=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 440 ===
Title: LDO 440 - BIRD Was The Word
Recorded: 2024-02-01
Hosts: Tony "TheTonstar1" Marchant, Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Cerberus "Cerb" Velvet, Matt "minirollsrule" Snell
Total audience: 1,006
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFigw9rEO3k); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1734921591-letsdroneout-ldo-440-bird-was-the-word.mp3)
=====================================

BIRD 2024 Saturday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_h4UZnf2Hc 
BIRD 2024 Sunday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAWFbBKDY4Q

[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
[18.56] Tony: Dharma on with the show.
[52.01] Jack: Hello and welcome back you're listening to let's turn out
[57.09] Jack: tonight. You're joined by my lovely darling wife. I'm sure I'm
[62.77] Jack: your host right until I fly. And our guests tonight are sorry,
[71.13] Jack: but cerebrus.
[75.05] Jack: Do you know what? It's the name of the dogs in Resident Evil.
[80.13] Tony: Or it could be Jack's problems.
[84.65] Matt: Anyway,
[87.45] Matt: bye everyone out there in the podcast land.
[92.13] Jack: And we are joined as well by Matt or mini roles rule.
[98.85] Jack: Everyone.
[100.81] Jack: And you guys have been running. Is it the bird? Bird racing?
[110.29] Jack: Birmingham International Race Days.
[112.85] Matt: Yeah, yeah, Birmingham International Race Day. About
[117.05] Matt: or while we were on here, what a month or so ago, I gave you most
[120.61] Matt: of the background. But back then, I didn't have the super
[123.97] Matt: cool sticker.
[125.29] Matt: Oh, yeah, that's cool. I'll show you that. Yeah, a little bit on
[131.21] Matt: the white side. There you go. And the Birmingham International
[134.69] Matt: Race Day, it was basically put together a few years ago. There
[140.17] Matt: you go. Thanks. Put together a few years ago, by myself, after
[147.37] Matt: Spezzy Lover, one of the German pilots had finished flying
[151.29] Matt: against everyone in Germany and wanted another challenge that
[153.53] Matt: decided to come over or challenge us to come over and
[156.53] Matt: race us. So we put together a race for him. Oh, and he came
[165.93] Matt: over and he won because he's a quick pilot. And our UK pilot
[170.65] Matt: Rory, Rory Tooley, Rory RC, he came in second, which was great.
[175.57] Matt: I think Stefan Fischer came third, that was back in 2020,
[179.21] Matt: just before COVID kicked off. And then pretty much every year
[182.69] Matt: since then, we've put on the Birmingham International Race
[185.09] Matt: Day, where pilots from across the globe are invited to come to
[189.69] Matt: Birmingham and fly against other tiny pilots.
[192.45] Tony: I was going to say, is it just is it just whoops?
[195.29] Matt: Yeah, yeah, we just do whoops. So we invite everyone to come
[199.25] Matt: over. We set up a course, we organise a big competition. And
[203.45] Matt: this year was the biggest yet, we had 48 pilots all come to the
[209.93] Matt: UK from Poland, Latvia, Germany, Italy. We even had some guys
[217.29] Matt: claiming to be from Jamaica, although they
[221.21] Matt: I think they lived in the UK, but they they had Jamaican
[223.97] Matt: heritage. But you know, we'll count that. They all came here
[228.73] Matt: to fly in our in our race. And, and yeah, and these these are
[234.17] Matt: the results up on screen because we've we've had the race now.
[238.37] Tony: And that was what last weekend?
[240.61] Matt: Yeah, that was the weekend just gone. So 27th and 28th of
[245.09] Matt: January.
[246.05] Tony: Oh, yeah, I can see that now. And are these all your sponsors?
[250.17] Matt: Yes, we had some incredible support this year. Like I say,
[253.17] Matt: biggest event yet. So we we moved out of drop shop, which we
[258.53] Matt: had last year, which was a which is a funky funky venue, but a
[262.69] Matt: little bit on the on the janky side when it came to plumbing.
[267.01] Matt: And we're in a proper venue now in in Millennium Point, which is
[272.09] Matt: a big sort of exposition and conference centre right in the
[275.61] Matt: centre of Birmingham, that also hosts the Think Tank Science
[281.73] Matt: Museum. So they're really on board, like promoting stem
[285.69] Matt: subjects. So they were when I came to them with this idea,
[288.73] Matt: they're like, yes, sounds great. But we're definitely gonna have
[290.97] Matt: to talk to our health and safety guy about because obviously
[294.77] Matt: everyone goes a bit nuts when we talk about flying drones.
[299.41] Jack: Inside.
[299.93] Jack: How the hell did you get hobby RC?
[303.17] Matt: Yeah, they are super supportive, all of them. But yeah, hobby RC,
[308.69] Matt: I got in touch with them a couple of months. This must have
[313.73] Matt: been like September time. And I was like, look, there are two or
[318.33] Matt: three shops in the UK that support like whoop and drone
[322.17] Matt: stuff. You are one of those shops. And I want one of you to
[326.29] Matt: be involved. If you aren't involved, somebody else will be.
[329.29] Matt: So get on board. And they were like, yeah, cool with that was
[333.33] Matt: for you. And they put up a good, like a really like decent prize
[337.97] Matt: package of prizes. Let me let me drag up my list, actually,
[341.25] Matt: because the amount of sponsorship we had was
[344.01] Matt: incredible. Where's my tracker?
[348.09] Tony: I was just looking to see if there's any old school names on
[351.05] Tony: there, because there must be some new pilots.
[356.17] Matt: So hobby RC themselves put up about 150 pounds in like vouchers,
[361.01] Matt: which is incredibly generous of them. So really thank them a
[364.21] Matt: lot for doing that. All together, we had about 2,500
[368.25] Matt: pounds worth of prizes and over 350 pounds in cash up for grabs
[374.05] Matt: because they were cash prizes this year. So yeah, we had some
[378.09] Matt: we had some really, really good support from our sponsors. We
[382.21] Matt: had like you say, we had hobby RC on board, but our like gold
[387.89] Matt: sponsor for this year was happy model. Happy model sent over a
[392.61] Matt: huge package of like, but controllers, receivers, motors,
[396.09] Matt: frames, props, like a whole bunch of them and put up some of
[400.17] Matt: the prize money as well. So they really came through and really
[404.45] Matt: want to support the local tiny whoop scene, which is which is
[407.25] Matt: really cool. Because obviously without that sort of level of
[410.37] Matt: support, we can't put on these grand events. So that was good.
[414.85] Matt: And then they were our gold sponsor. We had tiny whooped Mr.
[419.49] Matt: Jesse P himself. And we believe FPV. They were both our self
[424.33] Matt: sponsors. So they had pride of place out on our track as well
[427.69] Matt: alongside alongside happy model. Jesse, as you might have
[433.61] Matt: remembered, I was over last year. But he couldn't join us this
[437.25] Matt: year, unfortunately. But we we had a good time. We were
[441.21] Matt: poking fun at him in the chat. He popped in to say hi, which was
[444.13] Matt: nice. But I know he's super busy looking after little George is
[448.73] Cerb: a little boy. George was just about to be born, wasn't he?
[455.01] Matt: Yeah, last year, he had to run off really quickly from the
[458.45] Matt: event to get back to make sure he was there to catch the baby as
[461.73] Matt: it was born.
[465.13] Tony: We've flown with him and we Jack, it was a fair few years
[468.45] Tony: ago, but we've definitely flown with Jesse or met Jesse. That
[473.81] Tony: was, I think that's probably six, maybe seven years ago, I
[478.89] Tony: reckon.
[480.21] Jack: Yeah, it was, um,
[481.41] Jack: where were we?
[483.57] Tony: Comic Con. That was it. We've done some kind of flying demo
[487.81] Tony: thing there years and years ago. Yeah, he's nice guy.
[492.09] Matt: Yeah, such a genuine, super cool guy. Yeah. It was fun to, to
[497.77] Matt: commentate with them last year. We were hoping we could get him
[499.93] Matt: back this year, but it just didn't quite align. It started
[503.13] Matt: quite aligned, but I have heard a rumour that he'll be back next
[505.97] Matt: year. So we will, we'll see how that goes.
[508.85] Tony: So is it going to be held in the same place?
[510.25] Matt: I'm pushing that rumour to put some social pressure on its
[512.97] Tony: car.
[515.89] Tony: It'll be held the same place every year, like in Birmingham.
