If I were to tell you that I’m about to show you a video involving a drone and a freight train, you might think that it ends in tears. That’s totally within reason, and we’ve seen lots of examples of drone owners getting a little too wild with their machines, only to be left with a pile of debris afterwards. In this particular case, however, the video is pure jaw-dropping drone action with none of the regret that often follows it, so dive in and enjoy.
The man at the controls here is Paul Nurkkala, a competitive drone pilot who specializes in FPV (first person video) flying. FPV requires you to wear goggles that stream realtime video from camera on the drone, giving you the feeling that you’re actually flying. It’s is a rapidly growing subset of the drone hobbyist community, and videos like this one are a great example of why it’s so popular.
As you can see in the video, Nurkkala’s skills are somewhat unreal. Using the speeding train as a prop, the drone dips and dives around it, gliding between the supports of a nearby bridge, and even landing on the train before taking off again. He even takes the time to pay the train conductor a visit, but rather than a friendly hello, he gets a window slammed in his face instead.
If you’re interested in what kind of hardware made this video possible, Nurkkala took the time to list every component of his drone, camera, and goggle setup in the body of the YouTube description.
