=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 427 ===
Title: LDO 427 - with special guest Dave Allen Of TEAM GBR
Recorded: 2023-11-02
Hosts: Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash
Guest(s): David Allen
Total audience: 1,140
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f_Baz6lu8c); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1655475711-letsdroneout-ldo-427-with-special-guest-dave-allen-of-team-gbr.mp3)
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[0.0] Jack: Hello and you're listening to let's drone out and special
[4.2] Jack: thank you to our lovely patrons that help donate so that we can
[8.36] Jack: pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things we
[11.6] Jack: say massive thank you to Carlos campos art folk now Sam
[18.6] Frank: Dharma on with the show.
[51.82] Frank: Good evening and welcome to let's turn out episode 427. This
[57.38] Frank: evening we are joined by curry. Hello, Steven. Hey, and David
[64.38] Frank: Allen. Hello. And we're very happy to have you here, David.
[70.5] Frank: Steven invited you along because I think basically you've
[75.1] Frank: helped him out a lot in his mission to get an FPV FPV
[80.22] Frank: racing stick. So I wonder if maybe Steven if you want to start
[86.22] Frank: off with with that mission, then we can end up where David
[88.78] Frank: has been traveling the world since then.
[91.66] Stephen: No problem. Well, yeah, I should probably show what all the fuss
[95.14] Stephen: is about because I'm when apparently a handful of
[99.06] Stephen: individuals who gave it a go and got the British Model Flying
[109.14] Stephen: Association, not just the certificate, but that the very
[113.82] Stephen: rare FPV one. So yeah, I've got I think that's the only FPV one
[121.34] Stephen: it's for for quad racing. I can't do it with the certificate,
[126.58] Curry: but it feels like the A should be centered. It's like OCD is
[130.22] Curry: kind of going off a little bit. And it's like, was it pushed over
[133.06] Stephen: to one side? Just make you're lucky. It's not a comic sans.
[135.74] David Allen: Come on now. Do you know there has been a lot of discussion
[138.22] David Allen: about that. And it's not really understood why it's off to the
[140.94] David Allen: left hand side. I think it's because they stole the form from
[145.74] David Allen: one of the other disciplines, which was slightly longer. And
[148.74] David Allen: being left justified still worked. So what they need to do
[151.9] David Allen: is review the whole lot and put them to center justified. And
[154.66] David Allen: then I think your problem would be fine.
[156.74] Stephen: I'll be happy.
[157.26] Stephen: Give it another 25 years and they'll fix it that way.
[164.82] Stephen: Anyway, yeah, so so David was happy enough to beat me Ainsford
[169.74] Stephen: Model Helicopter Club and went through that and did all the
[173.7] Stephen: safety questions, you know, risk questions and things. And, you
[177.94] Stephen: know, can you fly something with metal props? Absolutely not you
[181.94] Stephen: idiot don't do that. And so on height restrictions and where to
[185.86] Stephen: fly where not to fly how to take off how not to take off and so
[189.1] Stephen: on and so forth, which are all detailed very handily, I must
[192.06] Stephen: say in the in the handbook that's produced by the VMFA. So
[196.46] Stephen: not actually too tricky a test and pretty enjoyable experience
[199.9] Stephen: as well kind of seeing how these things work. And then I flew
[203.78] Stephen: like the sub beginner novice that I am very slowly and
[208.5] Stephen: carefully through a series of gates without crashing, bouncing
[213.98] Stephen: off things and was awarded the certificate. So thank you very
[217.38] Stephen: much, David. But I'm sure David has seen some epically better
[222.42] Stephen: racing, because his other role is the GBR team manager. And he's
[228.06] Stephen: just come back from the the world racing events. And it
[234.18] Stephen: probably has some stories to tell about that as well.
[236.98] David Allen: Yeah, lots of stories to tell you all about South Korea. Yeah,
[241.46] David Allen: we started from right down the bottom and, you know, started
[244.22] David Allen: doing this seven or eight years ago, met a few guys in the field.
[247.66] David Allen: And then three weeks ago, I was out in South Korea, it's been
[251.54] David Allen: a fantastic journey.
[253.7] Frank: Yeah, because this is the the FAI World Drone Racing
[258.66] Frank: Championships, right? So the FAI are like, about as official as
[263.7] Frank: you can get. So so that's, you know, this isn't, you know,
[269.5] Frank: there's, there's other world drone events like, you know, the
[275.82] Frank: DCL have their world thing, DRL will kind of consider themselves
[279.46] Frank: the world name, there's a multi GP world, but they're all kind
[282.82] Frank: of like, they've set themselves up and then said, we're the
[285.1] Frank: world thing. But the FAI are like, they do like, you know, a
[290.82] Frank: lot of sporting body. Yeah, they are the
[295.22] David Allen: not only for us in the in the model division of that. But
[300.7] David Allen: also, if I went and got my FAI license, because I had to have
[304.34] David Allen: one to be the team manager, it talks about full size gliding,
[307.82] David Allen: full size helicopters, all sorts of things. So, I mean, I
[311.18] David Allen: clearly haven't got the skill set to actually go and do those
[313.42] David Allen: but I had the piece of paper that would maybe let me apply for
[316.66] David Allen: that. So yeah, it was really prestigious. And I was so proud
[322.66] David Allen: to be walking around the stadium at, you know, behind all of our
[328.62] David Allen: team, waving our flags, it was shown on television, okay, it
[333.86] David Allen: was South Korean television, I'm not sure how high the audience
[336.82] David Allen: actually was. It was live streamed back to the UK. And I
[340.9] David Allen: do know, although it was the middle of the night, plenty of
[343.42] David Allen: people were up. Oh, yeah, watching us. I can't confirm
[347.38] Frank: way as well. Yep, yep, definitely have my alarm set for
[351.46] Frank: two o'clock in the morning to come and watch like the heat of
[355.58] Frank: that we're in. And, you know, I remember there was particularly,
[359.94] Frank: you know, there was some very, very dramatic racing going on.
[363.5] Frank: There's
[364.22] David Allen: Matt was doing his commentary and he really was doing his
[366.62] David Allen: best there and he had plenty to commentate on. And that our
[370.62] David Allen: best heat as Team GB are was when our two competitors went up
[375.54] David Allen: against each other. And one of them we thought would definitely
[378.62] David Allen: be knocked out but they both actually got through the story
[381.18] David Allen: if you haven't actually watched that yet. But if you do watch
[384.14] David Allen: it, they do both get through on that heat. If you go to the BDRA
[388.58] David Allen: website, there's actually a link there, which will take you
[391.58] David Allen: straight to that, that footage where Owen and the guys were
[400.3] David Allen: flying against each other for a whole two minutes and whatever.
[403.38] David Allen: And they were the actual only two that completed it. And it was
[407.42] Frank: it was a very, very dramatic thing. I mean, to give some
[411.38] Frank: context, it was it was the last two of the team GBR that were
[416.62] Frank: still in the racing, right? It was the double elimination
[420.22] Frank: finals, the lower bracket. So basically, if you if you don't
[423.3] Frank: finish first or second in this race, you're out. That's it.
[427.3] Frank: That's your journey done. And they're up against, you know, it
[432.26] Frank: just so happened, luckily draw these two team GB pilots are in
[435.46] Frank: this same one of these lower bracket heats. So, you know, it
[439.18] Frank: was almost head to heads, you you've got to win this to get
[443.46] Frank: through. And then, you know, the two of them are absolutely
[449.06] Frank: going hell for leather, but sort of, you know, falling back
[452.34] Frank: behind, I think it was the Japanese pilots, I think were
[455.58] Frank: sort of pushing way, way ahead. And it looked like, you know,
[460.1] Frank: the team GB were both going to get knocked out. And then one of
[463.58] Frank: the other pilots like, crashed out something and disappeared
[466.98] Frank: like, Hey, we're gonna get one through. And then, you know, it
[471.38] Frank: looks like, Oh, no, he's too far behind. We're not gonna get the
[475.26] Frank: other one, we're not gonna get the other one. And then the the
[478.1] Frank: other pilot also crashes out. And like the last on the last
[481.82] Frank: lap, the last corner last lap, and then you've got both pilots
[485.46] Frank: through. Yes, you're in for another another, another round.
[488.94] Frank: It's very good. Very dramatic.
[490.54] David Allen: Yeah, there was a really tricky obstacle there right at the end
[493.42] David Allen: just before the finish line, which was a dive gate. Now,
[496.22] David Allen: Steven, you would have been pleased to see that they weren't
[498.46] David Allen: dive gates in our test. Because dive gates are probably the worst
[502.34] David Allen: thing that you can do. And it's certainly something that's put
[504.9] David Allen: me off of racing a little bit, to be honest, because I'm too
[508.26] David Allen: crap to go through them really. But it was it was the saviour
[513.42] David Allen: for Joshi to get through. And Joshi and Owen got through and
[517.02] David Allen: into the next round. And that was a good day. I mean, we saw
[521.1] David Allen: lots of emotions during that. I remember one round and I won't
[525.46] David Allen: say who I was assisting because being team manager, I had to
[528.5] David Allen: stand next to them. And I said, I'm really sorry, you've not
[531.06] David Allen: got through. And his head was in his hands. And he disappeared
[534.7] David Allen: for 15 minutes in a mature way, but just a moment to to compose
[539.38] David Allen: himself. And then we found out that actually, someone had made
[543.62] David Allen: a mistake earlier on the track. And so he was back in it again.
[547.14] David Allen: And it was just it's really was now by the roller coaster. I'm
[551.46] David Allen: not sure it's really worth me watching the whole 36 hours of
[554.54] David Allen: the broadcast. Maybe the highlights.