[519.41] Matt: Well, that's the thing. So we, we had a really, really good
[523.81] Matt: event at Millennium Point, so much so that at one point, the
[529.53] Matt: event coordinator came over with the guy with the health and
[532.89] Matt: safety guy to have a chat with me. And I was like, Oh God,
[536.01] Matt: here we go. But he literally came over and just like shook my
[539.57] Matt: hand and said, guys, you put on an amazing event, like super
[542.49] Matt: happy, all the prep you've done, all the risk assessments, I had
[545.25] Matt: to sign off on the lot, but it was all really good. I mean,
[548.81] Matt: there was like stacks of parchment, making up like, these
[553.61] Matt: risk assessments and all the meetings. But yeah, so he was
[557.41] Matt: super happy. And they seem very keen to have us back. And the
[561.77] Matt: other the other thing that makes us likely to go back there is
[564.65] Matt: that pretty much everyone had really good video on the day,
[568.05] Matt: like we had almost no video complaints, like there were one
[572.41] Matt: or two, but out of like, 50 pilots, having the occasional
[576.17] Matt: video thing is like unheard of, you'd usually expect a lot more
[580.17] Matt: video issues. We think it was a really good venue. Speaking of
[587.25] Matt: the venue, like, so what did you think about it?
[591.73] Cerb: They, the way they treated us was really just so such a breath
[596.73] Cerb: of fresh air, that such a professional team. And they
[600.21] Cerb: were obviously they were wary of us because you know, they're a
[602.89] Cerb: bunch of crazy guys with drones. But Matt is absolutely
[607.89] Cerb: brilliant at the paperwork side. I think we had something like
[612.89] Cerb: six meetings with them for face to face. So it was a very
[617.77] Cerb: corporate environment. But Matt and I both come in our day jobs
[621.13] Cerb: from corporate environments. So we know how to have those
[623.69] Cerb: conversations. And, and they trusted us and we trusted them,
[628.65] Cerb: we had a good relationship. But they were very much waiting to
[631.33] Cerb: see what it was like.
[632.81] Matt: Yeah, I think they sort of expected me to hand them like
[636.29] Matt: the back of a fag packet with a few things like don't crash into
[639.25] Matt: people and like don't set stuff on fire. And that would be about
[642.61] Matt: it. But no, we have work to put together a decent.
[648.37] Cerb: When we spoke to them kind of at the back end, once we were, you
[651.41] Cerb: know, packing up and we were out the door, and we had a brief
[655.53] Cerb: chat with them, there'll be a proper debrief coming. But they
[658.17] Cerb: were like, wow, yeah, you did like everything you said and
[662.21] Cerb: more. And it was amazing. And nobody died. Like you said, they
[665.61] Cerb: wouldn't die. It was really cool. And please, would you come
[669.57] Cerb: back next year? All right. Okay.
[673.61] Matt: They were super happy to have us. I think also because it's a
[676.45] Matt: like, a conference center, they get a lot of like, dry people up
[680.25] Matt: on stage talking about dry subjects and to have someone
[683.05] Matt: come in and fly drones around with a brush of pressure.
[686.93] Tony: How long did it take you just set up the the area like with your
[690.73] Tony: gates and things like that? Because you were talking off
[693.33] Tony: stream about hanging stuff and
[696.29] Matt: yeah, so probably the most
[700.81] Matt: ambitious timeframe part of the whole, the whole event. This is
[707.09] Matt: the bit of the event that people don't see, right? It's the set
[709.25] Matt: up and yeah, prep and background. But obviously, you
[713.05] Matt: get go day, you're like, right, I've got to set up everything we
[716.49] Matt: need. So we've got to like, set the pits out the barriers, but
[720.13] Matt: the netting set up the live stream, the VR, the track
[723.33] Matt: cameras, the track itself. All of that had to go up in one
[727.89] Matt: evening, on the Friday, ready to literally come in the next day,
[732.17] Matt: just click go, start racing. And we ended up quite over time,
[738.01] Matt: the venue let us do it. And they were pretty supportive. And
[741.53] Matt: they sort of, you know, grim embedded while we got on with
[744.25] Matt: it. But yeah, that one of the major elements this year, which
[747.93] Matt: is one of the reasons I really wanted to get into Millennium
[750.65] Matt: Point, and, and again, they were they were happy to do it
[753.45] Matt: with us, is to put out a set of gates out in space. And when I
[760.13] Matt: say in space, I mean, they've got a huge atrium, which is
[763.57] Matt: basement to fourth floor open, like a huge, huge area. And we
[769.97] Matt: strung climbing rope across it, and then set up like a police
[774.45] Matt: system to pull gates out right into the center of that atrium.
[778.25] Matt: When you kind of came up the stairs, like with your woop,
[781.21] Matt: like you do at home, you go upstairs, it's all like tight and
[783.41] Matt: twisty, you then go off the balcony, and suddenly you're
[786.05] Matt: like, out into this expanse and shooting across absolutely
[789.85] Matt: nailing these batteries are top speed out into space. And it was
[794.85] Matt: an incredible, it was incredible to see on video how different it
[799.09] Matt: is to being this like tight little environment going fast,
[801.69] Matt: and then to still be going full throttle, but obviously with a
[804.57] Matt: huge area, it looks like you're hardly moving. And then
[807.45] Matt: approaching these gates and shooting past it was really
[810.25] Matt: cool.
[811.93] Tony: How many were flying at the same time? Did you? Was it four up
[815.25] Tony: six up?
[816.29] Matt: Yeah, we had we had four whoops up at time, it seems to be the
[819.93] Matt: best, the most reliable number of whoops you can get in the air
[824.13] Matt: indoors is always a challenge with with the video. But we had
[829.57] Matt: we had good video, but we had four, four whoops up at once
[833.13] Matt: just to try and try not push it too far. We want to make sure
[836.49] Matt: we had a reliable way to get through 50 pilots. It was hard
[838.97] Matt: work as it was without video issues. If we had bad video
[842.65] Matt: issues, it would have been a broken nightmare.
[845.09] Tony: And what sort of rice length what you know, what was a lap? And
[850.33] Tony: how many laps?
[851.69] Matt: Yeah, so I part of the joy of doing the event is I get to set
[855.97] Matt: track. So we had a lot of features on there. And the I
[860.25] Matt: was aiming that the plan was get the tracks out, fly it, take
[865.97] Matt: some DVR and then send it out to all the pilots. That's what I
[868.37] Matt: would love to have done ideally. But we ended up about two hours
[871.69] Matt: overdue to leave the to finish putting up setting up on the
[878.73] Matt: Friday. And I didn't have a chance to fly the track, which
[883.01] Matt: was really annoying because I still haven't flown any of my
[885.21] Matt: tracks. But I do I do a lot, you know, our regular, but I
[891.53] Matt: would have liked to fly just to get the idea to fly. But we set
[898.61] Matt: out the track, got it all up and running and it ended up I was
[902.41] Matt: figuring if I could get the track to be about 45 seconds
[905.65] Matt: long on my like first pack, then that would be about right
[909.13] Matt: because I'm sort of mid table, lower mid table sort of pilot.
[914.61] Matt: And on my first, you know, on your pack after pack, you'll get
[917.53] Matt: quicker, right. So if I can do a whole lap in about 45 seconds,
[921.65] Matt: the map means like fast guys will be doing that like 20
[924.41] Matt: seconds by the time they get like, up quick. And the slow
[927.85] Matt: guys, okay, I'm doing a minute, but then that's enough, you know,
[930.41] Matt: you can get three minutes out of a week if you're being nice to
[932.93] Matt: it. There you go. You just see in the video.
[938.41] Matt: No, that's right. Oh, yeah, we've got a divegate up there. I
[940.69] Matt: completely forgot to mention the divegate.
[944.17] Matt: They let us hang this wooden structure off the side of their
[946.93] Matt: balcony, above like four, four stories, and then dive whoops
[953.21] Matt: through it, just nuts. They were on board with everything we
[956.09] Matt: wanted to do, which was incredible.
[958.09] Tony: That is awesome.
[959.69] Jack: It's fine if that woods made out of balsa.
[965.33] Matt: It would like really, really thin, like narrow gauge, like
[969.85] Matt: just timber, but it was all it was held up with so much string
[973.09] Matt: like you would cut it down.
[976.57] Cerb: A cursory glance at the timings I've got here that I can get to
[981.05] Cerb: quickly, say that the fastest lap was about a 29 second lap.
[986.57] Matt: So I ended up a little longer than I planned. I think some of
[990.21] Matt: the slower pilots were doing like a minute 10 a minute 20 a
[993.41] Matt: lap, which is a little bit longer than I had planned. But
[996.41] Matt: everyone seemed to enjoy the track, which was good.
[1002.93] Matt: Ah, right. Yeah, so on the first day, on the Saturday, we did the
[1008.05] Matt: qualifying and then maybe if you swap to Serb's screen, he'll be
[1013.37] Matt: able to show you the actual one. This one was done in the planning
[1015.61] Matt: stages. But on the Saturday, we did qualifying, so everybody got
[1021.33] Matt: eight attempts to set their fastest laps.
