Oh, you’re still into drone racing?

Fair enough – it’s actually pretty cool, and it takes an incredible amount of skill to pilot a drone at high speed around a racetrack.

If you want to take a glimpse at the future, though, you probably want to find out a little more about the ‘Airspeeder Mark I,’ a low altitude quadcopter aircraft from Australian start-up Alauda Racing.

Yes, as CNN reports, there is a competitive racing league planned:

Conceived and designed over two years by tech and space entrepreneur Matt Pearson [the man in the centre of the above image], the electric powered Airspeeder will participate in a competitive racing league.

“We’ve merged an F1 car with a racing drone and turned it into something completely new,” Pearson explained.

“It’s easier to build a hovering, flying car. What we wanted to do is race and when you want to race, you need an enormous amount of power very, very fast.

“This is a manned, electric multi-copter with a greater power-to-weight ratio than a F1 car or a fighter jet.”

The beasts will be powered by lithium-ion batteries, and the Airspeeder will reach speeds in excess of 200km/h.

Two months ago, the company released this teaser:

Not a lot to go on there, right?

Well, the pilots are coming:

The wooden propellers, the removable 50-megawatt electric motors (equivalent to 80 wall sockets), and the aluminum frame are all designed by Alauda.

The vehicles will also have sensors to prevent collisions and airbags to protect pilots.

Although testing has been with unmanned crafts, the drones will have pilots when the racing begins in earnest and will be completely controlled from within the vehicle.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that this could be a very dangerous endeavour, but Pearson reckons it will actually be safer than traditional four-wheeled options.

Now it’s all about moving forward and getting the new racing series, scheduled to start in 2020/21, off the ground:

The league has chosen a circuit race format — like Formula One — rather than a time trial format that will be taken to some of the worlds most exotic locations round the globe in the ‘first flying car Grand Prix.’

…although you may think it would be easier to have unmanned drone racing, the attraction of having piloted drones is something Pearson believes will attract motorsport fans.

“This is five teams, ten pilots, ten vehicles in a circuit race, head-to-head,” he said.

“I think this is going to be the most watchable sport in the world.”

The latest Airspeeder video shows there is still quite some way to go:

Very, very Australian.

If you get a bunch of pilots in quadcopters at high speeds racing around a circuit, then yes, it will be incredibly watchable. I’m still not that willing to accept claims that it will be safer than races where people are actually touching the ground.

For now, the drama of Formula One will have to suffice.

[source:cnn]