- [Jordan] There's a moment that you find a flow state.
The only thing that is happening
in your mind is exactly now and in that moment.
- [Joe] Humans have always dreamed of flying.
Leonardo da Vinci famously said that a bird
was an instrument working according to mathematical law.
Meaning if we could figure out that math,
humans could fly too.
So in the 500+ years between this
and this,
have we realized that dream?
[upbeat music]
Jordan Temkin knows the feeling
of personal flight.
- [Jordan] The first time I put the goggles on,
I got to have this absolute freedom
that I had never experienced before.
- [Joe] Jordan who goes by, Jet, professionally,
is a two-time world champion
in the drone racing league.
He flies FPV or first person view quad-copter drones.
FPV pilots fly their drones based
on information they receive from the drones onboard camera
which is translated
to their goggles through shortwave radio signals.
So they essentially operate as if they themselves
are on board their rigs.
Tell me, you don't feel
like you're also along for this ride?
And equally as heart pounding
and adrenaline filled, physics.
Anything that flies is subject to the four forces of flight.
Those forces are weight, lift, drag and thrust.
Weight is the force pulling an object
down to earth on account of gravity.
And it's the main thing a flying object has to overcome.
Lift is another force of flight that offsets gravity
and hold something in the air.
A plane gets a lift from its wings
while a drone gets a lift from its rotors,
which are really just wings that spin.
The third force is drag.
Drag is the friction created
by air pressure.
Finally, thrust is the force that pushes an object
through the air.
In a plane propellers
or jet turbines push the aircraft forward.
But in the case of a drone, that thrust comes
from the four rotors pushing the air downwards.
So how does Jordan translate those four forces into this?
Pilots increase or decrease power
to one or more of the drones forward onboard motors
with their controller forcing movement of the drone.
- [Jordan] The propeller is the way
that we interact with the air.
- [Joe] Two propellors spin clockwise
and two spin counter-clockwise.
The arrangement makes it possible
to control the drones, angular, momentum and torque
which means pilots can control their movements.
- [Jordan] Flying a drone involves controlling
four separate axes.
First, you have the throttle, that's your Z axis.
Then you have pitch which is your forward
and back roll which is rotating to the right or left
and then yaw.
If you turn right in your car, that's yawing.
- [Joe] That process of controlling the orientation
of the drone, it's called attitude control.
This guy is definitely serving some attitude,
but we digress.
- [Jordan] Flying the drone, removing our thrust vector
to where we wanna go.
Let's say you wanna fly forwards with your drone.
You first pitch the nose down and then you throttle up.
What that's done is moved the thrust vector
to point forwards so that now you're flying forwards.
- [Joe] What forces of flight are controlling this action?
Well, the forward momentum is being met
by the opposing force of drag
- [Jordan] To do a back flip,
I would give the drone a little bit of thrust.
To give it an upwards momentum,
lower the throttle, pitch back,
and then I would catch it
like throttling up on the downwards trajectory.
When you're first learning how to fly a drone,
it's really hard to coordinate everything
because you're thinking about your hands,
you're thinking about the controls
but really once you get the hang of it,
you don't think about your hands anymore.
And it kind of just happens.
- [Joe] The weight and shape of a drone
are two major factors in determining
how efficiently it can fly.
A heavier machine creates more drag
and is pulled down harder by gravity
which in turn requires more power to run.
Jordan's drones are made from carbon fiber
because it's highly rigid and durable, but also lightweight.
He uses lithium polymer or Lipo batteries.
Lipo batteries have a high energy density,
but a low weight and they're very robust.
For comparison, your cell phone probably runs
on a lithium ion battery
which is made to last all day,
but can combust under certain circumstances.
Not an ideal characteristic when landing,
sometimes looks like this
[propellers throttling]
- Jordan] The more throttle you use,
the more battery it uses up.
If you're doing a lot of high-speed powerful maneuvers
like we do when we're racing,
the battery lasts very short amount of time.
- [Joe] When racing, Jordan's batteries
last only about two minutes
which brings us to speed.
The drones that Jordan flies can get
up to 90 miles per hour in under a second.
Compare that to a professional race car driver
who goes from zero to 60 in three seconds.
Speed is one of the considerations Jordan takes
into account when he builds drones in his Seattle workshop.
- [Jordan] When I'm designing a drone,
I'm thinking about weight, power and thrust,
durability, visibility, radio frequencies,
weatherproofing, the view coming from the FPV camera
and the GoPro.
It's a big puzzle.
- [Joe] Jordan can't fly his drones
at drone racing league events.
The DRL supplies competitors
with a regulated drone so they can be judged purely
on performance and not on their equipment.
- [Jordan] Unlike other motor sports where it's a flat track
and you're going left and right,
we're going left right up, down sideways and around.
It's about speed, reaction,
time keeping momentum and line work.
- [Joe] The drone racing league is the most high profile
FPV league today.
And it attracts a pretty big audience online and IRL.
More than a hundred million people have tuned
into their events.
- [Jordan] Every day we're just pushing the boundaries
of what it means to be a drone racing pilot.
- [Joe] And for Jordan,
it's more than just a career.
FPV shifted his entire worldview.
- [Jordan] You start looking at the world
in a different way.
You're 110% focused in exactly what's happening.
Your body doesn't matter.
It's this Zen moment where the only thing happening
is what you're doing.
- [Joe] So, maybe we have to wait a bit longer
for scientists to make personal flight a reality,
but there's no disputing the fact
that FPV has provided our consciousness,
the power to soar.
[upbeat music]
- [Joe, voice-over] Hey guys, Joe here.
Thank you so much
for watching the latest episode of Overview.
Make sure that you're subscribed here on PBS Terra,
so you don't miss our next episode.
And thanks for sharing these videos with your friends.
[upbeat music]