[1026.77] Matt: And we did it in groups. So you would have a set of pilots, you
[1030.93] Matt: have 12 pilots go up in the morning, and then a second
[1034.21] Matt: group, a third group, and then the evening we'd have fourth
[1036.37] Matt: group of 12 pilots. And that's how we got through all 48
[1039.97] Matt: qualifying. And it meant that you got your batteries quite
[1042.81] Matt: close together. So you didn't have to wait around for like
[1045.01] Matt: hours because a lot of pilots have mentioned to me that being
[1049.93] Matt: able to do back to back patch batteries helps them get into the
[1053.01] Matt: zone a bit better and produce better times. Do you guys find
[1056.09] Matt: that?
[1057.01] Tony: I haven't raced for years. But yeah, when I was doing five inch
[1061.29] Tony: racing, it was the sitting around killed me, you could you
[1065.05] Tony: could do the two minute race and then sit around for an hour,
[1068.73] Tony: hour and a half. And then like five minutes, it's or you know,
[1073.49] Tony: two minutes, it's a nightmare. But that's that sounds good.
[1076.33] Tony: Well, what people running at the moment then? Are they running
[1079.17] Tony: 1s, 2s, 3s? What what's going on?
[1081.53] Matt: So we we spent the whoops so that it would be 1s ducted 65
[1087.41] Matt: mil whoops, you could run analog or digital VTX as we didn't
[1091.17] Matt: mind. And we had and we and mandated that you had to have
[1095.53] Matt: LEDs on so that it would be easy for like the spectators to
[1099.41] Matt: spot little
[1101.69] Tony: Did you have spectators?
[1103.81] Matt: Yeah, we did. We had quite a lot, particularly when it came
[1106.97] Matt: to the the finals day. So on on finals day, everyone had done
[1110.53] Matt: they qualify qualifying, and we're set into three different
[1113.85] Matt: brackets. So we have the hobbyist bracket, the advanced
[1116.17] Matt: bracket and the elite bracket. And on the on finals day, we
[1121.61] Matt: had like, even in like the hobbyist bracket, people are
[1124.01] Matt: yelling and screaming like, Come on, you can do it. You know,
[1126.69] Matt: people are really going for it. Because unlike other five inch
[1132.73] Matt: or any other sort of like drone racing, I have my own unique
[1136.09] Matt: format. Now I run my finals, which bears which bears
[1140.29] Matt: explaining because there are there is method in the maths. And
[1144.85] Matt: so for your guys looking at home, this is the hobbyist
[1148.25] Matt: final. And if you start on the left of the screen, you'll see
[1151.25] Matt: it says he wanted to eat for so we had 16 pilots come into the
[1157.13] Matt: hobbyist finals and they were all battling to find out whether
[1160.01] Matt: they'd end up in you know, what position they'll end up in. But
[1165.85] Matt: because they want to reward like consistency and like good, good
[1169.97] Matt: flying straight off the bat, you would have to and you'd have to
[1174.69] Matt: run your race or in the heat, you'd have to end up in the
[1177.17] Matt: first or second position to move up to the upper semis. And if
[1181.49] Matt: you're in the lower two positions, so third or fourth
[1183.97] Matt: in your heat, you would move into the lower semis. And if
[1188.33] Matt: you were in the lower semis, it would limit how high up you
[1191.45] Matt: could score later on, because you've lost a race. So you know,
[1196.17] Matt: unfortunately, people that didn't lose a race or came higher
[1198.97] Matt: up that you deserve to win, you deserve to go on high. And
[1204.09] Matt: that's, that's the the method in the madness is that you would
[1206.97] Matt: have if you wanted to get into the one to four final, you have
[1209.61] Matt: to win two races off the bat. You know, you'd have to come in
[1215.25] Matt: the top two positions and two races consecutively to get into
[1219.25] Matt: that one to four final. And then you'd have to win your one to
[1222.17] Matt: four final to find out if you're in first or second, third or
[1225.17] Matt: fourth play. Right. You know, there's a bit of madness in there
[1228.33] Matt: that it doesn't line up with anybody other any other ideas
[1230.97] Matt: of
[1233.77] Cerb: it also means if you're running in second in your race, you
[1238.65] Cerb: don't necessarily need to push to overtake into first, if you
[1243.53] Cerb: can protect your second place you're going through. And if
[1246.89] Cerb: if you're third, you need to push because you're in the drop.
[1250.65] Cerb: So that the bottom two dropped the upper two go up. So it puts
[1255.89] Cerb: some interesting tactics into it and how you run that race.
[1260.77] Matt: And also it means that every single race means something. So
[1264.57] Matt: even right off the bat, the first race you go into has an
[1267.89] Matt: effect on where you're going to end up. You know, you can't you
[1270.89] Matt: can't take it easy, you got to push right from the beginning.
[1275.1] Matt: And that that means that every single race has a meaning and
[1279.3] Matt: every single race is worth putting a lot of effort into
[1281.74] Matt: because this is it. This is the crunchdown you got to produce.
[1285.5] Matt: So it makes for some really compelling watching and really
[1288.3] Matt: compelling like flying even in like hobbyist class, there were
[1291.06] Matt: some great battles, particularly between
[1294.18] Matt: it was Idrisil versus Thornberry, I think in the five to
[1297.54] Matt: eight final.
[1300.62] Matt: Yeah,
[1302.54] Matt: they had an incredible battle going on to see who would end up
[1305.9] Matt: in fifth place or, or sixth place, you know, because then it
[1311.14] Matt: really made a difference. They'd work their way up to this, like,
[1314.14] Matt: as high up the tree as they could get. And then it's like,
[1316.14] Matt: right, he is crunched up, you've got to push and they really did
[1318.78] Matt: it was an incredible, incredible spot.
[1321.38] Cerb: In fact, they shared the victory in that final because they were
[1324.62] Cerb: literally side by side as they went into the crash gate. We
[1329.18] Cerb: looked at the VR playback. We talked to the spotters, we looked
[1333.54] Cerb: at the cameras that were on the crash gate. And we're like, do
[1337.58] Cerb: you know what, I can't call that. So that so they were, they were
[1340.46] Cerb: given a joint victory in that one.
[1342.78] Cerb: Nice. The really amazing thing I really struck me about all of the
[1347.54] Cerb: finals is applause.
[1350.34] Cerb: Yeah, every single end of every round of every piece of the
[1354.06] Cerb: finals, applause broke out in the pits. Like, people were so
[1358.9] Cerb: invested in it. And it was like, so exciting. I'm such fun. Like
[1362.42] Cerb: nobody's nobody held off an applaud. They just, they just
[1367.14] Cerb: broke into applause at the at the end of every round. It was
[1370.98] Cerb: so cool. Really cool.
[1372.66] Matt: That was something I really liked, because it means that it
[1376.14] Matt: means something to them. But also, it's the it's the community
[1381.1] Matt: spirit of tiny whoop like coming out. Everyone's here to race and
[1384.42] Matt: go as fast as possible, right? But people were helping each
[1387.1] Matt: other in the pits, like sort out their whoops, like fixing things,
[1390.66] Matt: boring each other's like cameras the night before,
[1392.78] Matt: because they like naff them up, like practicing and stuff. I'm
[1397.54] Cerb: so amazed how many whoops we didn't destroy. After a five
[1401.34] Cerb: store drop onto a concrete floor. Yeah, some whoops went
[1405.78] Matt: literally from ceiling level, a fourth storey down into the
[1410.46] Matt: basement of the concrete. A couple died, but like most of
[1413.9] Matt: them, a lot of people crashed.
[1416.22] Tony: Quite hard to pull out with a one hour from a dive, I should
[1420.06] Matt: think probably take some batteries, some batteries got
[1423.9] Matt: abused beyond beyond their life. Get trying to get around. So how
[1429.46] Tony: did the public get to know that it was there was could they pass
[1433.14] Tony: through because it was like it was a weekend when it so people
[1435.94] Tony: were walking past?
[1437.46] Matt: Yeah, so Millennium point, Millennium point is quite open.
[1441.22] Matt: They have like a main thoroughfare through and anybody
[1444.86] Matt: who was walking through would see whoops shooting out from the
[1448.18] Matt: platform going through these gates up in air and coming back
[1450.78] Matt: down shooting back into the platform area, where we had the
[1453.98] Matt: majority of the track. And so they were like stopping going,
[1456.82] Matt: Oh, what what was going on? It was like, yeah, several people
[1461.62] Matt: came over and came into the race area to have a look what was
[1465.5] Matt: going on. But in addition to just having the whoop racing
[1470.74] Matt: there, I'm trying to create like this sort of weekend vibe
[1475.42] Matt: where you can come along, bring your like Christmas presents or
[1479.58] Matt: come along and just try out a bit of FPV try out a bit drone
[1482.66] Matt: racing. So we had the guys from drone soccer there, who had a
[1487.3] Matt: line of sights, drones, but they're inside a ball. So and
[1494.02] Matt: then there's like five a side football but going on but with
[1496.5] Matt: drones and you deliberately crash into each other. Now we
[1498.82] Matt: all know, you don't crash a drone, that's the last thing
[1501.66] Matt: you want to do, right? But in these things, they've got these
[1504.18] Matt: bumper cages around and you literally try and knock each
[1506.42] Matt: other out of the air. So they have their whole self there and
[1510.14] Matt: people will be able to turn up and give it a go like smash these
[1512.86] Matt: drones around have a real good time. And the pilots would go
[1516.54] Matt: down there as well. But be like, yeah, I'm gonna go. Apparently
[1520.9] Matt: some of them were pretty good. So they might be trying out for
[1523.82] Matt: the UK drone soccer team, which will be worth it.
