Well all the planning is done and the start of the long Whoop weekend is here.
Jesse P, Mr Tiny Whoop, got a proper British drizzly welcome stepping out at Heathrow this morning. But the long flight and weather had no impact on our enthusiasm for the trip. We were both smiling and chatting like old mates as we drove over to Jaggers house for some lunch. Its funny having never met in person how easy it was to pick up and chat for ages all because of our love for FPV flight.
After charging a bunch of packs we were on the train into London and straight to South Bank. There is a make-shift skate park under the South Bank Centre with graffiti everywhere but importantly, under cover – as the drizzle was persistent. The skateboarders were quite territorial and not sure what we were doing at first. Once we showed them what a whoop was and carefully followed a few around, they mostly seemed cool with us Whooping their space. It was so much fun to get up really close to their boards as they tried tricks with the colourful background of the graffiti art behind them. I hope it makes some good video! Only a couple got frustrated, but we had done a few packs and it was time to move on anyway.
In search of a coffee house or somewhere to warm up, we headed for a tunnel under Waterloo and found an American bar. On the off chance, we asked the bartender and she was cool with us hanging out and whooping the bar! It was almost totally empty and really big, with some cool neon signs and American sports banners. This is when Jesse whipped out a whoop with a load of LED antenna. They were sticking up over the whoop like wiggly little fireflies and made it look much bigger than it actually was. It was also great to fly out into the tunnel from this bar and explore the graffiti art. There was some incredible artistry sprayed on every surface and the tunnel shape made a cool place to whoop. At one point a whoop gently landed on the top of a car crawling down the tunnel and had a bit of a ride before zipping away.
Next we tried another bar and same again, once introduced to the “toy” (not a drone), they were totally cool with us flying around. This was the 2nd pint of the day and after dieting for all of January, it kicked my ass. But I kept the whoop in the air, it was very good fun hanging out and whooping everywhere we could.
Heading back to Jaggers, we picked up some fish and chips and then introduced Jesse to Mushy Peas. He tried them. He doesn’t need to do that again. Some more packs charged it was time to head to Hanworth Park Drones Whoop night. Here there is a big hall set up with LED gates and a really nice course. Lots of pilots came out to play so it was nicely busy but still plenty of time for flying. It was especially fun when Tom blew out his birthday cake candles with his Whoop. Part of me hoped he ploughed into the caterpillar chocolate frosting, but he’s far too good a pilot for that!
Jesse got face-punched a few times by excited whoop pilots and gave out a few stickers. I managed to get him, but my DVR failed me! No evidence = no facepunch sticker!
I’ll get you next time!
