World's first combined plane & drone swarm show staged in Dubai

[Adam]

Something a little bit different to a typical airshow... I recently returned from Dubai, where the Aerosparx Display Team performed a multi-record-breaking air display featuring 2000 drones, two aircraft, fireworks, searchlights, a 110m-long multimedia display screen and music composed especially for the occasion. While I know of a few occasions when up to five human-piloted drones have been used during an air display, flying outside the aerobatic box, I am fairly confident that this is the first time in history that manned aircraft have flown a coordinated display with a drone swarm, all within a single piece of airspace.

Even without the added complexity of the aircraft and fireworks, the drone show itself was also one of the largest ever staged, and was awarded two Guinness World Records for the largest ever national flag and largest ever logo to be formed by drones. Unlike most drone swarm companies, this provider, Dronisos, has special tracking technology that allows them to monitor the position of every individual drone throughout the show and issue automatic instructions to individual drones to land/correct their path should they deviate from the plan by more than about 1.5m (5ft). This extra layer of safety allowed the Aerosparx aircraft to fly just 20m (60ft) from the edge of the drone swarm during one of the world record-breaking formations without compromising safety - much closer than would be possible with conventional technology.

The show was performed at night as part of the closing ceremony of the prestigious Dubai World Cup, with the action taking place in front of (and sometimes below!) the 11-storey tall, 1km-long Meydan Racecourse grandstand.

As far as jaw-dropping "I can't quite compute what my eyes are seeing" moments go, this certainly topped anything I've seen at an air display before and totally redefined what a night airshow can actually be.

I have put together a short video - enjoy below, with sound on.