[1526.9] Tony: I've never I've not heard of that before. That's interesting.
[1530.66] Matt: Now you should get them. I don't know if you should get them on
[1533.1] Matt: let's drone out because they're really interesting chaps. And
[1536.34] Matt: they've got some good stories from from Korea where the where
[1539.3] Matt: the whole drone soccer thing started.
[1541.98] Cerb: Well, they did they did their first ever interview on camera.
[1545.22] Matt: But we dragged them up on the live stream, put the camera in
[1550.58] Tony: their faces. I never got on with whoops. It was a few years
[1559.5] Tony: ago when we were flying them wouldn't check.
[1561.9] Jack: Yeah, they were. They're much I think they're much better now.
[1565.78] Tony: They're bright. Yeah, they do.
[1570.54] Matt: Yeah, you got to read that out in the chat there. He was the guy
[1578.66] Matt: filming the tour around the point you just saw. And then
[1584.74] Matt: Viking one of the guys down from court or up shall I say from
[1589.06] Matt: Cornwall. I don't know how he managed it but he ended up not
[1592.14] Matt: having any whoops on the day of the finals and he'd done pretty
[1594.62] Matt: well. So I was like, I'm not using my whoop it's in my bag
[1598.3] Matt: with all my stuff just kind of crack on with that. And he ended
[1601.34] Matt: up positioned did he come in? It's on the list somewhere.
[1605.9] Tony: I think he got to the finals.
[1608.86] Matt: Yeah, he got through to the finals. He won some prizes,
[1611.38] Matt: which was great. So that was really cool. And he wouldn't have
[1614.9] Matt: been able to take part if like, I'm just giving him a try. But
[1618.22] Matt: that it's not just me that does that, you know, like other
[1620.62] Matt: people were helping out with parts like helping tuning stuff.
[1623.86] Matt: And this is, this is the great thing about tiny whoops is like,
[1627.06] Matt: yeah, they are like toys. These tiny little things. They don't
[1632.7] Matt: really wear anything. They look like toys. You know, you just
[1635.42] Matt: piss around with them at home. But they can go really fast.
[1638.5] Matt: And you can have a decent race with them. And it was it was
[1641.3] Matt: good that people were, you know, had the camaraderie and
[1645.86] Matt: community spirit to like help people out fix their drones.
[1649.34] Tony: They're running 25 milliwatt. Did you check almost all that
[1653.46] Tony: before?
[1654.42] Matt: Yeah, we had a full check in desk where we did we went
[1657.02] Matt: through the specs made sure people was fail safe for
[1659.1] Matt: working, they had the right frame size, prop size, BTX, all
[1663.86] Matt: of that. So saying like basically miniaturized version
[1666.54] Matt: of the final five inch scene. That was the idea.
[1670.18] Cerb: Basically, you had to convince my wife that you were in a fit
[1673.34] Cerb: place to plot fly and then she'd sign you in.
[1676.66] Matt: Yeah, I think some of the some of the pilots were glad they
[1680.02] Matt: were later on in the day after the whoop house because they
[1682.34] Matt: were they were hanging a bit from a party when I
[1684.62] Cerb: thought I'm very lucky that the good lady wife gets stuck in
[1694.62] Cerb: and is a valued member of staff of a few racing solutions.
[1699.98] Matt: Yeah, I was very lucky she was happy to, to step wide enough
[1703.3] Matt: happy is the right word. She agreed to step in and do some
[1706.82] Matt: of the technical check in stuff. I'm very good. Would you
[1710.62] Matt: sound thank you very much for helping. Is that north or
[1714.94] Matt: south? What's what are we? What's the question? Where it
[1718.5] Matt: was located? It was located in Birmingham right in the center.
[1724.54] Jack: Yeah, there's also a little bit of a beer saying he tried to
[1730.1] Jack: sneak by the trainer through the tech in. But unfortunately got
[1734.54] Jack: disqualified because it didn't have LEDs.
[1737.34] Matt: They should have LEDs on LEDs make life better. Everybody
[1740.58] Matt: knows this.
[1743.54] Matt: What I mentioned actually, when you said the tiny trainer, we
[1746.14] Matt: did. As I say, I'm trying to like create this sort of like
[1750.58] Matt: weekend sort of festival straight after Christmas, where
[1752.94] Matt: you can bring your like stuff along, have a go, get it up and
[1756.14] Matt: flying. I spoke about like the drone soccer where you could
[1759.78] Matt: just come along and just have a go on their stuff. And they were
[1762.26] Matt: happy to let people do that. We also had demonstrations, flying
[1768.82] Matt: the DRC boys. So we had Matt and Mike Brooks, inferno FPV, all
[1776.82] Matt: flying like cine whoops around. So showing like what you can do
[1781.1] Matt: with bigger drones and they can carry GoPros and stuff. You can
[1784.58] Matt: do a bit of like cinematic flying. So we had some of that
[1786.82] Matt: going on, which was great in the breaks. And then we also had
[1790.94] Matt: Rory RC Tooley back. So he, like I said, he competed in the
[1794.06] Matt: first bird and came second. He's moved on and done mostly
[1799.42] Matt: wing stuff since. So he said, Oh, come along, you know, we'll
[1802.38] Matt: give you a little, give you a little taster of it and try and
[1804.62] Matt: wait your appetite, get you back into the woods. And he
[1807.38] Matt: brought his phone wings along, which I don't know, they're like
[1810.54] Matt: this sort of size wings. And they and he did like his
[1815.54] Matt: incredible acrobatics. I don't know how he does it. I think I've
[1819.78] Tony: seen him flying shows.
[1823.54] Matt: Yeah, he does a lot of shows me competes out in like the
[1826.58] Tony: Middle East and stuff. Yeah, definitely. And then yeah, I've
[1830.42] Matt: seen that stuff. Yeah, we were very lucky to have him come along
[1834.66] Matt: and show us what he can do. He stuck some he stuck some videos
[1839.34] Matt: up on YouTube stuff as well. Actually, maybe my glamorous
[1842.9] Matt: assistant can dig one. And yeah, the what he can do with the
[1849.18] Matt: wing. I don't understand how you do it. He makes it do things
[1853.5] Matt: that planes shouldn't do. But they're just not. It's beyond
[1858.18] Matt: the lead. So we were lucky to have him back. And he was doing
[1860.54] Matt: this incredible light display, showing off all different crazy
[1865.98] Matt: maneuvers, which was great. So, you know, we had something get
[1870.3] Matt: involved in stuff you can watch. We had the main event, which
[1875.46] Matt: was obviously the drone racing going on. We had Millennium
[1879.38] Matt: Point also hosts like say think tank, which is the Birmingham
[1882.5] Matt: Science Museum. They came out and did a like a workshop for
[1886.62] Matt: kids or anyone who turned up where they could make little
[1889.42] Matt: paper airplanes and little paper helicopters and throw them off
[1893.42] Matt: and have a little learn a bit about flight how which bits work
[1897.22] Matt: best and which bits don't. So that was cool hands on stuff.
[1900.5] Tony: I saw like a flight test day, we guys it basically Yeah, I want
[1906.02] Matt: to see if we can create this sort of like mini weekend
[1908.82] Matt: festival where people can come along and get their hands on
[1911.1] Matt: something because people get like drones that we want to show
[1916.14] Matt: like the safe fun part of it. You know, you see these huge
[1920.06] Matt: drones with like massive like knife sized props spinning
[1923.06] Matt: around, they make a terrible racket and they're just demonized
[1926.06] Matt: by so many people that actually people are afraid to even like
[1929.62] Matt: look at them like going near them. So I'm like, let's do
[1931.86] Matt: something fun have loads of lights everywhere, loads of
[1934.06] Matt: LED stuff flying about stuff you need hands on and just kind of
[1939.22] Matt: get people into it and see if you know if it's something they
[1942.58] Matt: enjoy or not. And if they do enjoy it, then they can get
[1944.94] Matt: their hands on right there.
[1947.62] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience
[1950.74] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio
[1953.66] Frank: only sensors to please the iTunes people hosted on the
[1956.78] Frank: internet, forwarded through to your podcast provider,
[1959.02] Frank: downloaded playing on your device and is now playing in
[1961.98] Frank: your ears. All thanks to our patrons. Consider joining them
[1965.86] Frank: and you'll also get other online benefits. Find out more at
[1969.34] Frank: patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[1972.62] Cerb: We had the BMFA boys as well.
