
and it's not really racing, although these guys like to
find formation. They fly things called zephyr drones. And you've
ever heard of the zephyr drones. They look like the
I guess sort of in a way. They look like
the old stealth fighters, you know. The flying wing looks
like one big wing. It's almost like a like an
arrow shape. And these things are they're big, and they
(22:16):
can fly long, long distances. And I'll give you an
idea of how long you can watch the guy you
know who's running this thing on YouTube or whatever. He
can can watch him take off from a field and
you can see a mountain in the distance. He flies
to the top of that mountain, and this is how
far he can control this. He flies to the top
of the mountain, also staying relatively low at the time,
and then he'll get to the top of the mountain
(22:37):
and turn it back around towards him and let it
just kind of drop down the face of the mountains,
staying extremely low, like right over the canopy or the
rocks or whatever, and you get the same sensation as
you know when you watch those those guys in the
wingsuits flying and they jump off the top of the
mountain and they fly like right above the surface and
they're they're barely make d teen. Dean Porter actually recently
(23:01):
passed away from that. I heard that that's right in
an accident. Um. But that's the sensation you get from
the video camera view of this. It's like, Um, I
want to say it's called canyon racing, but I don't
think that's it. Um. They get to the top of
the mountain and then they can I think I saw
one where they even cut the power and they just
coasted down and what you can do kind of a
flying wing. Yeah, and several of these, you know, they'll
(23:22):
they'll get eight or ten of them together and they'll
try to fly in formation and it sort of works,
sort of doesn't work. You know, they can get close,
but not exactly a tight formation like you think, like
you know, the blue angels or you know the thunderbirds
would fly. It's it's really interesting. So wait, so how
big do you think they are? Well, they're big there.
I mean when you when they're standing on the ground.
I mean if the if the point is facing up
and you got the wing tips on the ground, Um,
(23:44):
they're they're waist high up on the end. It's probably
you know, six ft seven ft tall because they're huge.
And the thing with those is versus the quad copters
that we're talking about. The quad copters that we were
spending most of this podcasts on are extremely maneuverable all directions.
They can hover raving well with these these Zephyr type
of drones. And I know that's probably a brand name,
(24:05):
and there's do you have to do? You have to
give them a throw? No, you can take them. You can.
They can take off on the ground, and they are um,
they rely on you know, constant forward motion. They have
to be in motion over to fly, like like a
shark was swimming and breathing, yes, exactly right, yeah, or
an airplanet to fly. It has also an airplane a
little bit more relatively well maybe, but I like the shark.
(24:26):
I like the shark example too, But but you're right,
you have to be in constant motion because without air
going over that wing, it doesn't doesn't work, it doesn't
stay in. But the quad copters, that's what makes these
so unique and so fun is that you can just
about do anything with them. And I'm so I don't
know if i'd say addicted, but I'm hooked on watching
row racing footage because they've got crash compilations, they've got
(24:49):
close call compilations. Um, there's all different manufacturers that make
these things, and people trying out different things in different
settings like urban exploration settings. Um, they fly in and
out of this factory. You know, like the guy maybe
a quarter mile away and he's flying this drone, it
just at lightning speed through a factory because he knows
there's no windows. So I'll shoot into a window and
(25:11):
down the hallway and then out another window on the
other side, and then go two d feet in the
air around the top, you know, like spend on, come
right down to the roof, and then and then divert
away and come back to where he's standing. It's just
the coolest thing to watch. And then you throw two
or three more in there, maybe four more in there,
and have them race on a on a set path
with l ed s and everything, and you know, these
close calls. It's so much fun to watch. We have
(25:33):
to do it if if we can. If we can
find a way to do do it, we have to do it.
And uh, for those of you out there listening, uh,
this is usually the point where we say, we hope
you enjoyed hearing this as much as we enjoyed making it.
But I don't know if I don't know, if you can,
because this one was really cool. Please if you have time,
go check out some of the YouTube clips I'll be
(25:55):
I'll probably be posting a couple of like the Real
Choice winds. Uh is that right in in a little while. Yeah. Yeah,
with your with your full set up there, you're gonna
buy today. Oh no, not that I'm doing things that
are already on YouTube. Oh yeah, I thought I thought
you were saying you're gonna definitely do this and you're
gonna be posting some incredible scenes from this building. Man,
I mean, I you know, that's a that's a good
(26:17):
thing to do. I'd love to do that. But if
I if I buy a quaecopter, I'm gonna have to
buy it the way people bought Harley's in the seventies,
you know, one to drive, one for spare parts. You know.
I gotta tell you, though, you were too far off
when you said that this building, this this building would
be so much fun to explore. It's just got that
much open space and there's still areas. There's even an
(26:38):
office next to us that is just wide open with
the doorway to the outside. If you open that up
and flew in and out, it would be rich with
material here. I really think it would be. Yeah, and
we can totally avoid gain in any trouble because we'll
just put like a little post it on our drone
that's his property of Jonathan Stricklin. Perfect perfect plan. Uh.
And if you have any ways to amend that plan,
(26:59):
or if you have any experience flying a drone, want
to tell us a little bit about it, we'd love
to hear it. You can find us all the usual
places on the internet, the books of face, the tweet spaces.
You can visit our website. That's right, we have our
own website car stuff show dot com where you can
check out this as well as some of our earlier
work on unmanned aerial vehicles. And if you want to
(27:21):
write to us directly, or even better, send us a
video of drones or drone racing that you enjoy, uh,
then we would love to check it out. Our address
is car stuff at how stuff work dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
(27:42):
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
CarStuff News
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