Columbus hosts national drone championship, drawing more than 300 cadets

More than 300 cadets filled the Columbus Conference and Trade Center as Columbus again proved it can host drone racing at a national level. The JROTC All-Service National Drone Championship brought teams from every branch to Columbus, Georgia, for two days of competition that tested piloting, coding, teamwork and problem-solving.

The May 22-23 event gave the city another turn as a stage for one of youth drone racing’s fastest-growing formats. In a sport where clean flight paths, precise coding and split-second decision-making decide results, the scale alone stood out: organizers said the field topped 300 cadets, a sharp jump from the inaugural Army JROTC National Drone Championship a year earlier, when 40 teams competed March 7-8 at Fort Benning.

That growth matters for Columbus beyond the weekend’s racing. The city is becoming a regular host for military youth drone competitions, and that gives the region a bigger role in a program the U.S. Army JROTC uses to introduce students to aerospace, robotics and technology careers. The championship is built as more than a race day. According to Army JROTC, it is hands-on training in flight principles, engineering, programming, documentation and professional communication, all wrapped into a competition format that rewards both speed and discipline.

The event also landed during the Aerial Drone Competition championship season, which runs from April through June, placing Columbus squarely in the middle of the national calendar. For a program still in expansion mode, the setting mattered. The Columbus Conference and Trade Center gave the championship an indoor venue suited to a packed field and a fast-moving competition that relies as much on technical execution as raw stick skill.

For Columbus, the payoff is more than hosting a large event. It is becoming known as a place where drone racing can scale, where cadets from across the country can gather under one roof, and where the Army JROTC can show how a competition floor can double as a pipeline into the next generation of aerospace and robotics work. The 2026 championship made that trajectory plain.