[558.34] Frank: I mean, to be honest, I did enjoy a lot of the streaming
[562.74] Frank: just to see how these poor, poor cameramen have been tasked
[567.86] Frank: with following like racing quads around a racing track. But
[572.1] Frank: particularly when it was nighttime, and you had some
[575.46] Frank: LEDs that like nicely lit up against background, it wasn't
[579.3] Frank: too bad. And after a few days of this, they got pretty good. But
[583.34] Frank: at the beginning, you should just you should just go have a
[586.06] Frank: look just for spend 30 seconds looking at some of the first
[590.46] Frank: rounds of racing and the camera guys trying to follow like a
[594.14] Frank: quads like going full speed middle of the day, like basically
[598.62] Frank: just a dot in the background. Oh my god, what's you just got lots
[602.54] Frank: of shots of like, oh, there was a quad here a second ago, there
[604.98] Frank: was a quad here a second ago.
[606.5] Stephen: Here's a date they'll probably be here anytime now.
[610.66] David Allen: I think at the early part of the broadcast on on day one, maybe
[614.58] David Allen: day two as well, they were having issues actually getting
[617.06] David Allen: the live stream into the TV broadcast. And I think once they
[621.46] David Allen: got that they could then use that to fill while they got
[624.1] David Allen: other cameras into position, etc. But yeah, surely. Well, as
[628.66] David Allen: you as you all know, from being a spotter, it's very difficult
[631.42] David Allen: to work out which one you're actually supposed to be spotting
[633.66] David Allen: if you're doing that sometimes. And did you go through that
[637.14] David Allen: gate? I haven't got a clue normally have any other quarter
[639.58] David Allen: of a lap and you've finished. Yeah, it was really good that
[644.3] David Allen: they were led lit and the colors were excellent. And I
[648.94] David Allen: think that's something we'd like to do over here.
[652.02] Frank: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the track looks very exciting as
[655.9] Frank: well. I mean, we're used to sort of some fairly bare bones, gates
[661.74] Frank: things. I mean, there's the inflatable things that have been
[664.18] Frank: turning up and that's that's been making it a lot easier as a
[667.38] Frank: spectator to know what's going on. But the course out there, I
[671.98] Frank: reckon the budget is slightly higher than any of the points
[677.1] Stephen: of LEDs. I think with some of the racing, don't they have a
[680.22] Stephen: minimum number of LEDs that you have to have on your quad?
[683.98] David Allen: For the world championships, we were told that we had to have
[687.78] David Allen: 40 LEDs. Yeah, and the cards had to be able to show I think it
[692.58] David Allen: was six colors. And no matter what angle basically the quad
[696.78] David Allen: was at, it had to be visible when the light had to be there.
[700.34] David Allen: And to be honest, putting light bulbs on the outside of a piece
[705.38] David Allen: of carbon fiber as you're flying it into gates and things like
[708.86] David Allen: that doesn't really enhance durability. So the the LEDs did
[715.62] David Allen: get replaced. And I don't think many people had them last more
[719.34] David Allen: than a day, let alone the whole competition.
[721.82] Stephen: Can you kind of align them inside the airframe so they're
[724.82] Stephen: visible, but not actually acting as a kind of roll cage for the
[729.78] David Allen: quad? Yeah, the rules were quite specific, unfortunately,
[734.22] David Allen: and I think they're going to be reviewed because when they were
[737.3] David Allen: written, LEDs were nowhere near as bright as they are now. And
[741.42] David Allen: so cob lights weren't actually allowed for some of the some of
[746.5] David Allen: the events. So what's come out since is like a cob light that
[751.74] David Allen: you basically it's almost like drawing on with a fluorescent
[755.26] David Allen: marker around the edge of the frame. And so it's three
[757.98] David Allen: millimeters high or something like that. And it looks really
[759.94] David Allen: good. But it doesn't color change. So it's one color. And
[764.14] Stephen: you've got to peel it off and get another. When I was out in
[766.42] Stephen: Croatia, one guy turned up with with those I think they're, is
[769.46] Stephen: it flywheel, rye flight? Who does a set? You can buy them in
[773.26] Stephen: you know, red, green and blue.
[778.14] David Allen: It was brilliant. I hope we see some more dusk racing over here.
[782.74] David Allen: And I hope we see some LEDs come here.
[785.54] Frank: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think if if we were hosting it,
[789.62] Frank: it would have to be an indoor event. Anyways, maybe we should
[791.74] Frank: turn the lights off.
[794.74] David Allen: Yeah, they were pretty bright. But yeah, probably, there is
[799.18] David Allen: something you have to be waterproof.
[801.66] David Allen: Well, exactly. Yeah. Windproof, very windproof at the moment.
[806.3] David Allen: Well, windproof would be a good thing. And it would have been a
[809.38] David Allen: good thing for the obstacles out in Korea as well. Because the
[813.18] David Allen: wind picked up, didn't it really? And a few of the
[816.3] David Allen: obstacles got lost. Two of them got taken out of the event
[820.02] David Allen: permanently. And they weren't that robustly made having said
[824.62] David Allen: that they were about four meters or so tall. So when they came
[827.46] David Allen: crashing down and laid flat on the floor, they weren't one gate
[830.98] David Allen: anymore. And to put them back together. And I think the facing
[837.06] David Allen: on them was was three mil ply and a quad will go through three
[841.18] David Allen: mil ply. And what was happening on a couple of occasions, it
[844.58] David Allen: would go through the face of the gate and not come out the other
[847.74] David Allen: side and drop down in middle. So it then became a bit of an
[851.74] David Allen: exercise in how to get the thing back because of course, they
[855.06] David Allen: didn't necessarily disconnect. So that wasn't very good. We
[858.5] Frank: couldn't carry on being transmitted on a channel that
[862.26] Frank: you really really need when you've only got five channels
[865.34] Frank: that you can really use. That's right. I've ever heard of people
[867.66] Stephen: use ply for gates before I thought it was all plumbing
[870.3] Stephen: supplies and fabric.
[872.7] Frank: That's what I mean. This was a much higher budget looking track
[877.18] Frank: than normal.
[878.82] David Allen: This was in the millions. But it wasn't we were I hope to think
[884.78] David Allen: the prestigious part of the whole show. But the show was
[889.02] David Allen: also about showing what South Korean technology was about
[893.66] David Allen: really, and they were using it as a fair to pull in people that
[897.9] David Allen: want to buy a drone for crop spraying or surveying or I think
[904.46] David Allen: there might have been a bit of military use that was being
[907.22] David Allen: lightly talked about when we were there. Yeah, it was it was
[912.62] David Allen: part of a bigger show. And I don't think we'd ever get funding
[916.38] David Allen: like that over here.
[919.46] Stephen: It happened over here and that the government got wind, you may
[922.1] Stephen: end up with a BA and others coming in and like, oh, by the
[926.26] Stephen: way, we then sell some sort of defensive drones, if you like,
[930.06] Stephen: you know, defensive with a couple of missiles as optional,
[932.82] Stephen: you know?
[933.66] David Allen: Yeah, well, we we've done a few articles since we got back and
[938.66] David Allen: they've been picked up and they've been read by various
[940.82] David Allen: people. And we've had some positive feedback. And I can't
[944.66] David Allen: name names, but several people have come forward and said they're
[947.22] David Allen: looking at sponsoring us for next year. I don't think they're
[950.42] David Allen: going to give us millions. But it might it might cover the air
[953.62] David Allen: fair because it is expensive to get all the way to Korea.
[956.66] David Allen: Where we've been next year, I don't know.
[958.9] David Allen: I heard it was Italy, but maybe that is just rumor at this point.
[963.58] David Allen: The only substantiation to what was on that was on the chat. I
[968.1] David Allen: don't I don't think there's any officialness to that.
[972.74] Curry: So one of the things it's always tricky to get across in in drone
[978.22] Curry: racing is getting an audience to watch it and understand it. You
[982.9] Curry: touched on the cameras not be able to follow. And you said
[985.26] Curry: there was people viewing it. Do you think they got a pretty
[988.78] Curry: good idea of what was going on? Was was the track adequately?
[992.18] Curry: Because sometimes you see stuff and it's like, oh, they haven't
[994.74] Curry: put like an idea of where you're turning next. So you see
[997.82] Curry: someone's DVR footage and it's just like sideways flying
[1000.66] Curry: because you're going into turn so early and it's really
[1003.1] David Allen: Yeah, we went up the next level or they went up the next level
[1007.06] David Allen: from cones. They had two lines down on the floor, two lines of
[1011.14] David Allen: LEDs across the whole track. It's I still don't think it's
[1017.26] David Allen: something people are going to watch for 36 hours, which really
[1020.22] Curry: was the length of the event. They were exceptionally watching
[1023.1] Curry: anything for 36 hours. It's quite a push really, I mean, I
[1027.14] David Allen: watched a Formula One, but I mean, what's that across the
[1029.86] David Allen: weekend, 12 hours, something like that. And that is is top
[1033.1] David Allen: class broadcasting. I think it I think it probably edits down to
[1039.46] David Allen: a nice half hour. I'd like to just skip through on these and
[1045.7] Stephen: watch the the actual DVR parts, you know, the the VTX
[1049.62] Stephen: transmissions, I there's a lot of talking heads and a lot of
[1052.42] Stephen: people looking at stuff with screwdrivers in the pits and
[1055.3] Stephen: things. And a lot of yeah, those wide angle shots where you're
[1059.66] Stephen: like, there's there's something moving on screen, hunt the
[1062.72] Stephen: pixel. But it'd be nice to just get the the actual pilot's views
[1067.02] Stephen: and just just watch that as you know, kind of a canned
[1070.74] Stephen: version.
[1071.58] David Allen: Yes, and they did come available on the last day. On the last
[1075.9] David Allen: day, there was a Twitch stream put up and you could actually
[1079.06] David Allen: watch the pilot views. But up until that point, I think that
[1082.5] David Allen: something that they can probably take away from the event,
[1085.58] David Allen: pulling everything together like that. I don't know how many
[1089.46] David Allen: rehearsals they did beforehand. I mean, we've all run events.
