Drones have opened up whole new vistas of aerial exploration to the human eye, taking us to hitherto unseen and difficult to navigate places. Nowhere is off-limits for drones, from dizzying mountaintops, to the landscapes of Mars.
Flying cameras have not just allowed us to explore beyond the earth, but deep within it too. Check out these mesmerising videos of drones going to places no conventional camera can reach.
Take a trip through London's Crossrail tunnels
Crossrail is a mammoth 60-mile-long rail network designed to connect East London with West, and is set to open in 2018. 13 of those miles are made up of an array of underground tunnels, built into the capital's already-extensive Underground rail network. Filmed by BBC cameraman John Bontoft, using a GoPro camera mounted on a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter, this video provides unprecedented access to the dusty subterranean labyrinth that's set to carry 200 million passengers every year.
Experience Melbourne's drone racing underground
This *Fast and Furious-*style footage offers an exclusive, adrenaline-fuelled glimpse into the world of Melbourne's underground drone racing scene. In this hi-tech sport, teams of racers gather in abandoned warehouses and factories in the Australian city to pit their flying copters against each other. As you can see from the footage, the results are high-octane and highly competitive.
Explore an underground jungle
Vietnam's Hang Son Doong cave, which spans 5.5 miles, is one of the largest in the world -- so mammoth, in fact, that parts of it are thought to be big enough to contain skyscrapers and 747 jumbo jets. US photographer Ryan Deboodt used a DJI Phantom 2 drone to explore the cave, which was originally discovered in 1990. The footage captures the stunning green jungle lurking 600-feet beneath the Earth's surface, where sunlight filters through to the floor.
Navigate a flooded quarry's buried treasure
This video provides a bird's-eye view of an abandoned and flooded quarry. The highlights are the close-up glimpses of rusted construction equipment, such as cranes and diggers, that have been submerged under the water, Atlantis-like, before they could be saved.
Visit some epic ice caves
Using a DSLRPros Ultimate Kit to fly through Alaska's ice caves, this gripping footage digs far below the glaciers and frozen mountaintops to the chilly, beautiful caverns below, providing the rare opportunity to get up close to some of the world's most remote -- and remarkable -- natural wonders.
Delve unscathed into an active volcano
If you've ever wanted to get as close as possible to an explosive volcano without having to risk getting your eyebrows singed, then this spectacular footage is just what you're looking for. Amazingly, the DJI Phantom drone that captured Yasur volcano on Tanna island, in the South Pacific, didn't meet a molten end, managing to capture the belching plumes of smoke and bubbling lava to full awe-inspiring effect.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