[1975.38] Frank: Yes, that was it.
[1978.1] Cerb: Yes, Chris brought the BMFA simulators and was getting
[1982.18] Cerb: people and not having inexpensive crashes in in a
[1985.02] Cerb: simulated environment. So there was a few people getting
[1989.62] Cerb: their first taste of flying on that. That was very cool.
[1993.46] Cerb: Yeah, yeah, so people
[1995.58] Tony: you haven't got to worry about the weather of it. You just
[1998.62] Tony: like, hey, Ryan, snow, I don't care.
[2002.7] Matt: Yeah, cool.
[2003.26] Matt: Doesn't matter if you're in a simulator or indoors. And that's
[2005.62] Matt: why I like personally, I love flying groups. And my I'm 100%
[2010.86] Matt: convinced that the technology in these things is the cutting edge
[2014.62] Matt: technology, but you see the big, the bigger drones and stuff
[2018.06] Matt: and they do some cool stuff. But you have multiple boards and
[2022.1] Matt: loads of space and a big cargo pack like space to carry
[2025.1] Matt: multiple cameras and head to head tracking and all that sort
[2028.38] Matt: of thing where you can go really long distance or, you know,
[2030.9] Matt: there's a drone for everything. But actually, you just want to
[2033.54] Matt: go really fast in the smallest form factor possible. That's
[2037.22] Matt: what you want. One of those wanna whoop, you get everything
[2040.54] Matt: on one board. Like, that's quite a technology in my eyes
[2044.34] Matt: anyway. Yeah. And we call them toys and we race them just that
[2048.7] Matt: helps us get past the health and safety guy. Yeah.
[2053.82] Cerb: And then one of the nice things about like, you know, the
[2056.54] Cerb: weather we're indoors, we're in that great venue. But we also
[2059.7] Cerb: had the change of daylight as well, because Millennium Point
[2063.9] Cerb: has a massive glass roof. So as people were flying out into that
[2068.94] Cerb: huge atrium space in the daylight, that, you know, the
[2073.26] Cerb: feeling of it changed as it turned to nighttime. Yeah. So
[2077.9] Matt: it looked so cool. And I'm really like I set the rules that
[2083.02] Matt: you had to have a minimum of two LEDs. And they had to point
[2086.02] Matt: like in opposing directions, left, right, up, down, forward
[2088.62] Matt: and backwards. I wasn't I didn't mind, you know, I've got to
[2090.54] Matt: set a spec that people would come like build to. And some of
[2096.46] Matt: the like, you know, very some of the like competitive racers
[2102.02] Matt: like they put the lightest weight smallest ones right, you
[2104.5] Matt: know, where they could. But a lot of people went to town and
[2108.9] Matt: put loads of LEDs on including
[2112.82] Matt: themselves.
[2113.94] Tony: That is Tron vibes there.
[2116.54] Cerb: Who gave you those?
[2118.34] Cerb: So the Latvians gave me their amazing glasses. When we were in
[2124.34] Cerb: the restaurant afterwards, like they were so cool. And here you
[2127.46] Cerb: go. This is our present to you. You can have apparently these
[2131.42] Cerb: amazing Tron glasses.
[2135.62] Matt: But the Latvians that came over, I hadn't heard anything from
[2139.14] Matt: Latvians in the run up to this, they just contacted me on like,
[2144.14] Matt: Facebook Messenger and said, Yeah, we want to come over. We
[2147.26] Matt: think we have like four or five people. Okay, great. Like, is
[2150.94] Matt: the is the thing we can buy tickets? Is the dates like this
[2154.18] Matt: is where it is gave them a bit of a rundown. They're like,
[2155.94] Matt: Cool, okay. And within, you know, the same day, I'm pretty
[2159.46] Matt: sure it was the same day. They bought the tickets and they were
[2162.14] Matt: coming over. I was like, brilliant. I've never heard
[2163.9] Matt: these guys bought another country to add for the
[2167.74] Matt: international lineup. And then when they showed up, they all
[2171.66] Matt: had matching like uniforms. They had a full on like sports kit
[2176.86] Matt: going on. And they have these wicked glasses. It looks so
[2180.46] Matt: cool. And they all did. They all did a pilot intro video as
[2186.86] Matt: well. The whole country that attended did a pilot intro
[2190.82] Matt: video. Yeah, which was wicked. So I was Yeah, I was super happy
[2196.62] Matt: that they came. They were such a such a cool bunch of guys.
[2199.66] Jack: Can you link us? Is it off anywhere? No.
[2206.74] Matt: Yes, I suppose. Well, I should probably ask them to put their
[2209.18] Matt: own pilot videos up. I don't know how that would work. I
[2210.78] Matt: suppose they should have missed it too. So we can show them if
[2212.94] Cerb: said once the key one up, if you if you're prepared to wade
[2217.1] Cerb: through the eight hours of live stream, six hours on the next
[2222.46] Cerb: they all get played. Yeah, like in between heats. So that's the
[2226.9] Cerb: gentleman that gave me the glasses. But yeah, they all have
[2229.78] Cerb: that same background. And yeah, same types. They've all got the
[2235.78] Cerb: outfits. Now that was done.
[2239.78] Matt: He's like runs it he organizes the robo pilots in Latvia. And
[2245.54] Matt: they like coding and how schools like teaching kids about how to
[2249.62] Matt: fly with tiny whoops and stuff and doing demonstrations and
[2252.34] Matt: having competitions and stuff, which is really cool. So they
[2256.14] Matt: were they came over all together and just came to fly and they
[2260.1] Matt: did really well. Like I'm so glad that they came over. And
[2263.46] Matt: they were organized, super organized, super like well put
[2267.06] Matt: together or had like, kit that all that match is wicked. So we
[2271.86] Matt: had Yeah, we had Latvians over we had the Italians were back,
[2276.34] Matt: which was great. So team blue eyes was here last year, team
[2278.98] Matt: blue eyes was back this year, with the two Mateus and I think
[2284.34] Matt: it's my girlfriend, Chara Chara. Sorry, if I butcher your name.
[2290.1] Jack: No way they had a they had an immersion RC race control.
[2297.14] Matt: Yeah, they're really, really cool.
[2300.02] Matt: The lap time.
[2302.02] Matt: So we have those guys from Latvia, we had six racers from
[2308.58] Matt: six races from Italy, the Italian dragons. And they ran
[2314.58] Matt: their own competition out in Italy to find out who was
[2317.94] Matt: becoming to Birmingham International. And they had two
[2322.34] Matt: two teams that ended up with the same points at the end of it. So
[2327.14] Matt: they said, Okay, cool. Well, you can both come. And some of you
[2330.34] Matt: will have to be standby pilots. And some of you can like race
[2332.9] Matt: and we'll find out on the day, with a race of who is going to
[2336.58] Matt: race. And by the time it got to the actual event, a few people
[2341.46] Matt: have dropped down. It meant that every all of the Italian guys
[2344.1] Matt: could race, which was really good, because obviously, they
[2346.34] Matt: worked really hard to get there. Yeah. So we got all of the all
[2350.98] Matt: of the Italians were racing, which was great. They also did
[2355.38] Matt: a video to come up at some point that's bear out there is
[2360.9] Matt: guy giving me crap in the chat. This is Israel. This is one of
[2365.86] Matt: the German pilots. So we had four or five German pilots come
[2370.34] Matt: this year. And they did really funny intro videos. And they'll
[2375.54] Matt: no doubt they'll put it on YouTube somewhere, or we'll
[2377.94] Matt: we'll ask them to link them somewhere. Because they were
[2381.46] Matt: incredibly funny guys, like the stereotype of the serious
[2386.1] Matt: German is just not true. After interacting with these guys,
[2389.14] Matt: they're absolutely they're so funny.
[2392.82] Tony: What was the sort of ages of all these guys? Were they?
[2397.22] Matt: Yeah, yeah, big range. How old? I can't remember. I think Archie
[2401.94] Matt: was the youngest chap who was there. And I think he's like,
[2407.14] Matt: 15, 14, something like that. 14. Joshi King Joshi, who
[2414.66] Matt: competed in Korea recently, is like 14 or 15, I think.
[2420.58] Matt: What is interesting in the chat? I just missed out. You're
[2423.22] Matt: talking about my race with dawn. Right?
[2426.66] Matt: Seems like one about one frame ahead. See, precise German
[2430.74] Matt: striking from YouTube. I had so much fun. Thank you. So we had
[2439.38] Matt: really fun flying with you guys as well. We hope you come back
[2445.14] Matt: next year. It was really good to see you. And next year, I'm
[2450.74] Matt: flying my track, right? Didn't do it last year to buy my track
[2453.86] Matt: this year. I'm flying my track next year. Right? It's a thing.