[1093.1] David Allen: And we know how difficult it is to rehearse things, especially
[1096.14] David Allen: because you haven't got a full crew there. But yeah, I think it
[1102.66] David Allen: would have been good as you say, if there'd been more pilot
[1105.54] David Allen: eyeline.
[1106.74] Frank: But you can imagine that, you know, you've got you've got
[1109.26] Frank: this broadcaster there who's used to covering sports events at
[1113.82] Frank: that stadium. And you've got someone there who knows how to
[1117.94] Frank: run an HD0 event unit. And then you've got to somehow join the
[1124.14] Frank: two together and have the video receiver in the right place to
[1128.98] Frank: get a decent signal all the way around, but also pass it through
[1133.1] Frank: into the video mixing system. There's a challenge there that
[1137.46] Frank: maybe the two sides thought was a lot simpler than it actually
[1141.66] Frank: turned out to be.
[1142.9] David Allen: And you've got to get the commercial side of that right as
[1145.22] David Allen: well. I'll say no more.
[1148.26] Frank: Oh, yeah. But it was it. I enjoyed watching it. It was good
[1154.26] Frank: fun. I mean, talking about the colours as well. So it's got the
[1157.74] Frank: six colours because it's the the having the colours match the
[1162.46] Frank: frequency that they're on for that race. And you're having to
[1165.18] Frank: switch between frequencies a lot for each race. I couldn't work
[1169.46] Frank: out when the frequencies were being switched. I mean, that's
[1172.38] Frank: a challenge in sort of normal event worlds.
[1176.14] David Allen: Well, we'd normally use lifetime, wouldn't we really to do all of
[1179.54] David Allen: that for us. And it would tell us when it was going to be
[1181.5] David Allen: switched. The colours always went with one particular channel.
[1188.26] David Allen: And we were sent because we had quite a bit of time in between
[1191.14] David Allen: races sometimes, the colours were checked and the frequencies
[1196.7] David Allen: were checked when they were collecting the quads from the
[1198.9] David Allen: round before. So what didn't happen was they weren't maybe
[1203.86] David Allen: there was one or two occasions across each day or something
[1207.14] David Allen: like that, where people are on the wrong channel. But you
[1210.62] David Allen: couldn't really, it was a bit of a fail safe really, because if
[1213.94] David Allen: you had the right lights on, you were probably on the right
[1215.74] David Allen: channel. If two of you were the same colour, probably not good.
[1219.34] David Allen: But there were people there checking it the whole time. And
[1221.7] David Allen: of course, we're not we're not dealing with newbies here, are
[1225.86] David Allen: we? We're dealing with probably and the worst case top five in
[1230.1] David Allen: each country. There were a few wild cards as well. But it was
[1234.18] David Allen: generally the top five in each country.
[1236.54] Frank: So I'm thinking back to what it will be, it will be the
[1240.62] Frank: recovering of a quad from the insides of plywood or on top of
[1243.98] Frank: a ledge or something. And, and the new new quads will be
[1248.14] Frank: setting up selecting their frequencies. And as the
[1251.94] Frank: live stream, we were watching an interview with a racer from the
[1254.62] Frank: last last round at that, but the the broadcaster was doing the
[1260.66] Frank: interviews, she was she was very good at amazing, pulling out,
[1265.66] Frank: you know, quite a bit like blood from a stone sometimes, a good
[1270.94] Frank: couple of minutes of interview across languages across. I mean,
[1274.54] Frank: it was very impressive.
[1275.66] David Allen: Well, the only person that got interviewed from the British
[1278.94] David Allen: team, because he won his round was Owen. And I don't know, I
[1283.3] David Allen: mean, my my main recollection of going to Korea was seeing Owen
[1287.18] David Allen: smiling the whole time. I don't think he stopped smiling for
[1292.1] David Allen: seven days, which was how long it was between leaving and
[1295.18] David Allen: arriving back at Heathrow.
[1298.3] Frank: It's a lot of traveling as well, right? How many time zones
[1300.9] Frank: did you have to cross for that?
[1302.34] David Allen: All of them, I think. It was an eight hour time difference. And
[1309.78] David Allen: it was a 23 hour journey to get back from Seoul. But the day
[1316.34] David Allen: before, we'd also done three taxi rides and a four hour train
[1320.58] David Allen: journey. So yeah, it was it was pretty, I don't know, I mean, it
[1327.46] David Allen: was all just so exciting. It didn't really feel tiring. We
[1330.86] David Allen: just we just all felt so so happy to be there. And I mean, I
[1334.06] David Allen: did feel like Michael Palin at one point when we were on this,
[1336.9] David Allen: we went we went to the train station to catch the Express
[1339.94] David Allen: train. And she said, No, there aren't any seats. Okay, can we
[1342.94] David Allen: stand? No, you can't get on the train. Okay, we've got a flight
[1347.26] David Allen: leaving in 24 hours. Well, you could catch a slow train and
[1351.3] David Allen: change here. And so we did that. And it was pretty much that
[1355.98] David Allen: we'll be sitting on the floor for three hours. But it was just
[1361.38] David Allen: fascinating. And the Korean culture is so different to ours.
[1365.22] David Allen: And the language is so different to ours. It was really difficult
[1368.78] David Allen: to make ourselves understood for them to make their point
[1374.74] David Allen: over to us. There were several taxi drivers that didn't hang
[1377.34] David Allen: around long enough for us to explain where we were going.
[1381.22] David Allen: Then we found Google Translate and everything was right.
[1384.38] Frank: Yeah, I'm guessing this was mainly your, your, your
[1388.54] Frank: responsibility for the team is getting the team there to the
[1392.98] Frank: race and back again, right?
[1394.86] David Allen: Yeah. And then, well, and while we were there, because with an
[1400.1] David Allen: FBI event, there's only a certain number of people that
[1403.26] David Allen: can approach the judges and the officials. And it's only the the
[1408.18] David Allen: team manager. So if you have one of these badges in team manager,
[1412.66] David Allen: and I'm going to keep that I'm gonna put that on my wall. It
[1416.86] David Allen: is only the ones with the team manager badges that were allowed
[1419.38] David Allen: to go up to the officials and say, I don't think that was
[1422.3] David Allen: right. I mean, you can't just have any pilot going along and
[1425.58] David Allen: saying no, you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be taking that lap
[1429.34] David Allen: into account and whatever. And at the end of every race, there
[1432.94] David Allen: was someone behind your seat. I don't know if you saw it with
[1436.46] David Allen: the cardboard boxes with the cardboard boxes, otherwise known
[1439.3] David Allen: as a missed marketing opportunity. And and they were
[1442.82] David Allen: watching and they were very good on this because they could
[1445.22] David Allen: actually watch the whole event. And I feel sorry for some of
[1448.14] David Allen: them, because if you were spotting for Min Chan, I mean, I
[1454.06] David Allen: don't know how you can see whether he's done half the track
[1457.62] David Allen: or something like that. So sometimes they actually watched
[1461.58] David Allen: it at half speed afterwards with a jog wheel. So they could make
[1465.22] David Allen: sure all the obstacles were gone through. And then that would be
[1469.3] David Allen: agreed with the pilot. Obviously, if if they agreed that
[1472.62] David Allen: it was three laps, it was quite easy. But if you missed the gate
[1476.42] David Allen: or something like that, they would show that to you. And
[1478.46] David Allen: then they would write you down for two laps rather than three,
[1480.74] David Allen: for example. And then either the team manager or the pilots
[1484.98] David Allen: signed off on that. And that went straight into the official
[1487.42] David Allen: results. That part of it was really good, actually. We're
[1489.58] David Allen: all nice.
[1490.86] Frank: Well, I think we we have a famous name in British FPV
[1495.54] Frank: racing to thank for that, right? Eric, I saw milling around that
[1499.7] Frank: sort of Eric Leek who ran rotor racing for basically the
[1506.34] Frank: first organized racing events in the UK.
[1510.38] David Allen: Yeah, that's right. And we went to some of those events in the
[1513.74] David Allen: early years, didn't we? Absolutely. And we were kind of,
[1517.26] David Allen: well, I don't know, competitive. And yeah, Eric was there. Of
[1522.14] David Allen: course, Eric couldn't be our judge in any occasion. Eric had
[1525.7] David Allen: to stand aside. All national teams had to be judged by someone
[1530.5] David Allen: from a different nationality.
[1532.26] David Allen: Makes sense.
[1533.66] David Allen: There was about eight judges there. And they rotated around
[1538.14] David Allen: what they might be on the start line, they might be checking
[1541.86] David Allen: channels, they might be registering pilots, etc. Or
[1546.5] David Allen: some kind of interface here and there. Yeah, class act.
[1553.22] Frank: So, I mean, the other side of this then for anyone who doesn't
[1558.18] Frank: though, and I haven't really quite understood it, how how is
[1561.1] Frank: the team selection work nowadays? How how did we end up
[1564.86] Frank: with Joshy and Owen to representing UK at the
[1571.46] Frank: international event?
[1572.82] David Allen: Yeah, it's all written down. It wasn't just just me deciding
[1577.74] David Allen: that people should come along. It was decided probably a couple
[1582.54] David Allen: of years ago now, or maybe it was tweaked a little bit in the
[1585.26] David Allen: last AGM. But we changed our season to run from July to
[1590.14] David Allen: July. And at the end of July, it was the top three that were
[1596.26] David Allen: in the BDRA rankings. So that's the top three of the people that
[1601.74] David Allen: would qualify for our championships. Of course, at the
[1605.62] David Allen: time we had to choose who was going to Korea, we hadn't had
[1608.54] David Allen: our championships. So we couldn't take that into account.
[1611.62] David Allen: And so it was the top three pilots, if one of those was a
[1616.22] David Allen: junior, then it was just the top three. And that's where we
[1619.34] David Allen: were. And, and then we other teams, though, they had a bigger
[1625.38] David Allen: group that went out there. And I think that's something that we
[1629.74] David Allen: must work on for next year, we must have a female
[1633.3] David Allen: representative in our team next year.
