Thanks so much for having us Canberra. We were blown away by the massive turn out and overwhelming support!
Skyshows 💫
Thank you! They’re about 1.5m apart while in flight and during the animation. The lights work 360 degrees, so just as bright directly behind the show! The drone itself is translucent so the whole drone lights up / reflects. Check out our Insta for some better photos (@skyshowsaus)
Awesome, thank you! I'll check it out.
Thank you for coming, and thank you for this video! My family had been discussing how the docks worked after the show tonight so it’s great to get a look this close! Are they all wirelessly charged within their pods or are there manual contact points they have to hit?
Charging is a little bit of a secret, but there are contact points that allow charging to occur. Importantly, all our batteries are internal to the drones, so there’s no swapping of batteries between shows, allowing us to turn drones around very quickly!
Brilliant! Thank you so much!
It was an amazing show. Thank you for providing it to us the past three days.
Our pleasure!
I want to see how they landed. It was cool seeing them return to base, shutting off their show lights before their final descent (looked like a few tens of metres above the ground?). Just marshalling that flock of drones to land without colliding with each other was amazing, forget the rest of the presentation!
I don’t know how to link another video, but I’ll try to get you an example of them landing. It’s very similar to taking off!
It was a cool show man.
It's going to be even better as you guys grow and develop.
I'm keen for more colours, drone density and faster drones.
The animations are cool. The coat of arms kangaroo head tilt was like oooooh.
Is the initial square formation the drone's setting up their positional reference frame or are they running GPS?
Thank mate, big things to come!
The initial square location just allows us to get them off the ground then out into the Show Box to start the animation - nothing related to GPS. We use a type of Differential GPS for location.
Very cool, thanks so much for coming! We took me young son to the show for his birthday and he said it was the best part of his day (and there was some stiff competition!)
Do you lose many drones to malfunction or bird/bat/other drone collision during shows?
Oh thank you! How exciting for him, so pleased he enjoyed it.
We didn’t lose any drones over the week (we flew test flights Monday & Tuesday nights, then shows Wednesday through Saturday). All our little drones are safe!
Way better than exploding and burning shit into the air.
I really appreciated the sparkle effect while the drones were repositioning. Every other show I've seen just goes dark between shapes.
So cool.
Thank you!
Is each individual drone's flight plan predetermined before take off? If some fail for whatever reason, could other drones take over the spot of others? Loved the show, and incredibly curious how you guys manage this behind the scenes.
Spot on - before launching, each individual aircraft knows where it’s going and what its flight path is. Unfortunately if any fail, which is a low chance, we can’t add drones in mid-show.
Great show but traffic was bonkers on the parliament house side of the lake. Needed traffic controllers at ever intersection
Thankfully we weren’t responsible for the traffic aspects, just the pretty drones..
🏆🏆🏆
How do you or can I get into this line of work?
Thank you so much for coming!! It was an amazing show!
Thanks for having us!
Thanks for the show, it was awesome! Would you mind settling some family talking points?! If you can disclose it, how many drones were there, and how much approximately does a single one of those drones cost? Thanks again!
Sure thing! Love to settle a family feud! There were 648 drones at the launch site with the system determining the ‘best’ 600 to fly the show shortly before launch time based on a bunch of parameters.
Price is a little sensitive, but more expensive than your average drone!
Pleased you enjoyed the show!
Thanks for the response, looks like the 14 year old won with the best guess! Figured the price might be classified, cheers again and keen to see what you guys can cook up for us in the future
Damn 14 year old know all’s!
Loved the show. Wend a little Giddy watching them take off and land.
It’s arguably the best part!
It was such a thrill the first time seeing them take off in sequence like they did. The sheer number of them working together is magical. If you don't mind me asking, how big is the team that puts together something like this?
Thank you!
The whole team is made up of creative & production (2-3 to design the show with the client), then 1 - 2 flight operations & approvals - as we were flying within Controlled Airspace, we needed to liaise heavily with Air Traffic Control at Canberra Airport for approvals.
On the night, we have 2 pilots and a Ground Crew of 3-4 people.
Not many people to achieve the show!
Looks amazing but triggered my inner, benign cooker for a bit. Its all fun and games and then it becomes Skynet! Imagine a whole bunch of these realeased with 8k cams for precision seeking to deploy Vax darts!!
Love your thinking 😅
u/skyshowsaustralia really curious how much electricity does it take to power these drones for the duration of the shows? and more importantly can we help power them with solar and batteries next year?
Our family loved seeing all 3 parts over the last days, thanks for giving us such an amazing experience!
Just out of curiosity, can I ask the source of a slight delay in your 10:30 PM show on Friday the 26th? Thank you! :)
Thank you! We loved delivering the first shows for Canberra.
Sure thing! We had a slight abnormality with some drones and GPS strength. Given safety is our top priority along with delivering beautiful, high quality shows, we take very little risks therefore rectified the issue prior to launch. We prefer to ensure we’re 100% prior to launch, as opposed to taking risks, so preferred to delay the 10 minutes or so. Thanks for the understanding!
Of course, very fair! Appreciate your response!
CARRIER HAS ARRIVED
Thanks for the show, spectacular and an engineering marvel, I’ve built and flown mini and big drones over the years and this is absolutely next freaking level. The maths and art involved in the animations, decongesting the air so they don’t fly into one another blows my mind, and i assume it’s a trade secret but damn if there was a behind the scenes on any of it I’d watch it! Thanks and come back soon!
Your welcome
Why are you thanking Canberra?
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Thanks! It was awesome! How close do the drones get to each other during the show? Do the lights shine relatively well in all directions? Some of the formations and animations were really impressive, good job!