Image credit: Copter Race via dnepr24.com.ua
These days, the drone industry growth has been astonishing. Drones are widely used for medical, military, research, delivery, security and entertainment purposes. Obviously, this technology has broken into a mainstream. Association Noosphere, founded by Max Polyakov, not only keeps up with current technological advances, but sets and reinforces trends in such area as drone-racing in Ukraine as well.
Thus, Noosphere became a pioneer in Ukrainian drone racing, having held the first drone pilots’ competition called “Copter Race” in Dnipro in 2015. Since then, Dnipro has hosted five drone races, powered by Max Polyakov, founder of Association Noosphere and managing partner of Noosphere Ventures. However, September 23-24, 2017 marked a significant and remarkable event for drone racing in Ukraine. A stage of the FAI Drone Racing World Cup in F3U class took place at the Sport Complex “Meteor” as a part of Noosphere’s traditional Copter Race.
Image credit: Copter Race via Facebook
The First FAI Drone Racing World Cup was held in 2016. This year 16 cities across the world hosted the World Cup stages. Dnipro became a first-time host in 2017, welcoming a total of 40 pilots from 4 countries: Poland, Switzerland, Germany and Ukraine. The organizing team invited 2 experienced judges: Dmytro Franchuk, national judge, Ukrainian champion F3C class and Oscar Chinello, an official FAI representative from Italy.
Max Polyakov, managing partner of Noosphere Ventures, stated that drone racing was the youngest air sports discipline, growing at an alarming rate. As FAI certified it in 2016, the competition rules and regulations haven’t been completely established yet. Being a technical partner, Noosphere Ventures actively assists FAI in coping with such issue. That is why, Max Polyakov pointed out an online scoring system Cup Navigator. It came into force at the FAI World Cup stage in Dnipro.
On the first day amateur pilots could take part in Fan Сopter League and Free Style competitions, whereas professional ones sprang into action to obtain the qualifications. The official race within a stage of World Cup began on the second day. The competitive instinct kicked in and defined top 3 winners:
- 1st place – Andy Khan, a German athlete;
- 2d place – Dario Noenschwander, a contestant from Switzerland;
- 3d place – Victor Dzenzel, a Ukrainian sportsman
Thanks to organizational support from Association Noosphere, founded by Max Polyakov, the whole event wasn’t oriented exclusively towards drone pilots. Citizens could not only admire breathtaking drone-battles but also attend free workshops on building model rockets and piloting mini copters.
