Several reasons:
- autonomy is in the 1/2h range for rotary-wing drones, you would need a lot of drones/operators throughout the race (it lasts 6h on average).
- the cameras/lenses used are huge, in the tens of kg, you could be closer with smaller drones thus requiring lighter lenses, but still, I think you would need big drones to keep the same quality. That means less safe and cheap.
- speed, the riders can reach 80-90kmph when going down, which is about/higher than the top speed of most drones.
- worse visibility/reactivity than a team in a helicopter, so harder to adapt to the action.
- better weather resistance
All around, helicopters are still the better option right now.
I guess they could/do use drones for some specific sections: climbs with a lot of public and similar where endurance/speed is less an issue and you can go much closer.
One of the advantages of using motorcycles is that they can get shots from in amongst the bikes, at more or less the same level as the riders. Maybe using drones would work, but if I were riding a professional cycle race I'm not sure how happy I'd be about having drones buzzing around at head level.
Drone buzzing followed by a crash on the road would certainly not be preferable to a blunt bump with a motorcycle followed by a crash on the road.
A minor motorcycle bump would also be quite recoverable, not much different from contact with a peer which is a routine occurrence in racing, far from being inevitably followed by a crash. A "minor drone buzzing"? I don't think so.
For professional drone pilots that kind of flying would be a piece of cake. Then the fixed-wing becomes a bi-directional relay for the drone control. The motorcycles seem to crash or cause crashes every year...
No way they could match the situational awareness of a motorcycle rider who's there, moving on the same mechanical medium, following the same vehicle physics as the athletes, ideally even being a former pro cyclist who's experience would not transfer remotely as well to stone piloting as from one kind of bike to another.
And still, moto/cyclist crashes happen and replacing them with drone/cyclist would be worse.
You are replying in a subthread concerning replacing the motorcycle camera operators with drones, not the helicopters. If you can precompiled the order and behaviour of the cyclists then you can make a lot of money gambling on the race this year...
Yes, I'm talking about replacing the motorcycles. Drones can fly close enough to get basically the same footage as motorcycles. Yes, the pace is not precomputable, but the path definitely is. For professional drone pilots, that is huge, because if the path is known but the pace isn't it reduces the entire piloting effort down to a one dimensional instruction. And there's no need to have only one drone.
The motorcycles are an eyesore, they interfere with the race, and they emit noxious gasses for the athletes to breathe. Replacing them with drones seems like the thing to do.
There have been enough significant accidents caused by the motorbikes that reliable drones (flown appropriately) would probably be welcomed, after the usual uncertainty period.
"flown appropriately" would imply restricting the drones to the kind of shot that is already provided in generous quantity by helicopters. They'd want to keep the motos for the same reason they haven't gone helicopter-only.
Also, the low hanging fruit would not be getting rid of the very few TV motos, it would be reducing the high number of mostly redundant photojournalism motos.
> "flown appropriately" would imply restricting the drones to the kind of shot that is already provided in generous quantity by helicopters.
Actually, I'd argue differently. I'd imagine the greatest risk of injury from a drone would be it failing and falling from a significant height (i.e. similar shots as provided by helicopters). However, I'd envisage they could do a great job providing images/video from (say) 15-20 metres away - close enough to replace the video motorbikes and not present a great risk in the unlikely event of failure, but far enough to not interfere - and probably interfere less than the motorbikes currently do.
> Also, the low hanging fruit would not be getting rid of the very few TV motos, it would be reducing the high number of mostly redundant photojournalism motos.
Agree; but it can't be beyond the wit of man to outfit a drone to take decent quality stills?
> I'd imagine the greatest risk of injury from a drone would be it failing and falling from a significant height
Not if you are trying to replicate a motorcycle camera angle. The motos get very close not only to the athletes, but also to the audience. Not just because they can't fly, but also because that low camera angle is desirable.
> but it can't be beyond the wit of man to outfit a drone to take decent quality stills?
The stills are mostly for closeups. You would not even be able to get that angle with a drone carrying a reasonably sized camera, because the rotors would not only be in the image, they would also be in the face of the subject.
Drones might find some niche in broadcasting road cycling if they get safety and regulations sorted out (tough problem with basically unrestricted audience access), but not replacing motorcycles and helicopters. Smaller races that don't have helicopters will surely add drone angles, just like many have recently started to introduce their first motorcycle camera thanks to price drops.