[1636.46] Stephen: Absolutely. Do you participate in other racing leagues as well?
[1641.34] Stephen: Is it just the FAI series? Or do you go broader and do other
[1645.66] Stephen: championships as well?
[1647.42] David Allen: And there is a European Championship. I don't think
[1650.7] David Allen: that anyone in the UK has been to that for a few years. I'm not
[1655.94] David Allen: sure who that's officiated by. Do you do you know, Andy?
[1659.98] Frank: I can't, I can't stop ahead. No.
[1664.06] Stephen: The well known ones like MultiGP and others.
[1667.78] David Allen: That's a commercial organization is mostly run by the US. Or I
[1674.14] David Allen: think it is run from the US. It isn't something that's really
[1677.78] David Allen: taken off big time over here yet. I think we're going to see a
[1682.3] David Allen: little bit of movement from our I mean, I mean, the format we
[1686.26] David Allen: were racing with the FAI event isn't actually that common in
[1689.1] David Allen: America, because they mostly run MultiGP. So they had to put a
[1693.3] Stephen: team together based on tracks and the format differ between the
[1696.66] Stephen: two of them.
[1697.78] David Allen: And the track is set by the local association. The track
[1704.1] David Allen: isn't necessarily set by the FAI for the FAI events. For
[1709.54] David Allen: MultiGP, which you might have to help me with, because I've not
[1713.14] David Allen: looked into it that much, there are a set of series tracks. So a
[1717.62] David Allen: set of tracks which are set out, which are set up all over the
[1721.7] David Allen: world. And they're quite careful.
[1724.14] Stephen: Measurements. Yeah.
[1726.94] Stephen: So every local chapter is essentially racing the same
[1729.66] Stephen: track for their their qualify around.
[1732.22] David Allen: That's right. I'm not sure how they actually check that's
[1734.3] David Allen: entirely correct. But they do that as well. There were a couple
[1738.5] David Allen: of other things that were going on there as well as the FAI
[1741.34] David Allen: events. There was drone football.
[1743.78] Frank: Yes, I saw some of that on on the stream. That looks that
[1747.78] Frank: looks we spoke to them a while ago.
[1749.9] Frank: We did it. Well, we spoke to the US, the US drone soccer
[1753.7] Frank: people. Yes, but there was
[1755.38] David Allen: tell me about it, because I never got the chance to watch it.
[1757.58] David Allen: I was just so busy for seven. It's not the easiest sport to
[1761.78] Stephen: track. There's two teams and they they fly these quads in
[1766.06] Stephen: plastic mesh shrouds basically. And they're all specks. So
[1772.26] Stephen: there's a specific size category with specific power
[1775.34] Stephen: traded motor setup. And they've got a bunch of LEDs so they can
[1778.54] Stephen: tell whose team is who and they're flying line of sight.
[1781.86] Stephen: And it's kind of like a Hogwarts style, like little puck they
[1785.78] Stephen: have to knock around through the air into into a hoop goal, I
[1789.7] Stephen: believe.
[1790.38] Frank: So I think my understanding is so there's like, and the number
[1795.14] Frank: on each team, one of them, one or two of them is like a goal
[1797.82] Frank: keeper and the rest of them, like trying to fly through the
[1801.74] Frank: hoop on the other side of the cage.
[1806.3] Stephen: They're trying to knock something through the hoop,
[1808.74] Stephen: aren't they?
[1809.38] Stephen: I thought they were trying to just fly through the hoop.
[1811.78] Stephen: No, I think there's there's, there's, there's a ball, a kind
[1815.94] Stephen: of dumb, unpiloted thing that they have to knock around, I
[1819.58] Stephen: thought.
[1820.26] Frank: Well, we'll have to look, we'll have to look into this. But I'm
[1824.1] Frank: fairly certain that they're, they're all flown, I think.
[1827.94] David Allen: Let's move on to avoid any more controversy. And the other the
[1831.94] David Allen: other thing that was going on there was some eSports. So there
[1835.02] David Allen: were some simulators as well. It's difficult, though, if
[1838.5] David Allen: you've got pilots that are taking part in in the FAI event
[1841.82] David Allen: and on the eSports and on the football, because they might
[1844.3] David Allen: actually be called to be in all three places at the same time.
[1847.38] David Allen: So there had to be a bit of flexibility within the schedule
[1849.66] David Allen: to allow that to happen.
[1852.1] Frank: Yeah, it looked like the football was dominated by South
[1857.06] Frank: Korea and Germany. I didn't, from what I saw of the stream, I
[1862.66] Frank: didn't see any other teams getting involved. I think that's
[1866.42] Frank: fairly, fairly early days for them.
[1869.1] David Allen: To be honest, if I had known it was line of sight, I might have
[1871.58] David Allen: gone and give it a crack as well. There were other things
[1875.66] David Allen: around there as well. There was a line of sight obstacle course
[1879.22] David Allen: with one of these old drones. And I will say that I beat the
[1885.22] David Allen: rest of the team hands down in that, because they could only
[1889.06] David Allen: fly line of sight with the towel facing at them. You know, it's
[1893.74] David Allen: not proper pilots.
[1897.34] Frank: And this is where we see the BMFA logo sort of reappear on his
[1902.34] Frank: shoulder there.
[1908.5] Stephen: I checked the drone sock. I believe they are, like Frank
[1910.94] Stephen: said, all piloted. Maybe I was just looking at someone who
[1913.3] Stephen: wasn't being particularly animated before.
[1915.14] David Allen: Yeah, it's a wonderful experience. The job of a team
[1925.11] David Allen: manager comes up for renewal every year. So I'm in place
[1929.67] David Allen: pending someone else taking it over or myself being reelected
[1934.83] David Allen: or reselected, shall I say. And I really wonder again, because
[1939.75] David Allen: it was a fantastic experience. I'm not sure we'll be going out
[1943.27] David Allen: to the Far East again. But if we are, yeah, I'm in. And if we
[1947.95] David Allen: go to the next place like Italy, yeah, I'm in. But it's an
[1952.23] David Allen: experience. It's a great time. But I wouldn't really call it a
[1956.47] David Allen: holiday. It wasn't really a time restful. No, I mean, on the go.
[1964.39] David Allen: Yeah, yeah, all the time and finding out and I don't think
[1969.31] David Allen: Korea is quite a dry country. But we certainly didn't find any
[1972.55] David Allen: pubs anyway. It was great to meet all the other teams. I
[1978.23] David Allen: think something that I don't know, you mentioned it there,
[1982.15] David Allen: Stephen, that the cameras went into the pits and showed some of
[1986.15] David Allen: the footage from there. I didn't see any of that. And certainly
[1989.19] David Allen: they weren't in our pits. And I think that's a real shame
[1992.55] David Allen: because they could have cut to some of that between some of the
[1995.79] David Allen: races. And I think that would have been quite interesting.
[1998.79] Stephen: Instead of just pilots looking nervous, doing something
[2003.63] Stephen: interesting and more technical. Yeah, in front of a cardboard
[2007.15] Stephen: box that hasn't got advertising. Yes.
[2013.11] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience
[2016.23] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only
[2019.75] Frank: sensors to please the iTunes people hosted on the internet
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[2036.35] Stephen: slash let's drone out. So I noticed Minh Chang Kim won,
[2043.11] Stephen: which seems to be his permanent place. He lives there on the
[2048.19] Stephen: podium. What was it like kind of racing up against him? Was he
[2053.63] Stephen: obviously just in a in a league of his own because he looks like
[2056.83] Stephen: a machine when you see the footage.
[2058.99] David Allen: It was a bit of an eye opener actually, because we were going
[2061.91] David Allen: there thinking that you know, we'd have a lot of chance of
[2066.51] David Allen: winning it, but certainly be up at the top level being being
[2069.91] David Allen: pretty competitive. But yeah, they did seem to take a step up
[2074.67] David Allen: from where we were. But this is a good thing. And this is the
[2077.23] David Allen: point from which we can learn and the point which we can move
[2079.51] David Allen: forward from. For us, because the track was so big, it meant
[2084.15] David Allen: that most pilots were flying a quad that was quite outside of
[2087.59] David Allen: their normal comfort zone. The track was so long that everybody
[2092.23] David Allen: had special batteries made up. So everyone was flying 1850s,
[2096.19] David Allen: etc.
[2097.03] Stephen: 1856s on a 5 inch.
[2099.67] David Allen: Yeah, wow. So they had quite different characteristics. It
[2106.15] David Allen: was a very fast flowing track. I mean, there were thoughts
[2109.51] David Allen: before we went away that maybe we should be going there with
[2112.43] David Allen: six inch, etc. Because that was still within the rules. So we
[2115.71] David Allen: could have something that was more efficient. So I think, I
[2119.03] David Allen: think for next time, and what did happen was the track came
[2122.75] David Allen: out on it wasn't Velocidrone, it was as another simulation
[2127.43] David Allen: software, which again, we hadn't really used. So we weren't
[2130.67] David Allen: really familiar with that as well.
[2132.95] Stephen: Is that the one? Sorry, I just decided to unminimize it. So it
[2137.07] Stephen: looks like there is a lot of space there. This is a huge, very
[2141.83] Stephen: very wide track. I'm taking that as that's all the elements of
[2144.51] Stephen: the track that we're looking at.
[2145.75] David Allen: Although that's not actually the track.
[2149.15] Stephen: That's just a fancy little graphic set up for the ceremony.
[2152.59] David Allen: No, it is the track as was set up for the ceremony. And the
[2156.75] David Allen: reason is that shape is so that when you look down from above,
[2159.67] David Allen: which I'm not sure anyone actually did, it looks like a
[2161.99] David Allen: quad. Yeah, so it was quite confusing when we were doing the
[2167.51] David Allen: when the guys were doing the warm up, because they were
[2169.87] David Allen: saying we've been practicing on the sim, but it's not the same
[2172.95] David Allen: track, it's a different layout where we go these, these split
[2176.23] David Allen: essays and switchback gates, etc. And they said, yes, well, if
[2179.63] David Allen: we put the lights out to do the actual track, which we're racing
[2183.95] David Allen: tomorrow, by the way, so don't worry about it, then it doesn't
[2186.19] David Allen: look like a quad when you view it from 500 people.
