Drone racing takes off at Birmingham show – but only with men

Top Gun pitted Maverick and Goose against the Iceman and Viper. At the UK Drones Show Championships at Birmingham NEC on Sunday, it was Saggy Nun and Collision who competed to be crowned the nation's fastest pilot of an unmanned flying vehicle. It was Collision, aka 22-year-old graduate trainee Brett Collis, who took the £1,000 prize in this new event in which pale young men sporting special goggles synched with flying cameras navigated an illuminated 3D obstacle course in the dark. FPV (first person view) drone racing is rapidly becoming a lucrative business: Sky Sports recently decided to show a US race series on its Mix channel and in March a 15-year-old British boy called Luke Bannister won $250,000 (£173,900) when he triumphed at the World Drone Prix in Dubai. Wearing his call sign on the back of his T-shirt, Collis explained how he graduated to drone racing from video games.