On the rainy weekend of September 15-16, Noosphere held their latest Copter Race — an international FPV drone-racing championship in Dnipro. The event was meant to take place at the Kamenka stadium, but the location was changed to the Meteor stadium due to radio interference. It was the second time Noosphere has held Copter Race on the legendary sports arena (check out the article about 1st Copter Race on the Meteor stadium here).
Also, Copter Race 2018 was the second time Noosphere has organized a drone-racing championship in association with the FAI — the World Air Sports Federation.
3 kinds of races took part during the event:
– FAI Noosphere Race Cup — a stage of FAI Drone Racing World Cup in F3U class
– Ukrainian Drone racing championship — a national competition among the best FPV pilots from Ukraine
– Freestyle — a stunt flying competition.
27 pilots from Ukraine, 3 pilots from Latvia and 2 pilots from Italy took part in the event.
Dmitry Starostin performed as a national-level judge and Oscar Chinello from Italy performed as the FAI international-level judge.
Both days of the event faced schedule changes and delays due to rainy weather.
Nevertheless, the pilots briefing and all the training and qualifying flight happened on Saturday, September 15. The Freestyle competition was moved to the next day.
Pilots admitted that the track became more advanced this year. Ukrainian pilots faced an unusual obstacle for the races in their country: the gravity hall.
Noosphere organizers also managed to test the eNavigator — an updated tracking system for drone racing. The system successfully unites drone movement tracking, timing and video-signal broadcasting. The eNavigator system will also be used to score the results of the drone-racing World Cup finals in China later this year.
“The task was to compound various platforms that track the drone flight, share the video signal, transform the data in the readable format and broadcast the ratings and tables on the screen. Today our engineers performed great. ” – said Michael Ryabokon, the Copter Race director and Noosphere co-founder.
Noosphere also organized a rocket building workshop for the youngest spectators: volunteers taught the young ones to handcraft and launch air models. Also, Noosphere Engineering School presented the student rocket, which was developed by the school’s students.
Competitions on Sunday, September 16 started without training flights. The Ukrainian championship and the stage of a World Cup races begun as soon as weather allowed it.
The competition was very close: re-flights and crashes took place multiple times. After all the races in the double-elimination table, the winners of the Ukrainian cup and World Cup Stage were finally announced:
– FAI Noosphere Race Cup:
3rd place — Selvaggio Giovanni, ITA
2nd place — Strada Matteo, ITA
1st place — Petersons Kristaps, LAT
– F3U Ukrainian Champions:
3rd place — Sydoreiko Mykola, UA
2nd place — Oliynyk Ivan, UA
1st place — Stadnichenko Mykyta, UA
After the main race competitions finished, a dozen pilots managed to take part in Free Style — an aerial-stunt drone competition. Pilots took it quite seriously. A lot of dangerous stunts were performed, including flying over the stadium territory, rollercoaster loops and even flying between their pilot’s legs.
Here’s how judges scored the Freestyle competition:
3rd place — Stadnichenko Mykyta, UA
2nd place — Obodzynskyi Denys, UA
1st place — Petersons Kristaps, LAT
3 pilots from Latvia also formed a team and performed an exhibition aerobatic display with smoke tails on their drones.
After the finish of the competition, pilots were awarded trophies, certificates and presents from Noosphere and Copter Race partners.
Both foreign and local pilots noted the high level of organization, care and technical support of the event.
Mykyta Stadnichenko, Tomass Petersons, Kristaps Petersons, Giovanni Selvaggio and Matteo Strada will take part in the FAI Drone Racing World Cup finals in Shēnzhèn, China later this year. The eNavigator system will also be used to score the results of the competitions during the World Cup finals.
Go check the FB-event and official Copter Race website for more details.
Watch the Copter Race video below: