Europe’s Great Forest Drone Race

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it's two drones racing each other through a forest, and it is, for lack of a better word, AWESOME. Not seeing the forest for the trees can be a bad thing in life, but for drones, it turns out to be a decidedly good thing.

The crash-tacular YouTube video, uploaded by French drone enthusiast Olivier Yorgandjian, a member of the Airgonay Club, showcases the new trend of "drone racing," a new extreme sport zooming up the popularity ranks in Europe.

Simply strap a Go-Pro to your favorite little copter, and let it loose. You get extra points for uploading the drone-eye footage to YouTube with some suitably intense musical accompaniment.

The group responsible for these Star Wars-esque videos says it is aiming to set up a global drone racing tournament in about a year's time. The goal is to stream it online for everyone's first-person enjoyment. Herve Pellarin, another member of the Airgonay Club, has suggested the drones could be equipped with virtual lasers to "shoot down" their opponents and make the competition more compelling and video game-like.

The US is a significantly more difficult place for racers, given stricter FAA civil aviation rules and national park legislation. However, that's unlikely to prevent the enthusiastic drone aficionados from giving it a go.

Yorgandjian, who claims his mean flight time was some 36 seconds, listed the tech specs for his Porket Racer 240 as having a full carbon frame, Naze32 board, RCX motors, an ESC 10A SimonK, Lipo 1300mAh 3S battery, and Mobius Cam that shoots video at 5.8GHz.

Got a drone? Got a GoPro? Send us your own drone racing videos and we'll post the best ones on the site.

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