[2456.58] Matt: I'm just, I don't care for running late. I'm just gonna
[2459.3] Matt: write you can all wait. One battery and I'm gonna fly. Okay,
[2463.22] Matt: it's twice now I've not managed. Yeah, the PCB logo is all the
[2472.26] Matt: same prop direction. Oh, really? I might buy a graphic artist
[2476.98] Matt: getting on getting it wrong. Oh, no, did they copy and paste?
[2480.98] Matt: Don't point out the live stream people. It's also all of the
[2491.38] Cerb: wiring on it is Bluetooth. So yeah. Yeah.
[2496.98] Matt: It's quite an old logo. I got that done in like 2018. It could
[2501.7] Matt: probably stand for an update.
[2505.3] Tony: Yeah, don't change it too much. Maybe just
[2507.94] Matt: needs to be. It still needs to be obnoxious green with BTW.
[2516.02] Cerb: Matched our colors as well. That was really cool. The AV guy was
[2520.02] Cerb: like, right, I'm gonna set you up some lights and do this. It's
[2522.26] Cerb: like what colors join us like, well, and I showed him all the
[2524.82] Cerb: logos and the artwork and stuff like, yep, cool. I'm on it. And
[2527.54] Cerb: he just went off and did it and just set the whole venue up with
[2530.66] Cerb: all our colors on all the lighting. It was like,
[2532.98] Matt: honestly, the Millennium point are a proper premium. Well, yeah,
[2538.34] Matt: they're a premium venue, they cost a bit, but they were worth
[2542.1] Matt: every penny because they were so good. Honestly, I cannot
[2545.86] Matt: recommend them highly enough that they are really good.
[2550.5] Tony: Have you talked about going back to the same place next year?
[2554.18] Matt: Yeah, so I think we need to set up a debrief meeting with the
[2558.66] Matt: event coordinator there, Mary Claire. She was super helpful
[2561.94] Matt: for the whole time, dealing with our incessant like questions
[2565.7] Matt: and coming back to us with all the health and safety stuff.
[2568.1] Matt: And yeah, we'll have a debrief with her. And it seems pretty
[2571.7] Matt: likely we'll be back there next year, particularly one of the
[2574.26] Matt: main reasons for it is they let us do what we want, which is
[2577.38] Matt: great. Yeah, we did. But we had really good video. Like, how
[2582.26] Matt: many times did we go there, sir?
[2585.22] Cerb: Three or four, I think. Yeah, we had three test
[2589.22] Cerb: events. One was kind of more of an event. It was like one of
[2593.78] Cerb: our normal weekly whoop get togethers, but we moved it to
[2597.3] Cerb: Millennium Point. And there is a test live stream up there of
[2601.46] Cerb: it somewhere on the channel. And we got lots of pilots in the
[2604.74] Cerb: air and got them getting used to it. And it got us a lot of
[2607.78] Cerb: good data on the timing and the video stuff. And also it gave
[2613.38] Cerb: Mary Claire and the venue and their health and safety guys and
[2616.98] Cerb: gave them a chance to see the drones flying around as well.
[2620.98] Cerb: But the thing we very quickly discovered with Mary Claire was
[2623.86] Cerb: if we took enough biscuits with us, we should get away with
[2627.78] Cerb: quite a lot.
[2632.26] Matt: That's it bribery. But we had we had like, I think we had 10
[2638.66] Matt: pilots about that weekly event, 10 pilots and they had a range
[2643.46] Matt: of like kit, you know, from the very basic sort of box goggles
[2647.86] Matt: and a standard meteor 65 out of the box, all the way up to the
[2652.34] Matt: most custom built whoop with really nice external VTX and
[2658.9] Matt: rapid fire like receiver. And is that a UK 65?
[2669.62] Jack: Here you go, sir. Sorry.
[2671.46] Matt: You need to touch that off, sir. Because I haven't seen you fly
[2673.94] Matt: a we've been so long. Oh, it is brushless. Okay, I thought we
[2678.34] Cerb: were looking at a brushed one. I've got Oh, God, I don't know.
[2686.26] Jack: I'd love to build a brushless sweep. I need to get around to
[2694.34] Tony: think you just buy them all done done in it. What you can do,
[2699.46] Matt: you know, the best kind of starting platform for a race
[2702.18] Matt: would believe it or not, is the Mobula six still, like it's
[2705.54] Matt: still one of the best places to start. A lot of people prefer
[2710.98] Matt: the beta FPV frames or now they've released the air so
[2714.74] Matt: that's a bit lighter. So seems most people are running those
[2718.34] Matt: frames. And then honestly, like that's a pretty competitive
[2723.78] Matt: route to start with. There are various things you can swap out
[2726.5] Matt: and like make slightly lighter or prefer different VTX or
[2730.26] Matt: something like that. You can do that. But honestly, it's not
[2733.06] Matt: that difficult to get struck, you know, to get started.
[2736.66] Tony: How much is a chip nowadays? All up if you bought one very
[2742.42] Matt: time dependent question. I think you'd probably pick up the
[2747.06] Matt: Mobula six for like 85 95 pounds. And I think that comes
[2754.18] Matt: with a couple of batteries as well. You know, this is why this
[2760.34] Matt: is why I love them so much is they are super cheap. They bounce
[2763.62] Matt: more often than they break. Yeah. And you can actually rag
[2767.14] Matt: them around at home without terrorizing any enables like
[2769.94] Matt: there's no there's like no downs. You know, I'm holding off
[2775.7] Cerb: until we get some good HD zero whoops, because I can't go back
[2779.54] Matt: to this. You've just seen the track camera that was with a
[2784.66] Matt: walk snail with one a swoop that I bear. You know, that video is
[2790.58] Tony: properly good. Yeah, look, it looks really good.
[2794.98] Matt: And that was one of the things that we said in this event, it
[2798.66] Matt: was a little bit of a tester because in five inches, not so
[2801.7] Matt: much for a problem. You know, you have a couple of grams
[2803.62] Matt: difference for an extra board for HD zero. You know, it's a
[2807.46] Matt: big, it's a big video transmitting board as opposed
[2810.26] Matt: to like the small analog ones. A few grams on a big, you know,
[2813.86] Matt: five inches, but on a whoop that makes a massive amount of
[2817.14] Matt: difference. You're talking like 10 20% of the whole weight of
[2820.34] Matt: the craft. Yeah. So it has a huge like performance difference
[2824.66] Matt: in a week. But because it's a really big venue, and because
[2830.1] Matt: it's big, and, you know, it's big steel box, potentially video
[2833.86] Matt: could be an issue with analog. Some pilots decided to run HD zero
[2840.26] Matt: RC maniac being one of them. I think Mike was taken as another
[2844.1] Matt: one who was running a Michael's taken. Yeah, it's really good.
[2850.58] Matt: Although sir pronounces it slightly different.
[2854.18] Cerb: Yeah, I my lifetime garbled the name when I first put him in in
[2859.78] Cerb: five inch racing. And he became the Finnish legend Mika was
[2864.5] Cerb: taken. So I just called him I called him Mika was taken for
[2872.66] Cerb: about a season, but I've let him off now I've stopped.
[2876.7] Matt: I love it. It reminds me of Formula One. It's brilliant. But
[2880.62] Matt: few people were running a few people were running HD zero. And
[2885.14] Matt: the the weight penalty was was like, outweigh having like good
[2891.06] Matt: having like good video. And people could choose to run 31 or
[2895.46] Matt: 35 mil props. So that would help like balance that out as well.
[2900.06] Matt: So you know, the spec was like detailed, it was basically one
[2903.78] Matt: s ducted 65 mil. And after that, you can have either HD zero
[2908.5] Matt: analog and that's it you can go as whatever you want. And the
[2911.14] Matt: idea was to be as open as you can to get as meant like be as
[2914.18] Matt: free and let people like experiment with what would work
[2916.86] Matt: best without being too restrictive. And I think it
[2919.5] Matt: worked really well.
[2921.22] Tony: Have you guys thought about going to S or or would it be too
[2924.62] Tony: much for that venue? Would they like
[2927.34] Matt: some thoughts that have not yet been aired, but that'll be that
[2930.06] Matt: will be maybe for next year, we'll see.
[2932.94] Jack: Yeah, because you get some get some proper diving through those
[2936.94] Jack: air gates, mate.
[2938.58] Tony: Yeah. I've seen some people flying to us.
[2943.3] Matt: You come along and do an on scene, do an on scene episode of
[2950.14] Matt: Let's Go Now next year for
[2953.14] Jack: it would be it'd be nice to actually have our logo on
[2957.02] Jack: someone's sponsor list one day.
[2965.74] Jack: I know the trouble is we we cuss a bit and stuff. But not me
[2972.26] Jack: personally, I don't feel like I am the best representation to
[2975.26] Jack: the hobby. Not that I should say that out loud. I do wonder.
