The Making of That Crazy Urban DH MTB Drone Video

[Jack M]

I was wondering how they did that!!  f you haven't seen the finished video yet, it's at 8:00 in this video if you want to start with that and then go back and see how they did it.  Impressive.

 

[davekempmeister]

I went straight to the 8:00 and watched……twice.  Wow.

I will go back and watch how they did the video it but I am sure that I will never understand how the guy on the bike did what he did.

 

[SunSurfer]

Ever tried flying a drone in full acro mode with analogue FPV? Both the riding, and the flying, in a crowded, hazard strewn urban environment are mind boggling.

[SunSurfer]

For non-drone fliers, the pilot sees the course in that grainy, poorly tuned colour TV quality. The drone is as twitchy as anything and any manoeuvre requires adjustment of throttle, pitch, yaw, and roll axes, all while tracking the guy on the bike at speed. This nothing like flying a DJI Mini with inbuilt stabilisation.

[lordmetroland]

On 5/10/2022 at 4:28 AM, SunSurfer said:

This nothing like flying a DJI Mini with inbuilt stabilisation.

Impressive degree of difficulty. But I’d way rather crash the drone than the bike…

[SunSurfer]

I took up FPV drone sim flying as a way of having close to the the motion sensation, and very much the mental flow state, that I get from hard boot snowboarding but in a way I could still do even if I manage to render myself paraplegic by my active recreations. I also hope to be still able to do this when my physical body is no longer able to cope with the rigours of boarding (may that never happen!)

I fly in the Drone Racing League (DRL) Sim with a mid range gaming desktop PC computer and a proper controller (Radiomaster Zorro). The Sim game itself costs a minimal amount. This way I can fly, and crash without having to fix a physical drone and only my pride being dented.

They are twitchy little things and I'm flying mostly the smallest and slowest drone in the DRL Sim. It goes plenty fast enough for me, and the "one design" class makes for very competitive flying. This was flown in full "acrobatic" (acro' ) mode, with no software stabilisation of altitude or angles. This is from my YouTube channel and has a little Comments tip for full throttle flying.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by SunSurfer

[SunSurfer]

And the flight at the beginning of this thread just got topped.

Top to bottom Red Bull Hardline 2023 MTB Downhill course.

The Hardline, set in the Dyfi Valley in Wales is an incredibly hard, spectacular and technical course, with massive jumps and drops. Only the world's best riders are invited to compete. And to follow a rider down at race pace with an FPV drone is a challenge for the pilots flying skills, and the technology given the distance, speeds, and landscape.

[patmoore]

On 5/10/2022 at 6:28 AM, SunSurfer said:

For non-drone fliers, the pilot sees the course in that grainy, poorly tuned colour TV quality. The drone is as twitchy as anything and any manoeuvre requires adjustment of throttle, pitch, yaw, and roll axes, all while tracking the guy on the bike at speed. This nothing like flying a DJI Mini with inbuilt stabilisation.

I have a Mavic Mini.  Doesn't even have collision avoidance.  The skill of these guys (bikers and drone pilots) is amazing.