[2190.39] David Allen: So some practice was a little bit
[2194.23] David Allen: old in the terms that we weren't really flying that.
[2196.71] Stephen: Yeah, this looks like a really large space for, you know, modern
[2201.47] Stephen: quad racing is typically pretty technical small tracks, whereas
[2205.99] Stephen: this just looks like wide open the whole way.
[2209.75] David Allen: GGB quad racing, quad racing we do over here is generally on
[2214.91] David Allen: much smaller tracks. I think this track was about twice the
[2218.23] David Allen: length of our championship track this year. So it's quite
[2222.75] David Allen: a different thing. It's like, you know, without wishing to say
[2227.87] David Allen: we are F1 is like an F1 car go into an Indy car circuit. It's
[2233.79] David Allen: all much bigger. It's all quite different. It looks same, but
[2237.83] David Allen: it's not round. Yes. But they really ripped and what was
[2243.67] David Allen: really good and worked really well for the telly was the you
[2247.35] David Allen: can see it down there bottom right hand side where you've
[2250.15] David Allen: got those two lines and the orange and red square. That was
[2254.27] David Allen: basically off the start line and you shot down there went up a
[2257.23] David Allen: ramp at the end and then came back through the red one and
[2259.47] David Allen: came back down. And I saw a hum they had a speed camera on
[2263.91] David Allen: that. And I saw 195 kph on that. I never saw it go over 200 but
[2271.23] David Allen: they were doing 195 kilometers per hour down there.
[2275.63] Stephen: With a gigantic battery, which most people would never consider
[2279.83] Stephen: flying. Yeah, that's right.
[2282.71] Curry: We had to think about 18650 is being used because you don't
[2285.59] Curry: associate them. Oh, it's an 1850 ma. Oh, 1850. I thought you
[2290.19] Curry: said 18650. Yeah, huge success batteries in and how long was
[2296.43] Curry: it was it lapped or in terms of number of laps or was it timed?
[2300.91] David Allen: And it was three laps. I don't even know what the maximum time
[2305.63] David Allen: you had to do it was because no one took that long. It was what
[2311.35] David Allen: was it now was about 20 second laps, 22 second laps, something
[2315.71] David Allen: like that. And the thing our guys are up at 27 second laps.
[2320.99] David Allen: So it was all over in just over a minute, even though it was a
[2325.63] David Allen: massive track. And those batteries were toasty at the end
[2329.07] David Allen: of that. It's a bit, it's a bit swollen.
[2333.11] David Allen: Yeah, a little bit. But I don't know, we got to think really, if
[2339.23] David Allen: we want to go and take part in these events, then this must in
[2343.39] David Allen: some ways, maybe become something we do a bit more. I
[2345.95] David Allen: mean, it's a question we've got to put to, to the membership
[2348.87] David Allen: really about where we want to go with our hobby. Well, with our
[2353.35] Frank: discipline. How is the BDRA running in relation to the BMFA?
[2363.43] Frank: Because I believe the BMFA sponsored a lot of this, you
[2367.39] Frank: know, pay for a lot of money to get everyone out there. Yeah.
[2371.79] Frank: Running between between the two at the moment.
[2374.43] David Allen: There's a relationship between the the BDRA and the BMFA. We are
[2380.35] David Allen: separately administered. They do provide us with some
[2384.55] David Allen: facilities. For example, they host a website and provide the
[2388.19] David Allen: emails, etc. And we're a specialist body for them. That
[2391.63] David Allen: brings about some obligations for us in terms of the way we
[2395.75] David Allen: run things. But strangely, and I didn't realise this, but one of
[2399.99] David Allen: the obligations was that we yeah, one of the obligations was
[2404.31] David Allen: that we, we don't actually have to be BMFA members to take part
[2408.87] David Allen: in a BDRA event. Which I thought that would have been
[2413.11] David Allen: compulsory, but it certainly not. And they provided us with a
[2418.11] David Allen: lot of support. They provided us with the majority of our
[2421.27] David Allen: funding, I think about a third of our funding. And then we had
[2424.59] David Allen: some money from a few sponsors and a GoFundMe page as well. And
[2429.15] David Allen: that paid for our trip over there. Still had to be topped up
[2434.99] David Allen: a bit by by those going, but it got us most away there. This
[2439.67] David Allen: year, we're hoping that we're going to get on the sponsorship
[2442.91] David Allen: train, sponsorship bandwagon earlier, so that we can fulfill
[2447.43] David Allen: that gap and then then give our pilots what we now know would
[2451.83] David Allen: have been better for them and enable them to be better
[2454.43] David Allen: prepared and maybe do better because we came ninth out of 28
[2459.19] David Allen: teams. And it would be great to do better than that. I mean, not
[2463.83] David Allen: all pilots had their best weekend. And if we could just
[2468.75] David Allen: get everybody up to that level, we would have done fantastically
[2473.03] David Allen: well. I mean, you know, it's tough, isn't it? It's tough when
[2478.23] David Allen: it starts going wrong on on day one, and you're fixing and the
[2482.31] David Allen: whole three days you got a soldering iron in your hand.
[2488.07] Frank: Yeah, well, I don't know. That's, that's my entire experience
[2491.59] David Allen: of racing. So this might be why we're not there, managerial
[2496.19] David Allen: capacity there.
[2497.39] Stephen: But because you don't you don't have a 12 quads, so you can just
[2501.19] Stephen: pick up another one and carry on.
[2503.79] David Allen: Three was the limit. And they all marked him when we got there.
[2507.87] David Allen: And you had to use a quad that was marked to take part in the
[2512.23] David Allen: event. Three was the maximum. I mean, there was a bit triggers
[2515.15] David Allen: broom, to be honest. And, you know, they didn't they didn't
[2518.67] David Allen: mark lots of pieces of the quad. So you could have swapped it
[2521.35] David Allen: over, but nobody did that. I mean, realistically, everyone's
[2525.31] David Allen: got their favorite quad, and then another one, and then
[2527.71] David Allen: another one. And by the time you're getting to the fourth and
[2529.71] David Allen: fifth, and this, you really are just having them built for you
[2533.39] David Allen: in a factory, then they're not going to be your favorites
[2536.47] David Allen: anymore. So I don't know about you guys, but if one of my
[2541.39] David Allen: quads is broken, I want to fix that really, of a weekend, I
[2545.27] David Allen: probably should just bin it and start with another one. But I
[2548.87] David Allen: think that's, you know, not running LEDs and not knowing how
[2553.35] David Allen: LEDs would would work. And the fact you can get shorts and
[2558.19] David Allen: fires with LEDs, etc, which happened. Yeah, it was, was a
[2564.59] David Allen: learning experience.
[2566.55] Curry: I think it's a pretty good result, though. I mean, going
[2568.59] Curry: over in a completely different sort of track, maybe not with
[2572.55] Curry: the right gear for it and having just to to adapt getting ninth
[2576.75] Curry: out of 28 is pretty good. It is if you could be prepared for
[2582.51] Curry: that and have the right practice in the right words, I
[2585.83] Curry: think that would be interesting. But do you think wherever it is
[2590.03] Curry: next year, the sort of the format of the sort of the big
[2593.07] Curry: flowy track will be the same? Or is that going to depend on the
[2595.99] Curry: country and the sort of particular place putting it on?
[2601.27] David Allen: They have been big flowy tracks in previous years. So I think
[2606.51] David Allen: it might be reasonable to assume that it would be. But whether
[2612.95] David Allen: they will be or not, if if it's in Italy, I don't know. We will
[2619.03] David Allen: find out I think it's six weeks before they publish the track.
[2623.71] David Allen: And just to go back to our rankings, actually, we were
[2627.55] David Allen: there amongst about 130 competitors, something like that.
[2633.19] David Allen: And overall, we secured 30th place for Owen, sorry, 20th
[2640.03] David Allen: place for Owen, 32nd for Joshi and 56th for Saul. And though
[2646.67] David Allen: Joshi did 15th out of a very competitive junior field as
[2650.75] David Allen: well. So we did well, my personal aim was top 10, but I
[2655.67] David Allen: didn't tell anyone's afterwards.
[2656.99] Frank: So what's what's the plan for the next one then, I guess is I
[2666.31] Frank: mean, because there's going to be the selection through the
[2669.07] Frank: same process through British qualifying events. So that's the
[2673.79] Frank: thing to look out for if anyone wants to race competitively is
[2677.31] Frank: the qualifying event for QE's. Yeah, to get the points.
[2684.39] David Allen: I don't think you were at the AGM this year. And I don't think
[2689.39] David Allen: any of you guys were actually but there were there were
[2691.99] David Allen: thoughts expressed about because we are in an area now where
[2696.15] David Allen: we're having fewer pilots competing events. So and you
[2699.43] David Allen: must remember when we used to go to Western Park, if you hadn't
[2702.83] David Allen: signed up by 30 seconds past eight, you were getting in. There
[2706.87] David Allen: were times when the website crashed because so many people
[2710.27] David Allen: wanted to sign up at the same time. They said it was PayPal
[2713.79] David Allen: crashed, but I don't think even PayPal was it's going to be
[2716.43] David Allen: overloaded by 70 people, etc. And I remember they had to
[2720.23] David Allen: increase the field from 60 to 72. Because so many people had
[2725.07] David Allen: signed up so quickly, it was impossible to see what order they
[2727.83] David Allen: went through it, that it was extended. So we need to get back
[2731.71] David Allen: to that. And at the AGM this year, there were several people
[2737.51] David Allen: talking about changing things around. And we've got a new
[2740.87] David Allen: committee now to make it more, you know, we want to get back
[2748.99] David Allen: to, well, maybe not if I don't get in, in the first minute, I
[2753.39] David Allen: don't get in, but it would be nice to fully sell out events
[2757.15] David Allen: for certain. And so the whole BQE format is, is going to be
[2762.99] David Allen: discussed over the months of November and December. And then
[2767.03] David Allen: I know that there are events scheduled for very early in the
[2771.59] David Allen: new year. And again, we'll run through to the end of July, the
[2775.15] David Allen: team will be selected at the end of July. And I think that the
[2777.39] David Allen: world championships will be around about October again,
[2781.31] David Allen: something like that. It's actually really difficult. And I
[2784.67] David Allen: didn't really appreciate it from the outside to get all of these
[2787.27] David Allen: dates to come together. We're talking about planning events a
[2791.51] David Allen: year away and you think, well, God, it's a year away, you can
[2793.91] David Allen: sort it out. But no, it's it's a complicated puzzle to put
[2798.15] David Allen: together.
