The Evolution of Drones: From Delivery to Racing to Battling


People have always been fascinated with the sky and have found creative ways to make new sky-related jobs for over a century. Plane advertisers began flying banners in the early 1920s. Fast forward to 2016, and there are drones flying around the sky just looking to give people new careers.

According to CNN Money, drones are now delivering pizzas to New Zealand residents.

“It doesn’t add up to deliver a two kilogram package in a two-ton vehicle,” said Scott Bush, general manager for Domino’s Pizza Enterprises.

It’s fair to assume that in the next year or two, more and more drones will be flying around with pizza boxes, groceries, and other items. But there are still many more creative activities out there for drones to be a part of.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a newly launched channel, Sky Sports Mix, will feature a Drone Racing League.

Television giant, Sky, recently invested $1 million in the Drone Racing League and will air its races on the new Sky Sports Mix channel.

The show will air in October and will be broadcast to the U.K. and Ireland. It’ll follow 10 one-hour episodes featuring face races and a world championship race at the end of the season.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with DRL to help develop this exciting new sport,” said Emma Lloyd, group business development director at Sky.

Drone racing is finally here, but even so, there are still more extreme and creative ways these machines are being used.

Drone delivery is one thing, and drone racing is another, but drone battling is in a whole other league.

Tech Crunch reports that after Kyle Ettinger bought and mastered drone after drone, he became known as one of the best drone fighters in the entire world. Kyle Ettinger is also only 16-years-old.

Ettinger already developed a winning drone last year that has a spherical carbon fiber frame and a string dangling from the bottom of the drone to go into other drones’ rotors to send them crashing down. Now, he has drones that shoot nets at other drones to take them down.

“The appeal of combat is so different than the appeal of racing,” said Marque Cornblatt, CEO of Aerial Sports League. “Racing is a drug. On the other side of the equation is this engineering, mad scientist mindset where you want to make things. It’s the kid that grew up playing with Legos and Erector sets, now they want to fly and smash their Legos together.”

It’s no telling how crazy drone usage will be in the future.


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