Drones Replacing Helicopters ?
 

I wonder if pro races will use drones with HD cameras instead of helicopters. Imagine how much $ the race organizers would save. They could have dozens of drones along the course like a relay team, taking over when the previous one has low battery.

The devil is in the details. And air space safety regulations. And live feed capability. And dwell time. And pilot location. And...

https://www.triathlete.com/culture/n...-anytime-soon/

Something like CX is a sweet spot for them, compared to a road race or even a crit. But they got a little close to the action in recent UCI events and are now regulated further away.

As much as I like some of the coverage that's possible, I almost got hit by a drone on course at a local race and appreciate the spectrum of concerns.

Ha, follow the riders right through the tunnels or under the tree canopy over the roads!

Yeah, the drones could cause injuries if they get out of control. Can it work with good safety?
Hmm, which is more dangerous: drones or the many motorcycle shooting videos?

Drones are definitely fast enough. This one has hit 400 kph, almost 250 mph. Streamlined, with the nose pointed straight ahead.

Following F1 around a lap:

Design and testing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szxRORFl_lc#t=10m18s

Safety of the riders and crowds are paramount. But, yes, we've already been seeing drone coverage for various segments of the big pro tours and grand tours like the TdF for years now. Helicopters won't go away for quite awhile, IMO.

I don't know if it's still a problem, but even back prior to 2018 we had some cyclist getting hit by drones in some of the lesser pro races that don't get much coverage by TV. And those were tiny drones. The newer bigger camera platforms probably will pack more of a wallop.

BTW, I heard come commentary on GCN+ last year about the helicopter camera operators, the cost of camera pod, etc. It was interesting and I did a little poking around. Spoke with some drone folks, event organizers, and some forestry / mining helicopter services operators I knew from a prior life (not race video though) to get a sense of the easy and hard issues.

It's easy to fall in love with the HD quality of small drones. And image stabilization is decent.

Amplifying my earlier drive-by comment, my sense of the key obstacle is that miniaturization hasn't caught up to the point where a high quality gimbal and optics plus the communications gear to live stream 4k+ images out is light and efficient enough to be carried by small drone. So we're talking about one or more of the following compromises until there is some more leap ahead technology: big air ship, ridiculously small service time, non-live coverage (e.g. land and download).

While helicopter time isn't cheap, each drone operator is a pilot so it's not like you're getting them for pennies on a dollar. The costs of a LOT of them to cover time and distance, plus their very high end commercial drones, plus the compromises, plus the uncertainties and liabilities all add up. And helicopters start to look relatively less expensive.

There are situations where those bits of friction are far more tolerable. In UCI road racing, not so much. At least not for the main, live feeds. Complementary coverage, sure! Like a closed circuit, or a special area, or non-live. But even just moving around on the ground in the midst of all the road closures is a big ask. The notion of just hot swapping the drones and keeping anywhere close to line of sight for the operator is very naive.

Here's an article on the TdF helicopter team.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/07...our-de-france/

I think some of the smaller races are a bit less integrated than that company and the point guy tends to be the camera pod owner / operator. The helicopter itself is more of a commodity. But it is still a VERY small market of highly specialized service operators.

SLCBob nails it above, and that arstechnica article is great, but I will add my $.02 anyway. I'm a recently retired cinematographer, not on broadcast sports events, mostly commercials, movies, TV, etc, but the same principles apply. And I use to do the occasional helicopter shoot using the standard gear: a Tyler mount on a Bell Jet Ranger with the right door taken off.

Drone tech has come a long way, but there are significant limitations on the kind of movements they can do and the kind of payload a drone can carry. Drone cameras used to be fixed, aimed in one direction, meaning that the drone itself had to pivot side to side or up and down to pan and tilt. While there are now tiny remote heads that allow more adjustment, they are nowhere near as controllable or smooth as the remote heads used on today's helicopter mounts, so drones still mostly shoot in one direction: forward. Drones are also limited in the weight of lenses that they can carry--glass is HEAVY--,while helo cameras have very long ratio zoom lenses, allowing them to get those spectacular wide angles showing the whole landscape, but then zoom way in.
Basically: a drone is great for things like following a cyclist or team on a time trial, getting in much closer than a helo can, with a wide lens, and giving you a real visceral sense of being there.
But a helicopter setup like HdF has, with the cameras isolated in amazingly stablized rigs, powerful zoom lenses and pinpoint pan/tilt/roll control, as well as a very maneuverable helo and excellent pilot and camera operator, elaborate, choreographed shots are possible.
I have been amazed at some of the things I've seen: camera inches from the ground, shooting the peloton from the side, through grass waving in the foreground, then the camera lifts and zooms wide, while the helo tracks around behind the cyclists, then clear to the other side of them. Only a small bit of that would have been possible in one shot, just a few years ago.
I used to love doing complex dolly shots; in these days where everything is handhheld/steadi/gimbal that's kinda gone away, but these helo shots in bike racing are kind of in the same family It almost makes me wish I was still working and was there executing those shots. Almost.


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