This article was taken from the February 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Drones are going alpine. Raphael Pirker (pictured far right, with Remo Masina, far left and Christoph Dunkel, centre) is the founder of remote-control daredevil group Team BlackSheep, which has been recording first-person videos (FPVs) using drones -- shooting in New York, at the Taj Mahal and even the Wired2012 conference.
Last summer, Pirker teamed up with base jumper Jokke Sommer. They hauled a UAV and controller to Le Grepin ski jump in Chamonix, France, donned their video goggles ("We hacked some ski goggles to display video," says Pirker), and flew a "flying wing" drone (similar to that shown held by Pirker) to the other side of the mountain, 6km away. "Originally, the idea was to do a formation flight [with Sommer], but we realised our drone would be a little slow," Pirker says. "So we went flying for fun. Then Sommer said, 'Oh, I've never been down here.' So we helped him see where he could fly." Sommer watched the footage, and used the new route recced by the wing to make his own base jump.
Pirker founded Team BlackSheep in 2009 in Zurich; it's now based in Hong Kong and sells drones and wings, along with other remote-control gear. The introduction of quadcopters in 2011 offered more opportunities: although slower than wings, they can go much closer to the ground ("But you need to be a very good pilot").
Whereas Team BlackSheep records in HD, the pilot's video feed is only standard definition -- about YouTube quality. "You get interference," says Pirker. "When there's a tree between the plane and pilot, you lose the picture for a split second."
Drone-totalling wipeouts are also common: "We walk up the mountain to recover what we can." Pirker thinks the best mountain-side application will be sports films; in January, he filmed a downhill ski race using a custom drone. "We can get a lot closer than any helicopter."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