[2799.19] Frank: Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of people with a
[2803.11] Frank: lot of
[2803.51] Stephen: especially with people who are, you know, not doing this
[2807.11] Stephen: professionally and have to work around real life jobs.
[2810.55] David Allen: Yeah, I am really lucky that I don't have a full time job. And
[2816.39] David Allen: I think I would have really, really struggled to fulfill the
[2820.19] David Allen: role as team GBR manager, if I was working full time as well,
[2825.31] David Allen: especially in the jobs that I had, because it was fully full
[2828.47] David Allen: on.
[2829.23] Stephen: And my sponsorship needs to go further than free props.
[2835.07] David Allen: Well, I'm not suggesting it should be a paid position,
[2837.19] David Allen: Steven, but you know, I had a great time. But it wasn't a
[2843.79] David Allen: holiday, as I say.
[2845.19] Frank: Yeah, if you get reselected for next year, how do you think
[2850.67] Frank: years? What would you do differently to prepare pilots?
[2857.03] David Allen: To prepare the pilots, I think that we should remember that we
[2862.07] David Allen: are a team. We have to I mean, it must be like golfers going off
[2867.19] David Allen: on the Ryder Cup. I mean, for the whole year, they compete
[2870.67] David Allen: against each other. And then they all play for the same team
[2874.07] David Allen: or for two teams in the Ryder Cup. And I think we need to make
[2877.55] David Allen: that happen earlier. So that so that you know, all the guys or
[2881.91] David Allen: girls and whatever are all trying to do the same thing
[2884.55] David Allen: that's best for the team, because it is, in a way, a team
[2887.35] David Allen: competition. I think the importance of the simulator is
[2892.59] David Allen: going to matter. And I just wonder if, you know, you ask the
[2900.23] David Allen: question, Wayne about, you know, do I think it's going to be a
[2903.87] David Allen: big track again? I mean, if we make all our tracks big this
[2906.91] David Allen: year, and then they put a small track on, if we go to Italy or
[2910.31] David Allen: wherever else it is, then we're not going to have got that
[2912.79] Stephen: right. You can have variety though, just surprising people.
[2917.43] Frank: Yeah, yeah.
[2919.07] Frank: I guess the struggle there is, is having the space to safely
[2922.63] Frank: have a big fast track. I mean, usually, you know, the track
[2926.39] Frank: designs are quite heavily targeted towards lots of
[2930.91] Frank: chicanes to slow people down. So that the you know, it's it's
[2934.83] Frank: safe to do it.
[2936.47] Stephen: Pilots are sitting at 100% throttle. Yeah, because if
[2939.59] Stephen: you're sitting with an 1800 miles success on your quad and
[2942.75] Stephen: 2100 kV motors, and you're just holding the throttle wide open
[2946.99] Stephen: and something goes wrong, that thing's off like a cannonball.
[2950.67] Stephen: You're not seeing that again, you're gonna have to go walk the
[2952.71] Stephen: next field over.
[2953.83] David Allen: Yeah, yeah. And there was, there was a bit of that as well.
[2957.79] David Allen: They were very good on safety, everything was cordoned off. But
[2962.23] David Allen: there were a few quads that clipped gates flat out and they
[2966.59] David Allen: just went. They went a long way, but into a safe zone where it
[2971.35] David Allen: wasn't a problem.
[2973.51] Stephen: As you're legally mandated to say.
[2975.31] David Allen: And there were there were some, some, especially in the practice,
[2987.23] David Allen: I was quite old here, where's the first aid box? Because it
[2991.75] David Allen: felt like some people were going to be nipping their fingers
[2994.67] David Allen: because on the last day, there was a higher level of
[3000.35] David Allen: scrutiny. And they decided that you couldn't actually go and
[3004.79] David Allen: recover your own quad. So the quad were recovered by local
[3010.43] David Allen: helpers and whatever, and they weren't flyers. And what's more,
[3013.95] David Allen: they weren't actually allowed to unplug the quad. Because
[3019.83] David Allen: yeah, they had to bring it back. And so on the last day, they
[3024.47] David Allen: decided that the protocol was that you turned your transmitter
[3028.27] David Allen: off. So that the quad went into fail safe and it could not arm
[3033.11] David Allen: when some civilian helper was going and getting it and
[3036.75] David Allen: bringing it back. And the reason they decided to turn the quad
[3040.03] David Allen: off was because when one of the guys was doing one of the
[3042.43] David Allen: excellent TV reviews, someone took the transmitter off him,
[3047.39] David Allen: click the switch next in the arm. No, no injuries occurred from
[3051.67] David Allen: this, but that's what actually happened. So on the last day, it
[3054.79] David Allen: was turning transmitter off, they bring it over. And also some
[3059.15] David Allen: nationalities were complaining about people didn't really know
[3063.19] David Allen: what they were doing, pulling the plugs out because they just
[3065.95] David Allen: be pulling on the end of the XT 60 rather than be pulling a pair
[3069.43] David Allen: of wires. And so it was starting to come off the board, etc. So
[3073.47] David Allen: I don't know, maybe that's something that needs to be a
[3075.07] David Allen: bit better next time. But the concern was that if the pilot or
[3081.07] David Allen: a helper went and, and recovered across that they could metal
[3085.87] David Allen: with it in such a way that it would then pass scrutiny. But no
[3090.71] David Allen: one no one found scrutiny in the end. Sometimes the threat of
[3094.91] David Allen: actually having a speed camera negates the speeding, doesn't
[3097.71] David Allen: that really? And I think that was the case here, you will be
[3100.43] Stephen: scrutiny or okay.
[3102.51] Stephen: What about speed soldering practice as well to get those
[3105.51] Stephen: quads up and running every loud three year, do you need to get
[3109.15] Stephen: people used to soldering and get things up and running in five,
[3112.83] Stephen: maybe three minutes, instead of having a whole weekend to tinker
[3116.43] Stephen: and make a cup of tea and think about it?
[3118.83] David Allen: Oh, you've not been to many race events.
[3123.07] Stephen: No hurry then no hurry.
[3124.83] David Allen: No, this rush rush rush the whole time, isn't it really? And
[3128.19] David Allen: even soul who had the most terrible of luck, really, I
[3132.67] David Allen: mean, his his practice session, the extended practice session on
[3136.75] David Allen: the first day, he must have really rude that because he
[3139.83] David Allen: damaged a lot of gear in that and that's what he spent all of
[3142.39] David Allen: his time recovering from. And I've got pictures of us all
[3146.23] David Allen: sitting there at 10 o'clock at night back in the hotel
[3149.47] David Allen: soldering, to get his bits and pieces back into place and you
[3154.31] David Allen: know, we're still sorting out breakfast as well. And that and
[3158.75] David Allen: if I got the angle, right, I probably would have seen the
[3160.79] David Allen: hotel owner in the background looking very unhappy with
[3164.55] David Allen: soldering on why he soldering at your breakfast table. Yeah.
[3168.55] Frank: Because little puffs of smoke coming from his very nice table.
[3171.27] David Allen: Yeah, it's yeah, but we was just a fabulous, fabulous
[3177.99] David Allen: experience. I was very, very lucky to go and I really want
[3182.55] David Allen: to do it again. And I really want to do this time next year
[3186.19] Stephen: for whoever ends up taking the bat on whether it's you or
[3189.03] Stephen: someone else. But you know, it's great to see that team GVR is
[3193.67] Frank: out there doing stuff. Yeah, yeah, it was it was very nice to
[3198.11] Frank: see, you know, the UK having a team out at the international
[3203.79] Frank: event. It was, it was a relief. It's been feels like it's been
[3208.91] Frank: there's been too many events that we haven't made it to.
[3211.31] David Allen: Yes, there's been. Well, yeah, we haven't made it to them, have
[3214.35] David Allen: we? We've gone to other events such as the one that was out in
[3220.03] David Allen: I can't remember. It was out in the Middle East somewhere,
[3222.67] David Allen: wasn't it? Where was that? Where Luke Bannister went and won
[3227.51] David Allen: a million dollars or something like that. But that wasn't
[3230.39] Curry: actually to buy that one, wasn't it? That's right. But that
[3234.43] David Allen: wasn't actually an FAI event, as I understand it. So that was
[3238.95] David Allen: that was as Xblades, right?
[3244.27] Stephen: You don't know that part of the history that well.
[3248.51] Curry: This is a while ago now. Yeah, Xblades was the team that won
[3252.35] Curry: because I think they they they said that split the money
[3255.39] Curry: between like the 60 odd people that were in the team, which is
[3259.35] Curry: I don't think we've got quite as much as he would have now at
[3262.71] Curry: that point of view.
[3265.31] David Allen: It was it was nice to go there. And as I say, I've got the flag
[3272.15] David Allen: over there in the background. And we walked around the stadium
[3275.43] David Allen: with that. And that's, that's my flag. I'm going to remember
[3281.15] David Allen: that, that, that and my badge. It's, yeah, lucky me.
