The Champs-Elysees was the setting of a mini-air show as amateur drone enthusiasts flew their high-tech toys over the famed Paris avenue in the city’s first festival celebrating the gadgets.The afternoon festival included a race and demonstrations of the remote-controlled devices, which are increasingly used as toys as well as for surveillance, aerial photography and in the secretive US counter-terror campaign.
“It’s really magical to be at a site like the Champs-Elysees, one of the most famous places in the world,” Dunkan Bossian, 19, said.
He was one of eight pilots who competed in the drone race, which featured a brightly coloured obstacle course.
Another entrant, German Julia Muller, said the festival showed how drones could be used in different ways.
“Events like this are important to show people that drones are not only dangerous things but you can have fun with them as well,” Ms Muller, 27, said.
Part of the famous avenue — which is carless on the first Sunday of every month — was converted into a drone aviary for the occasion, a space confined in netting about eight metres high and 140 metres long.
“There has been a democratisation of the drone for leisure activities,” city official Jean-Louis Missika said.
Drones were last year’s most popular Christmas present, Mr Missika said, but warned people “must absolutely understand that it is not a toy”.
“Regulations are very strict for good reasons,” he said.
“You can’t fly a drone in the park like you can play badminton.”
The festival had a teaching component, with displays on the regulations, the drone’s various uses, and workshops on piloting them that allowed amateurs to try their hand.
The event also allowed the postal service to demonstrate its delivery drone, which weighs 3.7 kilos and can carry three kilos of mail over 20 kilometres.
France is the world leader in the market for civilian drones, selling 300,000 of the devices last year — three times as many as in 2014.
The industry had a turnover of some $442 million in 2015, of which $88 million was in the professional drone sector.
The city announced the opening of two permanent sites — in the Bois de Boulogne park in the west of Paris and in the Parc de la Villette to the north — where amateurs can pilot their drones on Sundays, starting September 18.
Source: ABC News