JAPAN DRONE NATIONALS

JAPAN DRONE NATIONALS.

This competition was held at XEBIO ARENA in Sendai. It was a full house, with attendees standing to watch.

The race was in FPV (First Person View) style. Competitors are referred to as pilots. A camera is attached to the pilots’ drones, sending real-time footage to their HMDs which they watch and use to steer the drones to compete for the best times. Some of the more skilled pilots can fly their drones at speeds exceeding 100km.

The drones used in this competition are handmade. Each of them has its own unique qualities. The large arena is used as the course for the competition, and the pilots compete in the preliminaries by ranking the time taken to fly a single lap. The semifinals require three laps, and rank pilots by position instead of time. The finals have five laps and use a points system to determine the winner. 27 pilots made it past the preliminaries.

Drones fly through and around red, blue, and green poles and gates at breakneck speeds. All of the steering is done from afar by looking at footage sent to a pair of goggles. When you are at the event and get to see actual footage, it is clear as day that these pilots are superhumans.

They assault, breach, and crash. There are many strategies involved in the sport, some ending in success, others in failure. The speed, intensity, and sensation surpassed all expectations.

While the top competitors contended and crashed into one another, the checkered flag was waved for the pilot who remembered that slow and steady wins the race. The winner’s name is Koji Owada, a 43-year old father of three. Well done!

I was a commentator for the race on a TV show.

Q. What draws people to drones?

A. Two reasons: drones are useful, and also fun. Drones are popular because they can be used to carry things and record footage from places that we cannot reach ourselves, but I would like for more people to focus on the fun aspect.

Q. What do you mean by fun?

A. The fun of flying a drone, and the fun of flying. Drones are more easily accessible than remote-controlled planes, and can be easily flown by both children and adults. There are many toy drones on the market now. Through the drone’s camera, we can experience the sensation of flying ourselves. Drones let us make humanity’s dream of soaring through the skies come true.

Q. Do you think that flying drones has the potential to become a sport?

Flying drones is an IT sport that uses radio waves and video footage. The Olympics only consisted of agrarian society sports up until the 19th century, then motor sports were included for the industrial society and 20th century. For the information society and 21st century, we need new sports like these. I look forward the rise of a star athlete for drone flying.