[3287.07] Stephen: Nice memory.
[3288.39] David Allen: Do you want to talk a little bit about the achievement scheme,
[3291.55] David Allen: which I think, yeah, so just in case someone actually
[3294.07] Stephen: So you're saying I was about the rarefied few that did this
[3297.27] Stephen: voluntarily with without coercion, as a group. And I'd
[3302.39] Stephen: like to report, it's a lot easier than I thought it was
[3305.03] Stephen: going to be. It was quite relaxing, quite fun. Yeah, I'd
[3309.99] Stephen: like to encourage other people to do it just as a maybe you
[3314.23] Stephen: don't intend to do a lot of racing. It's an FPV
[3316.63] Stephen: qualification. I'm not a massive racer myself. But I think it's
[3320.19] Stephen: a great way of going above the bare minimum and showing that
[3324.47] Stephen: you know, as a community, we're, we're good at what we do. And
[3328.67] Stephen: we're not just a bunch of oiks with quads.
[3333.63] David Allen: That's right. The BMFA develops all their achievement schemes
[3337.87] David Allen: really to help everybody better themselves. There's no
[3341.19] David Allen: requirement to pass these achievement schemes. Clubs might
[3344.35] David Allen: actually have a requirement for you to be an A or a B test
[3348.55] David Allen: certificate holder if you're flying fixed wing or heli, etc.
[3352.43] David Allen: But there's no requirement at the moment for quad pilots,
[3357.19] David Allen: because there wasn't really that many qualifications, to be
[3359.79] David Allen: honest, for them to actually pass these tests. And the test
[3364.47] David Allen: itself. You did very well. It was I was quite nervous. Well,
[3371.63] David Allen: everything was still attached at the end, which is good. I don't
[3375.67] David Allen: think you even had a retest, did you? Because you're allowed to
[3378.55] David Allen: go to the test on the day. You did your practice, which was
[3383.43] David Allen: what was pretty good. And I was sorry that I made that a
[3387.15] David Allen: practice because you would have passed, especially if you did
[3389.95] David Allen: badly on the next two, because then your practice would have
[3393.19] David Allen: been a pass and your two real attempts wouldn't have been.
[3396.19] David Allen: But yeah, I mean, it's all about safety. It's all about not
[3399.95] David Allen: injuring yourself, not injuring others, not injuring the public,
[3404.27] David Allen: and being responsible, really. And I think that's something
[3408.23] David Allen: that the BMFA really strives for.
[3410.79] Frank: Yeah, they're always very keen to say that the achievement
[3417.19] Frank: scheme is there purely for your own benefit. If an event decides
[3422.19] Frank: they want you to have a B-cert to fly there, or if a club wants
[3426.03] Frank: you to have an A-cert to fly there, that's up to them. That's
[3428.95] Frank: not the BMFA saying that's what you need. That's not a
[3432.27] Frank: stipulation. I can tell you as an event organizer, it makes your
[3436.67] Frank: life a lot easier if you don't need to find a personal reference
[3441.27] Frank: for someone, they can just show you the B-cert and you're like,
[3444.03] Frank: yeah, all right, crack on. That's really why the certs get
[3449.31] Frank: required is because it makes a life a lot easier for someone
[3453.59] Frank: who's organizing something. If you're running a club, and
[3455.91] Frank: someone just comes up to you and says, look, I've got my A-cert,
[3459.07] Frank: then you're probably fine to distract on them and have a fly.
[3464.43] Frank: And you're not going to jeopardize our club. That's why
[3468.03] Frank: that happens.
[3468.51] Stephen: That was a good idea. I think we had Chris on a while ago, Chris
[3471.63] Stephen: Bradbury, talking about schemes in general. And this caught my
[3475.67] Stephen: attention because I do technically own some RC aircraft
[3481.67] Stephen: with wings, and I have in the past, destroyed several RC
[3485.71] Stephen: aircraft with wings, probably had them in the air for a total
[3489.47] Stephen: of less than 30 seconds. So I mainly fly quads. This was a
[3496.03] Stephen: qualification that targeted flying multirotors and it
[3499.67] Stephen: targeted multirotors from an FPV perspective instead of a line of
[3503.99] Stephen: sight perspective, which is important because a lot of the
[3509.07] Stephen: use of multirotors, people jump to assume it's going to be a
[3513.11] Stephen: DJI camera platform, it's going to be flown line of sight by
[3518.03] Stephen: someone who is being guided through this by a smartphone app
[3522.03] Stephen: and doesn't know what they're doing. And this kind of stigma
[3525.23] Stephen: attaches itself to a lot of multirotor users. And I thought
[3528.47] Stephen: the fact that a certification that targets multirotors with
[3532.87] Stephen: FPV, along a racing course where there's an element of
[3536.07] Stephen: skill, there's obstacles to get round, there's smoothly joining
[3540.07] Stephen: maneuvers together, it's a good thing to show that I can do as a
[3544.31] Stephen: pilot to kind of just show all the heli pilots and wing pilots
[3550.71] Stephen: who are probably justifiably suspicious of multirotor pilots
[3554.87] Stephen: that yes, you know, we can fly, we can go through this
[3558.83] Stephen: accreditation scheme the same way as they would and perform
[3562.03] Stephen: maneuvers and avoid obstacles and so on and so forth. And I
[3566.11] Stephen: think it's very important that as multirotor pilots or FPV
[3569.95] Stephen: pilots, we have something like this, to shed this stigma of
[3575.55] Stephen: being reckless and, you know, just using smartphone apps and
[3580.19] Stephen: not really having full control of our vehicles. It's important
[3584.19] Stephen: and I think it's good for the community as a whole. So that's
[3588.31] Stephen: my angle on it.
[3589.95] David Allen: Yeah, I agree with you because there's a lot of younger people
[3594.95] David Allen: that come into the quad racing and fly multi-copters, etc. And
[3600.79] David Allen: there's not a lot of young people that go into the older
[3603.31] David Allen: disciplines of wings and helis, etc. But also, as we know,
[3608.63] David Allen: there's there's also crossover, as you've described there, where
[3611.75] David Allen: someone might start young with quads, etc. And then as they get
[3616.79] David Allen: older, maybe they do helis and maybe they do wings, fixed wing,
[3620.99] David Allen: etc. scale. So it's a good thing for all of us to have more
[3625.95] David Allen: people within the community because I can go across all of
[3629.83] David Allen: them. And I'm sure lots of other people will as well. And, you
[3634.11] Stephen: know, there aren't enough young people in this hobby.
[3637.23] Stephen: Yeah, it just puts multirotors on the same footing as the wings
[3639.71] Stephen: and the helis, which I think is really positive.
[3642.63] David Allen: Hmm. So do you fancy a question or two from your your test,
[3647.99] David Allen: Stephen? Do you think you can still remember the old?
[3651.63] Stephen: Yeah, fire fire away. See if I can.
[3655.75] Stephen: Really quickly, I should say to the audience, I do not have any
[3658.51] Stephen: reference information here. And I've just had a nice IPA here.
[3662.67] David Allen: So
[3664.03] David Allen: Okay, then. So what's the maximum height that you can fly
[3669.55] Stephen: at? Without authorization of a quad this would be 400 feet 100
[3679.27] David Allen: meters. Yes, that's a I think it's 118 meters, actually. Okay,
[3684.83] David Allen: 400 feet. Yes, that's a that's a pass. And Frank, I think you
[3689.75] David Allen: should have a question as well. Go for it. Because you've only
[3692.79] David Allen: have one beer as far as I can tell you're not even showing us
[3695.87] David Allen: what the label on that is very, very, very good of you. When
[3700.59] David Allen: you're getting a little bit nervous there, I think you know
[3702.23] Curry: what's coming. I am I could have got the first question
[3704.95] Curry: brilliantly as well. I'm running out of ones I know.
[3709.19] Stephen: I think you're about to fly higher if you're not a
[3710.99] Stephen: multirotor, which always hurt me as well.
[3714.07] David Allen: So when can you fly without a dedicated spotter? And what
[3722.15] Stephen: would your limitations be? It's in a
[3728.12] Frank: there's a word for it. Yeah, it's basically at a race, but
[3732.16] David Allen: it's a sterile environment. Yeah, that's right. And can you
[3736.52] David Allen: remember how high you can go in that environment? Yeah, it's
[3741.19] Frank: like isn't it like 30 feet or something? Yeah, it's quite a bit
[3745.03] David Allen: higher. I think it's 30 meters, maybe 50 meters. I think it's 30
[3752.51] David Allen: meters. And I mean, that that that was good that we got that
[3756.67] David Allen: dispensation, because otherwise, you need a lot of spotters. When
[3759.79] David Allen: we were out in Korea, spotters were lying aside, spotters
[3763.15] David Allen: weren't allowed to take part by the goggles. And actually, the
[3768.11] David Allen: other thing I should mention is everybody that went there was
[3770.75] David Allen: given a booklet on how you fly drones in Korea. And then that
[3775.19] David Allen: was obviously part of the part of the procedure, really, and
[3778.95] David Allen: part of the tick box exercise. So, curry kitten.
[3788.07] Curry: Oh, but Frank got Frank got a hard one. Steven got an easy
[3791.83] David Allen: one. So it's time for me wanting to fly in a flight restriction
[3797.63] David Allen: zone of a protected aerodrome. Who would you have to get
[3801.63] Curry: permission from? I think I have to get permission from the the
[3806.9] David Allen: tower at the aerodrome. Yeah, it wasn't that hard, was it air
[3811.66] David Allen: traffic control, or the owners of the protected aerodrome? I've
[3816.5] David Allen: got another 20 here. But I think we've probably reached our
[3819.22] Frank: time. Yeah, we have. But I just say in the chat, there's quite a
[3822.9] Frank: lot of discussion about how the achievement scheme, the FPV set
[3826.94] Frank: relates to the liner site set. So Harry Hangis is up in
[3831.54] Frank: Scotland. So he's dealing with the Scottish. Hello, Callum.
