Drones as sport

Is flying drones a sport? It is: a proper, organised one, with leagues, national teams, World Championships and a place at The World Games. And it's much more than racing.

More than racing

There are five main ways to compete with a drone:

• Racing. Fly through gates around a track, faster than everyone else. Outdoors with 5″ racers, indoors with tiny whoops.
• Freestyle. Tricks, flow and style, like BMX or skateboarding, but in the air.
• Drone soccer. A team game in a cage: fly the ball drone through the other team's goal.
• Combat. Drone against drone: endurance, tactics and nerves.
• Sim racing. Racing on a simulator, from your own room. The FAI even runs an e-drone World Cup.

Two we do every week

At HOBIzone we race and we play drone soccer, in separate training groups. The idea is the same in both: sim, fly, train. A race day is a long day: setup, checks and a track walk in the morning, then qualifying: four pilots per heat, two minutes each, and your best three laps in a row count. The fastest go on to the finals. Drone soccer is a team game: five players and two substitutes per team, three sets of three minutes, and only the striker can score.

More than thumbs

It looks like you're just standing there moving your thumbs. You're not. You make decisions in split seconds at high speed, and your heart is racing while your hands have to stay calm. You stand for hours, walk the track, carry your gear and set up gates. Good posture and a strong core help you stay steady through a long race day. You have to handle nerves, crashes and losing. And you're your own mechanic: when your drone breaks between heats, you fix it. National team pilots train two to three hours a day: flying, fitness and mental preparation.

Why sport?

At HOBIzone we don't teach kids drones. We give them a chance to learn to love technology, and sport is how we do it.

• Because you want to. In drone sport you get better mainly because you want to. Nobody has to push you; the next lap time does it.
• Skills for life. Building, fixing, soldering, setting up, staying calm under pressure. Those skills lead to engineering, IT, film and start-ups, far beyond the race.
• Body and mind. It's not just technology: reactions, focus, nerves and posture all get trained.
• Never alone in the pits. At the start you're on your own, but you train together, share spare parts and learn from each other.
• Joy, side by side. It's fun that isn't work and isn't military. People fly next to each other, looking up and forward, kids with their parents.
• Time and pressure. Two minutes, four pilots, one chance. You learn to deliver when it counts.

What racing teaches you

If you can race, you can do anything: handle chaos, decide in seconds and keep your head. Racing teaches six things that work everywhere:

1. Individual, but a team. At the start you're alone, but getting there takes mentors, teammates and friends. "To win as a team, you must be willing to lose as an individual." (Ayrton Senna) 2. You don't control the result. Rivals, the track and the wind all change. You control how you show up and how you prepare. "You can't control the competition, only your preparation and your attitude." (Michael Schumacher) 3. Know your machine. A pilot is a mechanic too: build it, tune it, fix it. "To finish first, first you must finish." (Rick Mears) 4. Flow. Hand and eye, speed and lines, practised until it all moves on its own. "Practise until you can't get it wrong." (Matt Hall) 5. Habits beat goals. Every training starts with one small goal, and habits get you there. "You fall to the level of your habits." (James Clear) 6. Effort = progress. No shortcuts: every flight is a lesson, and we all started from zero. "The more I practise, the luckier I get." (Gary Player)

Who runs it: the world

Drone sport is part of the FAI, the World Air Sports Federation, the same organisation that runs gliding, skydiving and hot-air ballooning, and recognised by the International Olympic Committee. Inside the FAI, drone sports are class F9: F9U is drone racing and F9A is drone soccer. There's a World Cup series every year, World Drone Racing Championships since 2018 (Shenzhen 2018, Ningbo 2019, Namwon 2023, Hangzhou 2024), and the next one is in Guangzhou, China, on 8–13 December 2026, with Drone Racing Team Estonia on the start list. The first World Drone Soccer Championships were held in Shanghai in November 2025, with 18 countries. Drone racing was on the programme of The World Games in Birmingham in 2022 and in Chengdu in 2025. Outside the FAI there are big leagues too: MultiGP, the world's biggest drone racing league, with Global Qualifiers and Regional Finals, and the Drone Champions League (DCL), the professional team league. In 2026 Morten Siimar became the first Estonian to race in the DCL, for team Aspan.

Who runs it: Estonia

In Estonia it works the same way as other sports. You train at a club, like HOBIzone. Clubs are members of Eesti Lennuspordi Föderatsioon (ELF), the Estonian air sports federation, which together with Eesti Mudellennu Ühendus (model flying) looks after drone sport. ELF is a member of the Estonian Olympic Committee and of the FAI, so drone sport is part of the same system as every other Olympic-family sport, including Team Estonia. Competition runs in four leagues: EDRL for FPV drone racing (with PRO and Rahvaliiga classes), EWRL for whoop racing indoors, ESRL for simulator racing and EDJL for droonijalka. You can see how each one is set up at edrl.ee. Estonia also hosts international races: the next is Arctic Madness in Rakvere on 16 January 2027, a round of the FAI World Cup, with a second FAI World Cup planned in Tallinn and MultiGP Global Qualifiers on the calendar. And at the top there's the national team: Drone Racing Team Estonia (DRTE), which is part of Team Estonia. At the 2026 World Championships in China the team is Morten Siimar, Magnus Müller, Karl Kask and Janno Siimar. Its goal is to bring Estonian drone athletes to medals at the big title competitions by 2029.

And it's growing. In 2026, 62 pilots from five countries raced in EDRL, 33 raced in the whoop series, about 400 children trained drone soccer every week, and HOBIzone grew to 111 members.

From your first training to DRTE

There's a clear path, and everyone moves along it at their own pace. Racing and drone soccer train separately, but the steps are the same:

1. First training. Try the simulator and a whoop. 2. Club training. In the racing group or the drone soccer group. Same idea in both: sim, fly, train. 3. Club races and games. Your first real competitions. 4. The national leagues. EDRL, EWRL, ESRL or EDJL. 5. International races. FAI World Cup and MultiGP races in Estonia and around the Baltics. 6. Drone Racing Team Estonia. World Cups and World Championships, flying for Estonia.

Your season

Your first racing season at HOBIzone is a step-by-step path that follows the weather. In October you start on the simulator. In November you fly, fix and race whoops. In December you build your 5″ racer. As soon as the snow melts you fly it outside. And from May to September it's EDRL and Rahvaliiga.

From your second season on it's simpler, just two halves: in winter it's the simulator and whoops indoors, in summer it's the 5″ outside and the simulator. Drone soccer trains as its own group, indoors all year, with the same idea: sim, fly, train.

A real sport, and the road to the national team starts at your first training.