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I'm just been watching the Womens Strade Bianche, and there's been some bloody awful shakey M/C footage, coupled with the general risks of having them on the same road with the racers, plus they're using a helicopter on and off which isn't a cheap/environmental option (nice footage though).
But it got me wondering, are drones not up to this sort of live footage now? Like several of them, say working in shifts along the route, or flown from some sort of special support vehicles?
Using GPS routing and POV piloting and other techie stuff to keep them on target and out of the way (not really a drone nerd TBH).
They could get up and back for wide shots as well as closer in too, just to minimise the number of motorcycle/cameramen wobbling about on the road, and cutting back on helicopter fuel bills?
Or am I talking fanciful nonsense?
They use them for the CX now but I don’t think the batteries would last long enough to cover a road race. They’ve talked about it on the commentary before a couple of years ago
Edit - I’ve read your post properly now. In shifts would probably work, they’d just need a truck full where the operator would work from.
Like I said working in shifts on set stretches of a course to manage battery life they wouldn't need huge run time for that, maybe not use them for 100% of the coverage but I can see benefits to having a drone feed or two available...
Is the technology just not there?
Drones were used in snowboard competition last month called natural selection. Although there were trees on the hill it wasn’t a Forrest, which I imagine would present problems. Footage was excellent though and gave real good perspective to riders runs
I think drone racing pilots are used a lot as they have good control skills. I would love to see that kind coverage verses the standard panned camera
NOt really viable for long races across large distances like a road race, it'd be far easier and cheaper to just get gyro-stabilised cameras.
Would work on a closed circuit or velodrome.
Also there's the possibility of a drone crashing into the peloton. There was a very near miss a few years ago on a ski course:
One of the South American downhill races from a few weeks back had drones. They lacked the ability to livestream though (too much weight I guess) so the footage has to wait until afterwards.
One of the Canadian races last year was experimenting with it too I think.
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/videos/adrien-loron-pov-red-bull-monserrate-cerro-abajo-2021
You can see the drone following him from about 1:16. I’ve yet to be able to find the footage from it though.
They also sprung for a helicopter, which was able to live stream.
Generally they’re not sending high quality footage down to the pilot, it has to come off a memory card later. So it works for things like Audi Nines, not for a live broadcast.
Edit:ooops, wrong thread
Also there’s the possibility of a drone crashing into the peloton. There was a very near miss a few years ago on a ski course:
Hmmmm, there's been a fair few instances of Motorcycles actually taking riders out, So I reckon they stand a better chance if running over a drone Vs a M/C plus it's two passengers...
Interesting that there's a significant enough weight penalty to prevent HD streaming from drones, I never knew. Essentially then the technology just isn't quite there yet, cheers all for contributing to my idle musings...
There was excellent drone footage from the recent World Champ ski and snowboard cross at Idre fjall, but I can;t see any online - there's highlights of races from the fixed cameras and you can see the drone flying, but can't find any drone footage. Shame as it was really good.
Don't see why not. Pretty standard in other sports now.
They had some drone footage at a Euro IXS DH I saw in 2020. It was pretty cool - they were really skilled pilots following the rider and it worked well. I assumed it was live, but perhaps not.
i'v a mate that flies drones for the BBC/surveying...
He tells me you can simply plot a GPS route in, and the drone will do all the fancy stuff for you!
It won't be long before they use this for sports filming wiht live broadcasting...
Simply set up a base (for charging) and have a series of drones simply flying a route, filming below..
Wil be fun!
DrP
i’v a mate that flies drones for the BBC/surveying…
He tells me you can simply plot a GPS route in, and the drone will do all the fancy stuff for you!
It won’t be long before they use this for sports filming wiht live broadcasting…
Simply set up a base (for charging) and have a series of drones simply flying a route, filming below..
Wil be fun!
DrP
That was sort of what I was thinking with my original question, I suppose they need to be a bit smarter though potentially.
Either plot routes that don't place them directly overhead racers (or at least minimise that) and/or maybe integrate some clever bollox collision avoidance? dunno how far off these things are, I've seen people use them to chase and record "Action" sports footage before.
That Crit incident is weird, the drone seems to clatter the tree and rain bits on the rider, who then wobbles off to one side, slows a bit and eventually front flips ~50m after the initial contact...
I'm sure Drones are not without their hazards/risks, I just see M/C riders as a bigger risk to the riders in a road race and chopper fuel/rental as a big expense that might be worth eliminating...