[3837.34] Frank: I can't remember what the A.A. stands for. But the discussion
[3840.58] Frank: is probably the BMFA, I guess. It's like a special interest
[3845.06] Frank: group within the BMFA. I can't remember how they relate to each
[3847.62] Frank: other. Either way. So apparently they've got a scheme, but it
[3851.06] Frank: doesn't include multi rotors. They suggested the BMFA liner
[3854.18] Frank: site multi rotor test. Caroline Tyler is saying that the
[3859.94] Frank: multi rotor FPV is only an extension of the liner site
[3863.06] Frank: multi rotor A-cert. But I don't think that's quite right.
[3867.66] David Allen: That is correct. That is correct. The multi rotor FPV is
[3871.42] David Allen: an extension to the A-cert. And you have to do the multi rotor
[3874.46] David Allen: A-cert first. But this is a separate qualification
[3877.66] David Allen: altogether. It's to do with racing quads.
[3881.26] David Allen: So what did, what did, so what did Stephen do? I'm confused.
[3885.5] Stephen: I did the racing one.
[3886.1] Stephen: He did the racing one.
[3887.42] Stephen: So I can't fly a liner site to save my arms. Come on now.
[3891.42] Frank: Well, that's what I mean. So, so there's the racing set.
[3895.34] Stephen: Yeah.
[3896.38] Frank: And there's the multi rotor race. So that's the liner site. And
[3900.86] Frank: there's the FPV extension to that liner site one.
[3904.06] David Allen: Yeah, there's the FPV extension to the multi rotor A and B.
[3908.5] Stephen: Which I do think is a little bit backwards. Like, there's a lot
[3912.46] Stephen: of people who can fly FPV. That's why I was doing this
[3915.66] Stephen: because I thought it was important to underscore that
[3917.5] Stephen: FPV is kind of the starting path for a lot of people.
[3920.46] Stephen: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of people that if they goggles
[3923.94] Stephen: fail, they're absolutely dolphin.
[3926.14] Stephen: Like I'd have thought the line of sight multi rotor should be
[3928.66] Stephen: an extension to the FPV multi rotor really.
[3934.54] Curry: Well, we can put it forward.
[3937.3] Curry: You could do one either and then the other.
[3939.5] Curry: What I tend to think is if you have a specific FPV set, then
[3944.14] Curry: part of that as your safety thing should be your goggles
[3947.34] Curry: are out now line your craft line of sight to prove you
[3950.38] Curry: can do that because I think that's if you can flick it
[3953.5] Curry: into angle mode. Sure. Yeah, that's an important skill.
[3956.02] Curry: Everybody should know how to recover a drone if they lose
[3958.66] Curry: certain vision aspects of it. But yeah, I don't I don't think
[3963.38] Curry: many of us would be able to fly figure eights that well. Mostly
[3966.94] Curry: because we fly too fast and too low. And it's just there's a
[3969.86] Curry: recipe for disaster there when you you know, like, oh, I'm in
[3972.66] Curry: acro mode trying to do this line of sight now.
[3976.5] Stephen: Oh, what are my rates? Oh, they're 1300 degrees per second.
[3980.18] Stephen: Not a great full line of sight.
[3983.66] Frank: Regardless, Steven didn't have to do any line of sight and has
[3987.5] Frank: a piece of paper that says a piece of paper. Exactly. So I've
[3991.94] Stephen: gone the logical step that a lot of people, you know, listening
[3994.9] Stephen: and watching to this will have done, which is just to put the
[3997.66] Stephen: goggles on and start flying and, you know, after doing the
[4000.46] Stephen: simulator and bounce off things a bit and and off we go. And I
[4004.42] Stephen: did do a little bit of line of sight. I lied a bit. I started
[4006.5] Stephen: by one of those little hub sand things. But it's not something
[4009.3] Stephen: that I do more than once a year these days. So FPV is what I
[4013.38] Stephen: wanted to look at.
[4014.7] David Allen: Well, I've curry kit and gets his way you'll have to do a bit
[4017.02] David Allen: more of it, right? And you just in case you have an unfortunate
[4019.62] David Allen: moment.
[4021.1] David Allen: It's safe.
[4021.62] David Allen: Maybe it should be that your spotters should be able to fly
[4024.42] David Allen: line of sight and you just hand the transmitter over.
[4026.9] Curry: Yeah. Do we get rid of that thing about the spot has to be
[4029.54] Curry: able to take over your flight and because that you need to be a
[4032.78] Curry: super technical spotter then
[4034.54] Stephen: apply smelling salts slap you on the back.
[4038.1] David Allen: The spotters they well the spotters role is is purely about
[4041.94] David Allen: safety. It's purely about making sure you don't endanger someone
[4045.02] David Allen: else. And if you're running into trouble to tell you to dump it
[4047.66] David Allen: basically,
[4049.34] Frank: if I'm not much mistaken, the in the a like the the ANO, the
[4055.5] Frank: actual like proper law bit, the spotter is only there to make
[4060.3] Frank: sure that you don't cause an issue for other aircraft, right?
[4063.38] Frank: Like that's what they're doing is they're looking out to make
[4065.78] Frank: sure that they're in mind
[4067.46] Stephen: and hazards on the ground like
[4070.46] Stephen: on the ground as well.
[4073.78] Stephen: The spotters should alert you if an unexpected person walks into
[4078.38] Stephen: the flying area, for example, that's
[4080.82] Frank: absolutely very helpful to have a spotter there. I mean, that's
[4083.54] Frank: what we're doing all the time.
[4086.94] Stephen: That's in the BMFA guidelines for this.
[4093.82] Frank: Yeah, that's why I'm sure it's part of the guidelines.
[4096.58] Frank: Because it's a sensible thing. Like if you're there, you've got
[4098.58] Frank: a pair of eyes, having someone be able to tell you someone's
[4102.22] Frank: about to come on as a field, there's a cyclist back to your
[4104.3] Frank: past, there's a dog on the loose, you know, all of that is
[4106.78] Frank: helpful information, being able to have someone there to, you
[4110.38] Frank: know, someone's like walking up quite angrily behind you and is
[4114.78] Frank: about to clock you on and maybe is there to intercept and talk,
[4118.54] Frank: you know, diffuse the situation while you land. That's, that's
[4121.62] Frank: all helpful to have a spotter and that's that yeah, I mean,
[4124.1] Stephen: yeah, but those are non flight related issues, I suppose,
[4126.82] Stephen: really, aren't they?
[4127.98] Frank: But I think the sort of the, the, the, the pure legal side of
[4133.82] Frank: it is that we're there for keeping separation from manned
[4138.5] David Allen: aircraft. We've definitely gone over the hour.
[4144.22] David Allen: Once in a minutiae now, what's the interesting thing? We don't
[4147.78] David Allen: want to fly into anyone, we don't want to fly into anyone. We
[4148.78] Stephen: don't want to fly into anyone.
[4150.34] Stephen: In our coming week, we will do minutiae with Frank, the footnotes
[4156.34] Stephen: to the footnotes.
[4157.58] Frank: Yeah, I have to do a lot more reading because I have not been
[4160.86] Frank: keeping up with it all. It's all changed in the past few years.
[4165.82] Frank: Don't listen to me.
[4166.78] Stephen: Well, Frank loves reading lengthy PDFs.
[4169.34] Frank: So the problem is, I don't have a nice long commute on a train
[4172.42] Frank: anymore. When I had a nice long commute on a train, I didn't
[4174.46] Frank: mind reading all every single document and beginning to end,
[4178.74] Frank: but I drive now and it's harder to read documents from the
[4181.78] Frank: beginning to end, don't look at me at night.
[4182.94] Frank: That's probably a lie.
[4183.62] Frank: What's commuting again?
[4185.5] Frank: Oh, go away.
[4186.74] Frank: You leave your house to work.
[4188.3] David Allen: You leave your house.
[4191.02] Frank: I know.
[4192.02] David Allen: I mean, like you did, Stephen, if anyone wants to contact me or
[4195.94] David Allen: contact the other people on the BDRA, if people are situated
[4199.9] David Allen: further away from the southeast, I'm very happy to do further
[4203.14] David Allen: tests. Just drop us a line. Secretary at BDRA.UK, I'm sure
[4208.5] David Allen: it will appear somewhere in the notes.
[4210.38] David Allen: And if that can be put out there and people want to do it, we can
[4216.06] David Allen: do it in various places around the country and be more than
[4218.46] Stephen: delighted to get more people like you, Stephen, qualified.
[4222.7] Stephen: Secretary at BDRA.co.uk?
[4226.18] Stephen: No, just BDRA.UK.
[4228.66] Stephen: BDRA.UK. Thank you very much.
[4232.7] Frank: Right. Thank you very much.
[4234.34] Frank: You have been listening to Let's Drone Out.
[4237.26] Frank: And this week we have had Kerry.
[4240.58] Frank: Good eye.
[4241.62] Frank: We've had Stephen.
[4242.86] Stephen: Thanks. Good night.
[4244.1] Frank: We've had David.
[4245.54] David Allen: Thank you for inviting me.
[4247.46] Frank: Thank you for coming on.
[4248.42] Frank: I've been Frank slash Andrew.
[4251.7] Frank: Thank you very much for listening.
[4253.18] Frank: See you next week.
[4254.74] Frank: Who have we got on next week?
[4255.98] Frank: I can't remember.
[4257.18] Stephen: We are talking to a unit, I believe next week, who's going
[4261.54] Stephen: to be telling us about various updates with AM 32 and Beta
[4265.5] Stephen: Flight and how to contribute to some of these projects.
[4269.42] Frank: There we go.
[4270.06] Frank: That's what to look forward to next week.
[4271.74] Frank: Thank you for watching and goodbye.
[4274.86] UNKNOWN: Bye.