the drone racing league simulator review

The drone racing league simulator review update#
The drone racing league simulator review full#

The only problem for those budding pilots that ESPN has lured in? You won't ever be able to buy the Racer3 - it's for DRL pilots only.

The drone racing league simulator review update#

Update your settings here, then reload the page to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. You need only look at any of the race teasers to see that DRL events were almost designed for TV, with flashy neon lights and a deliberate fight-night glitz.

The drone racing league simulator review full#

He argues that ESPN affords them an audience that far exceeds what a full stadium would bring. I asked Horbaczewski if that exposure translated into bigger crowds at the events, but he tells me that that hasn't been the DRL's goal. The DRL's 2016 season was picked up by ESPN (Sky in the UK), broadcasting the season's races to an audience of nearly 30 million Americans. Ryan Gury, the DRL's head of product, adds, 'It also makes it a much more sexy and attractive drone,' which might help undo the 'hobby electronics' vibe that some outsiders associate with the sport.Īesthetics count, too. With the new polycarbonate hood, Horbaczewski says the Racer 3 can take more hits, and pilots can actually get right back up and keep racing, in the same way a Moto GP rider might hop back on his bike after a fall and doggedly cross the finish line. Sometimes one bad crash is all it takes to end a pilot's race. You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. 'It allows us to do things that we couldn't with homebuilt rigs - that's everything from the way we cover the drone in bright, color-differentiating LEDs to tell them apart, to some of the engineering innovations that we can bring into it.' But there are other benefits to a level technical playing field.

'We want DRL to be the ultimate competition of piloting skill,' the DRL's CEO, Nicholas Horbaczewski, told Engadget. In DRL races, there's one standardized drone. Most hobby pilots will tell you that half of the fun is building your own quadcopter and improving it over time. The Racer3 should make races - which air on ESPN starting June 20th - even more thrilling, luring more fans (and, by association, lucre) to the game.

Unsurprisingly, it's more powerful and agile than its predecessor (the Racer2, obviously) and could be the shot in the arm the sport needs to go mainstream. One of the keys to achieving that, the DRL hopes, is the introduction of the Racer3 drone, which will be the standard craft all pilots in the DRL race with. Last year, I asked a simple question: Can drone racing become as big as eSports? While we wait to find out, one of the leading race organizers - the Drone Racing League - is making all the right moves this year to make that answer yes.