Delta Hawks’ Moira Canal Festival becomes standout British qualifier event

Delta Hawks turned the Moira Canal Festival into one of the UK FPV calendar’s most visible race weekends, slotting a 5-inch British Qualifier into a family event at Moira Furnace Museum on Furnace Lane in Moira, Swadlincote, DE12 6AT. The race ran on Sunday, May 17, as part of the May 16-17 festival, and carried a £32 entry fee under BDRA rules. One calendar snapshot showed 17 of 42 places filled, a solid sign of demand for a qualifier staged in front of casual festivalgoers instead of inside a pure racing venue.

That public setting is what made the weekend stand out. The festival entry was £7 for adults, £3 for children and free for under-5s, so the drone race was embedded in a crowd that was already there for a canal celebration, not just for FPV. The British Drone Racing Association put the event among its highlight fixtures, and Delta Hawks backed that up with a setup that made the sport easy to watch for families walking the grounds between the heritage displays and canal attractions.

Delta Hawks brings real weight to the job. The club says it was formed in 2015, split from the Delta Hawks Model Flying Club in 2018 and is the oldest drone racing club in the UK. Its membership information says the club typically hosts two to three races a year and 10 to 20 practice sessions, which makes Moira less like a one-off promotion and more like part of a steady grassroots racing program. The club’s own pitch, focused on live audiences and an environment for both experienced pilots and newcomers, fit the festival setting perfectly.

The canal backdrop gave the qualifier a second layer of meaning. The Moira Canal Festival marked its 23rd year, and the Ashby Canal project behind it is about more than nostalgia. The canal was completed in 1804 and originally ran about 30 miles from Bedworth to Moira, but restoration is still pushing north of Snarestone Wharf, where volunteers are also creating a footpath link to Measham. The next major focus is the reconstruction of the Gilwiskaw Aqueduct, part of a wider effort to reconnect Measham, Oakthorpe, Donisthorpe and Moira to the national waterways network and build a green gateway to the Heart of the National Forest.

For FPV racing in the UK, that is the real story from Moira: a qualifier with sporting stakes, staged in a place where the public could see it, understand it and maybe imagine themselves in it next year.