[2981.34] Matt: Well, maybe next year we have you guys along as like some
[2983.98] Matt: commentators and you can pop in the box and serve for a bit do
[2986.5] Matt: some commentating. Do a bit of Let's Go Now podcast off to one
[2992.86] Matt: side interview people that are coming along, you know, like the
[2995.78] Matt: idea is to try and present all sides of the hobby to the general
[3001.42] Matt: public and show them what like what can be done and what's out
[3004.78] Matt: there because you don't know what you don't know. And at the
[3007.3] Matt: moment, everybody sees big scary drones terrorizing people's
[3010.78] Matt: flats, or sticking sex toys on the outside of office buildings
[3014.78] Matt: or you know, naughty thing. And I want to show you what it's
[3019.74] Matt: not all about.
[3021.3] Cerb: We did have on both days, a pilot interview kind of drop off
[3026.14] Cerb: point, which we really want to build on and do more with so we
[3030.58] Cerb: get to talk to the pilots and hear about what's going on,
[3034.38] Cerb: what's going on in the pit. And it was basically a white wall
[3039.42] Cerb: with Matt stood there poking microphones in front of people.
[3043.54] Cerb: And the next day, we'd really love that to be a chilled area
[3048.34] Cerb: with a sofa and some like, you know, guys like yourselves,
[3051.82] Cerb: they're ready to kind of like accept pilots and we can throw
[3054.94] Cerb: over to the interview sofa and it worked. It was nice, but it
[3059.14] Cerb: was a bit stark.
[3060.7] Matt: We can improve upon it. It worked really well. And I like
[3065.14] Matt: to be able to, you know, show and me and so both agree, like,
[3069.38] Matt: if you can tell the story behind a pilot, which is part of the
[3071.66] Matt: reason we did like the the self introduction videos from the
[3075.02] Matt: pilot, and didn't get to know the pilots a bit more, you know,
[3078.22] Matt: who's behind the sticks, who's piloting this craft, and how
[3082.06] Matt: they felt about battling for that place and who they were
[3084.42] Matt: able to take or not take. You know, you can understand a bit
[3087.42] Matt: more about where they're coming from and what their motivations
[3090.18] Jack: are. Yeah, we've got
[3092.78] Jack: you almost need a sort of sponsor backing board and one of
[3098.14] Jack: those stand up tables with some Jenga. Yeah. It distracts the
[3102.3] Jack: pilots enough that they're playing Jenga to then have a
[3105.98] Jack: casual conversation.
[3109.62] Matt: Yeah, so we want to do maybe something like that in future
[3112.58] Matt: and get get to interview people. We had a couple of really
[3117.38] Matt: good interviews, like say with the drone soccer guys with some
[3120.86] Matt: of the guys who are here last year. You know, it was good to
[3125.1] Matt: get to chat with them. I think we can do more with that in
[3127.86] Matt: the future and help people understand a bit more, like the
[3131.26] Matt: people behind the sticks.
[3133.94] Cerb: That's a really standard thing we do that view there. So that's
[3137.34] Cerb: giving you there are four pilot images on the page. And while
[3141.54] Cerb: they're plugging in and getting ready, you can see, you know,
[3144.94] Cerb: coming up is round nine. It's heat for four. These are your
[3148.62] Cerb: four pilots. So when the commentator is going, Oh, it's
[3151.26] Cerb: carb, he's in the lead, there's GoPro master right behind him.
[3153.86] Cerb: You've got this kind of, you've at least seen who they are. And
[3157.26] Cerb: you guys know, I've been doing this with a five inch of racing
[3159.9] Cerb: for it forever. And then when they're actually flying, you
[3163.7] Cerb: get you get their little avatar, you get their logos in the
[3166.38] Cerb: corner. So you start building those relationships and we can
[3171.14] Cerb: actually talk about the pilots.
[3172.78] Tony: Yeah, yeah.
[3174.54] Matt: That's awesome.
[3175.38] Matt: That's the plan. You know, we're growing each year. So the first
[3179.66] Matt: year we did this, it was literally me, a spreadsheet and
[3182.46] Matt: a couple of blokes in the pub flying around a few gates. The
[3185.58] Matt: next year, it was still me in a spreadsheet and a timing puck.
[3188.9] Matt: And it was a little bit more organized with like, you know,
[3192.46] Matt: in a proper like venue, you know, where we weren't buzzing
[3195.46] Matt: around people's heads. And we had a really good race. And then
[3199.78] Matt: I was like, Okay, this is growing people really like it.
[3201.94] Matt: Let's bring serve on board. And so it got bigger for last year,
[3205.86] Matt: where we had so many more pilots, we organized groups, we
[3209.26] Matt: had a live stream game commentary, we really stepped
[3212.62] Matt: up. And we learned a lot from that. But man, this year is the
[3216.22] Matt: biggest yet. And it has been as I mean, I'm gonna blow my own
[3219.14] Matt: horn and say it was a complete success. Like it was it was a
[3221.58] Matt: really good fun. I had a blast in it.
[3224.1] Tony: Great. I mean, the fact that you had people coming over from
[3226.34] Tony: different countries just, that's brilliant in it. So good.
[3230.82] Cerb: But I keep your wake the night before. Well, actually, six
[3234.74] Cerb: months before, because like, you know, you're just doing a
[3238.22] Cerb: wheat race. And then you realize people are buying
[3240.54] Cerb: aeroplane tickets. Yeah. To come and take part in what you're
[3245.14] Cerb: doing. And they're booking hotels and planning thousands
[3247.94] Cerb: and miles of genuine. Okay, no pressure then, but we probably
[3251.7] Matt: better get this right. Yeah, yeah, they're, they're, you
[3256.9] Matt: know, and there's serious competition as well coming. It's
[3259.26] Matt: not like it's a few of your mates you met once when you're
[3261.94] Matt: on holiday. These guys are really quick. Like we were the
[3265.94] Cerb: prime Italians, the Italians actually competed to see who
[3270.22] Cerb: would come and fly our event. Well, that's not my event.
[3277.9] Cerb: We're the prize. No, I'm not sure.
[3282.1] Matt: It's honestly a massive honor that we would have so many
[3286.3] Matt: different countries and so many people from different countries
[3288.58] Matt: come so far to fly with us like it really isn't on it like and
[3292.38] Matt: that and that's what makes us work really hard to make sure
[3295.38] Matt: that it goes well, we want to make sure we're decent show we
[3298.26] Matt: want to make sure everyone's got a chance to do their best and
[3301.22] Matt: really get like enough batteries through understand the course
[3304.22] Matt: like, it's clear which way you go. You know, so that I mean, we
[3309.22] Matt: in the final in the elite class, we had 123456 from the UK out of
[3318.26] Matt: 16. You know, six people out of 16 from the UK or the rest of
[3324.06] Matt: them are from Germany, Latvia, Italy, Poland, you know, across
[3328.66] Matt: across the country, across the country. So awesome. And these
[3332.22] Matt: were our elite winners. Yes, we got the title back. We have
[3338.94] Matt: carve FPV Daniel carvis sitting in first place from the UK
[3343.22] Matt: reclaiming the bird elite top position for 2024 which is nice
[3350.74] Matt: followed by Alexis GoPro master from Italy in second place had
[3358.42] Matt: and then in third place, we've got Adrian Stanek, a deke from
[3362.62] Matt: Poland. So first was UK second was Italy third is Poland fourth
[3367.82] Matt: is a left BV of team blue eyes back again from Italy. This was
[3373.22] Matt: re FPV from Latvia. Six of Nico, Nicola georgieto from Italy.
[3380.3] Matt: Seven is light sail our next UK pilot bill outside. He did really
[3385.26] Matt: well. My god he flies so fast. He came to one of the test days.
[3388.22] Matt: He's a quick guy. So just go like I've seen him fly regularly.
