Air Race X: AR Showcase shows an exciting future for sporting events

Red Bull Air Race, the motorsports air race that ended in 2019, is enjoying an augmented reality revival via Styly. I went to see the show in Japan.

The Red Bull Air Race was a series of air races in which pilots piloted single-engine aircraft down a course marked by 25-meter-high inflatable masts at speeds of up to 370 miles per hour. The sport required concentration, extreme precision and, with g-forces of up to 12G, considerable physical fitness from the best pilots in the world.

In May 2019, sponsor and organizer Red Bull pulled the plug on the series due to lack of public interest and high costs. The logistics alone to transport 14 pilots, aircraft and equipment to each location was a huge task.

But the three pilots, Matt Hall (Australia), Yoshi Moruya (Japan) and Pete McLeod (Canada), weren’t ready to simply bury the series. They explored how air racing could be revived with less effort and, most importantly, by eliminating monstrous logistics with less impact on the environment.

The result is Air Race X, the final of which was held on October 15 in Shibuya, Tokyo. How does it work and who won the first race? I went to Japan and watched the final.

This is the Air Race X

In Air Race X, pilots don’t travel around the world with their planes and racing teams. Instead, they fly in their bases. Local star Yoshimura, for example, trains and flies at Fukushima Air Park.

Pilots also perform qualifying and final rounds at their home airports. The course, which is the same for each pilot, is set up digitally: pilots only see the masts based on position data.

Sensor technology is critical to racing. Precise flight data measurement technology records all data such as flight path, altitude, speed, G-forces and barometric pressure in milliseconds. This data is then sent to the match center for processing.

This includes weather and environmental data that is different for each pilot. Complex calculations are used to add time bonuses or penalties to flight time to compensate individual pilots for advantages due to weather conditions.

Yoshimura flies the Shibuya route at Fukushima Air Park. | Video: Mixed

Over the course of six days, pilots will play their qualifying and elimination rounds until only four teams remain. This year’s final was held with Matt Hall (Australia), Yoshi Mori (Japan), Juan Velarde (Spain) and Martin Sonka (Czech Republic).

Special feature: Follow the air race in AR

A special feature of the competition, and another reason for the detailed analysis of the data, is that the air show can be watched as an augmented reality version through the Styly XR platform from the Japanese metaverse studio Psychic VR Labs.

And not just anywhere, but right in the middle of Tokyo, between the skyscrapers and right above the famous Shibuya Pass. Among other things, the app allows content to be linked to physical locations via spatial anchors.

Huge crowds gather at various locations in Tokyo on that Sunday to watch the race as it is collected and recorded from every single race and data available. I attended the final ceremony with other reporters on the 15th floor of the Shibuya QWS skyscraper. The room was packed with Japanese press and TV covering the event, and VIPs wearing Pico-4 Enterprise goggles watched the match through VR headsets in large windows.

Everyone else was watching the AR race on smartphones and tablets, while sports commentators provided professional commentary on the pilots’ actions. Digital airplanes roared overhead, the sounds of cars blaring from the hall speakers perfectly matched my position.

AR smartphone vs XR headset

From a technical perspective, the event worked perfectly. While the race was also shown on monitors (see YouTube video), I followed the planes with my iPhone, which got annoying after a while.

I’m not a fan of smartphone AR in general, though it still offers the best quality yet. Looking through a viewing window provides only a vague sense of immersion.

I’d love to see such AR experiences with an XR headset instead. Unfortunately, I was unable to access the reserved Pico 4 headsets during the finals. However, I had seen a demo earlier that day on a terrace on the 20th floor of another venue. While I usually experience older hardware being tied to my head for VR and AR shows, Psychic was using a Quest 3 that had been released just five days earlier.

The demo was one of the highlights of my trip to Japan: not only does Quest 3 run great outdoors, but the augmented reality experience of digital planes chasing each other around Shibuya runway above Tokyo’s skyscrapers. Sometimes it was great. .

Non-occlusion eliminates immersion

However, the lack of occlusion is a real downfall: when the planes flew past me and flew behind the next skyscraper, I could still see them in the background of the skyscraper, which destroyed the immersion.

This was especially noticeable in the venue of the event. When I stood backstage at the window watching the digital flight, I always had the room and its equipment in the background. The original magic is severely damaged when the spatial experience of place is lost to parts of the building, furniture and technical equipment in the landscape.

After all, the thrill of a race like this is watching the planes fly around the skyscrapers. In a Formula 1 race, no one complains when the cars speed past the spectators and then disappear at the next corner.

For me, merging the digital with the real means that the physical conditions must have a realistic effect. Without the realistic inclusion of these physical conditions, it doesn’t matter where I watch the match. Other great scenery is just an accessory, not an essential part of the show.

A semi-open platform, like the previous platform on the terrace that day, and a track more suited to local conditions, as well as real obstruction, could complete the experience. Psychiv VR Labs said that blocking is possible with the Styly app, but has been disabled for Air Race X for technical reasons. In addition, parts of the match will no longer be visible to spectators.

But at least in my opinion this is crucial for a realistic experience.

Tablet AR and the problem of live events

Another interesting experience was the physical block model of Shibuya, where I could also watch airplanes fly through the Styly app. Again, no blocking, but as a desktop fan, I see a lot of potential: with a realistic model of a virtual city, I can also watch such a race, air show or other events (such as bike races, Formula 1) . etc.) in the comfort of my home on my living room table in full 3D.

My other problem was that the show was not live but a pre-recorded event. The usual surprises and thrills of a real live match were missing for me. All that remained was the promising technology and the prospect of future developments.

Air Race X: Not perfect, but an exciting look into the future

As an XR enthusiast, I find the effort as well as the technical implementation within the current constraints to be impressive. A lot of hard work is being done to exploit the potential of virtual reality and augmented reality and to validate the concepts of the metaverse.

I’m a big fan of focused visions of the future, and Psychic VR Lab is already at a stage of implementation that other platforms can only dream of. This event also proves that the views surrounding XR in entertainment can have a future.

But there are still many unanswered questions: How do we get enough viewers on the app, how do we monetize it, and how do we get more sponsors to advertise on digital billboards? How to convey the personality of the competition in the future better than a simple recording? How can digital events be combined with reality in a way that maintains realism and authenticity?

Many of the answers likely lie in future technological developments. There is also still a lot of work to do to further refine the content.

If organizers have their way, Air Race X will become a regular event. In Japan, technological innovation and experimentation, even if imperfect, has a much higher priority than in the West, making the Land of the Rising Sun an ideal field for such experiments. With enough technical maturity, this particular sport may one day attract a Western audience as well.

The launch of Air Race X has been a success in my opinion and shows an exciting prospect for future XR entertainment. Now it all depends on how the experience can be improved in the coming years, and whether enough backers will invest to continue this project or similar projects.

Transparency note: Psychic VR Lab invited MIXED to a three-day media tour and covered travel, accommodation and food.