A drone pilot's equipment is pretty simple: a headset shows a first person point-of-view video stream from their drone. The pilot uses the video stream to steer and maneuver the drone through turns and gates on the race course.
We attended the California Drone Speed Challenge at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco to get some insight on what it means to be a drone pilot.
Here's part of the race course. Rope lights indicate the path. In the middle is a rectangular cage where the drone pilots sit while they compete against each other.
The two small upright black rectangles on the bottom of the photo are the starting blocks. The blurry colorful streaks are the drones taking off at the start of a race.
Racer Tony Thompson readies his drone for a qualifying heat. There are few actual restrictions about the drones. For this race, propellors had to be less than 6-inches in diameter and batteries had to be under a certain power rating.
Racing drones can take quite a beating (which can be fun to watch as a spectator). But this also means pilots need to be able to quickly repair their drones between heats.