[3393.1] Matt: And he's quick carve also very quickly. He won but light sail
[3397.3] Matt: as fast and I see him fly regularly and to have people
[3399.98] Matt: faster than him turn up from other countries and dominate is
[3403.26] Matt: so impressive because light sail and King Joshi in eighth, both
[3407.5] Matt: of them very, very fast ad movie last year came ninth and along
[3412.98] Matt: with Dan Carpy in 10th, right? So that movie from Poland, Dan
[3416.86] Matt: Carpy, the UK, Dan Carpy one in 2021 ad movie came second in
[3423.18] Matt: 2023. Oh, hang on 22 and 23. Dan Carpy was first and 22 ad
[3429.06] Matt: movie second in 23. They were limited by how far they could
[3434.86] Matt: get up our elite class by the final structure. And it was
[3437.9] Matt: because they came in the bottom two of their first heat. So like
[3444.18] Matt: I say, every single every single race counts, they were limited
[3447.38] Matt: how high up the elite class they could get because they came in
[3449.74] Matt: the bottom two. You know, we had some good discussions about
[3453.3] Matt: that in the pub afterwards. But it meant that people that were
[3458.06] Matt: you know, first, second, third last year and the years before
[3461.98] Matt: were limited because there's the step up to make sure that they
[3465.82] Matt: were in the top two going forwards. The step up was so
[3468.9] Matt: high and people were pushing so hard right from the beginning
[3472.34] Matt: that it made it made a difference. Then we had Oscar
[3477.3] Matt: Nova in 11th, but Italy, J.M. juris master police, ma Sala
[3484.54] Matt: police. I'm sorry, juris. I'm getting your name absolutely
[3487.9] Matt: butchered. But from Latvia, the main guy organizing the Latvian
[3491.66] Matt: team in 12th. Good Astrophe came to third last year, he was down
[3496.7] Matt: in 13th, again, getting a little bit tied up down the lower order
[3502.78] Matt: because the finals format. And this is what I mean, like we've
[3505.82] Matt: got a whole new set of people now sitting at the top that
[3508.38] Matt: these guys are going to want to chase next year. Mike FPV, Mike
[3512.62] Matt: Agar from the UK. Very quick guy, Glitch FPV, Max Groper
[3517.06] Matt: from Germany in 15th and Mr. E from SGDC lay down in 16th. And
[3524.66] Matt: that was our elite class. It was an incredible, incredible
[3527.98] Matt: watching live because all of them were so fast. They all they
[3530.94] Matt: all put in absolutely the best.
[3532.3] Tony: But after I go and have a skim through your eight hours and
[3535.3] Tony: have a look down.
[3537.06] Matt: Yeah, the the racing is incredible. And it was so up
[3540.42] Matt: close as well. That's like another of the really good
[3542.82] Matt: things about tiny whoop stuff is you can stand next to the net
[3546.1] Matt: because we've got a net up and you go straight past you. It's
[3548.94] Matt: like, get right into it. Whereas if you stood that close to a
[3551.9] Matt: five inch, you would be
[3554.34] Jack: Did you start out with like, whoops, or were you like, always
[3562.78] Jack: a big tiny whoop guy?
[3565.94] Matt: My first my first sort of thoughts about flights were when
[3572.74] Matt: I was sitting in the car going to my grandma's going down the
[3576.78] Matt: M4 for about three hours from London to Bath. And you'd get
[3580.86] Matt: to like, the end near Bath, you'd be going down like
[3583.78] Matt: country roads. And I'd be sat there as like a six year old
[3587.18] Matt: bored to tears like so boring. Oh my god. And I'll pretend I
[3593.14] Matt: had sitting next to me like in my head, this is gonna it's
[3596.22] Matt: gonna make you sound crazy. I'd pretend I have like a
[3598.54] Matt: helicopter. And I'd take it off out of the sunroof of the car
[3602.34] Matt: and fly around. And then it would like transform into a boat
[3605.62] Matt: and it would go into like the river next to the speed along
[3607.7] Matt: there. And then it would jump out off like a big and clear
[3609.94] Matt: the car and it would go underneath our car and come up
[3612.1] Matt: through the trap door. And that was the first thought or thing
[3615.18] Matt: I was thinking about like RC stuff. But honestly, when I
[3618.94] Matt: actually became an adult and had disposable income, and then
[3622.82] Matt: started actually getting into it, it was straight into whoops.
[3627.3] Matt: You know, I've been whoops through and through just because
[3629.46] Matt: I'm convinced that being able to fly around at home and turn your
[3632.54] Matt: whole house into a racetrack is just so much fun. That I think
[3636.78] Matt: everybody should be doing it. I do have a slightly bigger
[3639.38] Matt: drone. It's not a five inch. It is a little
[3646.74] Matt: little three inch. It's the gubbins of a GT 349R diatone.
[3654.7] Matt: But I put it in an armament and HD tadpole frame. So I do have
[3659.82] Matt: like a faster outdoor quad. If I really want to go out and, you
[3666.14] Matt: know, fly around outdoors, which I do occasionally, but I come
[3670.74] Matt: back to whoops. I mean, I had to go with Mike, I had to go with
[3675.82] Matt: his six S five inch and I nearly pardon French crap pants,
[3680.78] Matt: because it is so far. I don't know how you guys think quick
[3684.26] Matt: enough to deal with that sort of thing. But it's so
[3687.78] Jack: just pointing in a direction, hope for the best.
[3690.5] Matt: In the right time.
[3692.18] Matt: I was so scared. Like, I can fly acro and I can do all right. I
[3697.1] Matt: can get because I came to one of Serb's races in the summer. And
[3701.26] Matt: I got my little three inch around his track crashing
[3703.78] Matt: multiple times. And I was I was like, my heart was pumping. I
[3708.34] Matt: thought this is too much. This is too quick. He like, if I crash
[3712.78] Matt: this, I'm gonna do damage. I'm gonna really screw it up. And
[3716.94] Matt: then people are doing that with five inches that absolutely
[3719.7] Matt: jump those things move so far. But yeah, I don't know how you
[3724.9] Matt: guys think quickly enough to be able to do that.
[3727.58] Jack: Unfortunately, that is what we've got time for. Massive. Thank
[3732.14] Jack: you and shout out to all our lovely boys.
[3734.42] Matt: Before we go, I need to say thanks to the sponsors for for
[3738.1] Matt: the event because I mentioned our gold sponsor half model and
[3741.78] Matt: our silver sponsors tiny whip and we bleed. I really
[3743.9] Matt: appreciate you guys like jumping in and supplying like prizes
[3746.78] Matt: and money towards the to the prize fund. Thank you so much
[3750.5] Matt: for that. But I need to say thank you to all the other
[3753.22] Matt: sponsors because again, like you guys have such a good like
[3756.7] Matt: support package that made all of this possible. So obviously,
[3760.3] Matt: we've got killer quads and FPV racing solutions in the
[3763.9] Matt: background, helping me actually run the event with Cerberus and
[3767.1] Matt: the guys quads. Millennium Point, we talked about a lot the
[3771.9] Matt: the venue, they just let us do whatever we want. And thank you
[3776.18] Matt: to you guys, we will have chats about coming back next year.
[3779.82] Matt: Debbie Hooves, putting together a special minifigure for one of
[3783.82] Matt: the prizes, and the BMFA for providing the drone simulators
[3789.78] Matt: down in the in the atrium. Thank you guys appreciate that. And
[3793.42] Matt: then all of the brands that put together like prizes. So we've
[3798.22] Matt: got Vifi with their chargers, CADAC CADX with the cameras and
[3802.94] Matt: the caps and things, hobby RC with their very generous
[3808.66] Matt: vouchers, team black sheep as well and incredible voucher
[3813.94] Matt: package for the prizes, gem fan, HQ prop boats supplying some
[3818.98] Matt: incredible like props that every single pilot walked away with a
[3822.06] Matt: little goodie bag full of like props and stickers and all sorts
[3824.7] Matt: of stuff like that. feature FPV. Thank you so much. You guys have
[3827.86] Matt: been there from the beginning, from the very first one when it
[3830.62] Matt: was just me in a pub and a few guys flying around. Thank you
[3833.5] Matt: for supporting Birmingham International Race Day and
[3836.7] Matt: Midlands 3D. You guys printed the trophies. I really appreciate
[3841.22] Matt: you guys getting involved as well. So I just want to say
[3843.1] Matt: thank you to all you guys out there on stream because everybody
[3845.42] Matt: should know that it's not like we put together the the event day
[3849.18] Matt: but without all these people in the background. I think I mixed
[3851.86] Matt: missed out Fox here. Fox here needs a mention as well because
[3854.5] Matt: they put together a great prize. It's the Nano VTX and some
[3859.94] Matt: lollipop antennas, which are my personal favorite and have saved
[3863.18] Matt: one of my boobs from dying.
[3864.38] Jack: Don't forget Jesse from Tiny Woot, you and me as well.
[3869.14] Matt: Yeah, I'm pushing that he will be back next year. And yeah, so
[3874.1] Matt: thank you guys, all of you guys can say without you guys, you
[3878.58] Matt: know, giving us the backup, we could and my drone, my my god,
[3883.22] Matt: there's so many of them. My drone Matlin's doing photography
[3886.46] Matt: services with drones in the Leicestershire area. Sorry,
[3890.9] Matt: Joe, I'm going on a bit. But yeah, I'd like to say thank you
[3895.18] Matt: for all those guys.
[3897.18] Jack: Thank you to all our lovely patrons who helped keep the show
[3900.26] Jack: running. Andrew slash Frank. That stops him from hurting us.
[3906.38] Jack: Yeah, get better soon.
[3908.06] Jack: I hope you feel better buddy. You've been joined by our
[3911.18] Jack: guests, Matt and serve and my darling wife Tony. And I've been
[3919.82] Jack: brought into life by thank you. Good night.