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Comment by bdamm | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

Drones can fly above and to the side, providing excellent viewing angle. The path can even be precomputed. What’s the issue?

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.

The drones also can't provide drafts for the French GC riders :-)

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