Unless you're a fighter pilot — or Tom Cruise pretending to be a fighter pilot — you'll never know what it feels like to buckle yourself inside a cockpit and man the world's fastest aircraft.

But, once a month, a group of drone pilots gather at Spire Institute & Academy to do the next-best thing: strap on a pair of goggles and see firsthand what it's like to race against other talented pilots.

But, as they'll tell you, it's also very uncool.

"The goggles you use don't make you seem dorky at all," Angela Jacques said, laughing. "There is absolutely nothing dorky about this."

Andy Stankiewicz and Jacques are instructors for Spire's drone racing meetups, which typically take place on the first or second Saturday of each month inside Spire's fields and courts building.

Each meetup draw between 15 and 30 people — Boomers to Zoomers and everything in between — who want to develop their skills, knowledge and experience for pro or amateur competitions.

But it's not just practice. Pilots engage in two- to three-minute races, complete with timed laps and judges who watch on computer monitors to make sure the pilots navigate their drones through the various obstacles.

That competition is essential, Stankiewicz said. To misquote Proverbs 27:17, "As carbon fiber sharpens carbon fiber, so one drone pilot sharpens another."

"That's the only way to get better," Stankiewicz said of competing in real races. "You can fly around this course all day by yourself and get a little bit better, but the pressure of hearing someone else announcing lap times and having someone else next to you passing you, it ratchets up the intensity level.

"We run it like an actual race, so you know what to expect when you get to the higher levels."

First-person view (FPV) drone racing began in Germany in 2011 and has steadily become a big deal, and big business. Its professional series, the Drone Racing League, recently inked a five-year deal with blockchain platform Algorand worth $100 million. Its championship race was broadcast on NBC and Twitter and doubled its global broadcast reach between 2021 and 2022, reaching more than 250 million households across 13 sports networks.

Few pilots compete professionally — or make much money doing it — but the sport has blossomed thanks to its relatively low cost of entry (a standard quadcopter with five-inch propellers, a controller and a pair of goggles can cost less than $1,000) and its innate awesomeness. The quadcopters use low-latency cameras, which beam a wireless signal directly to the goggles. The picture looks like what you'd see in a security camera, but it's instantaneous, which is pretty important when you're flying upwards of 80 to 100 miles per hour.

"The commercial drones, the ones you can buy anywhere, are also FPV, but the thing is they're digital and they're slower," Jacques said. "These ones are generally analog. What it does is, you see the obstacle right away so you don't crash into it."

Added Stankiewicz, "If you have 40 milliseconds of delay, you're already in a tree."

And if you do crash into a tree? Well, because the quadcopters are made of durable plastic, crashes (usually) aren't a big deal.

"With drones like this one, you can send it full speed into one of these walls and it'll break a propeller," Stankiewicz said. "That's it. You just change the plastic propeller."

That's where Spire has an advantage over other venues. Its field and courts building is netted — both on the walls and in front of the computer monitors — so there's no risk of losing your drone in the stands or flying it into someone's ear.

"If you go to the park and set up a drone race, you're going to hurt somebody eventually," Jacques said.

"Or somebody is going to call the cops or the park rangers or say, 'It's our property,'" Stankiewicz added. "This is a safe where people can hone their skills racing."

Like a lot of drone racers, Stankiewicz has a long background in remote control cars and planes. He built his first RC car when he was 8, got heavily into RC planes and spent years successfully competing as a 125cc shifter kart racer.

"But I got too old," he said of kart racing. "I couldn't risk breaking bones in that anymore."

In 2013, Stankiewicz stumbled upon his first aerial photography quadcopter, a Blade 350 QX, and discovered it scratched two itches: his love for remote controlled vehicles and competitive racing.

"Lots of ex-motocross guys get into it because they still want that adrenaline rush from competing without the injury risk," Stankiewicz, who is better known in the racing scene as "Drewracer," said. "And it really is addicting. The goggles put you in the cockpit, like Top Gun.

"It's an out-of-body thing. When you're just starting to learn how to fly, you'll be like, 'Wait, why is that guy wearing my shirt? Oh, wait, that's me.'"

Stankiewicz did his first FPV flight at one of the largest radio control events in the world, Flite Fest 2014, in Malvern. He has since flown in hundreds of competitions across the country, in places like Florida and Las Vegas. Jacques, meanwhile, has competed globally, including Korea and Brazil.

"There are relatively few people who actually make money, unless you're producing parts or selling equipment," Stankiewicz said. "But it's a relatively young sport. It's only been around since about 2014 or 2015, so it's still growing in popularity."

And, like any other sport, there are some pilots who are just naturally gifted.

"I'd say it's about 30% natural talent, 30% how much you want to train and put into it, and then the rest is luck," Stankiewicz said. "Like any form of racing, you have to be lucky and good. A lot of times, drones will crash into each other in the air. And the thing is, it happens so quick — like milliseconds — that you couldn't do it on purpose if you tried."

Drone racing has one other thing going for it: a low jerk quotient. Competition can bring out the worst in people, but the sport doesn't seem to draw the worst people. When drones crash, pilots respond by shrugging, not slugging.

"Most people laugh it off," Stankiewicz said. "There seems to be a different class of person who wants to get into tuning and soldering and improving drones. It's not ultra-competitive, where if you crash into me, I'm going to punch you out. I've seen a few temper tantrums, but for the most part (people behave)."

Each meetup costs $20. Pilots can participate by joining Team Spire Racing's MultiGP chapter. Meetup take place at noon, on the following 2022 dates: Aug. 13, Sept. 10, Oct. 8, Oct. 22, Nov. 5 and Dec. 10. 

Drone racing also is part of Spire's esports curriculum and the institute will hold a drone racing bootcamp for ages 13-18 on Aug. 15-19. The cost is $775 until July 25.

"Pretty much anyone can enjoy the thrill of racing, even if you're in a wheelchair or you have a handicap," Stankiewicz said. "If you can move your thumbs, you can be competitive."

Joe Scalzo: [email protected], (216) 771-5256, @JoeScalzo01

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