Edmonton's Northern Alberta FPV League Brings High-Speed Drone Racing Indoors

The first thing pilots notice is not a camera angle but a cockpit perspective. Wearing FPV goggles, they see exactly what their drone sees: gates rushing toward them, obstacle courses bending through indoor venues across Edmonton at speeds that leave no margin for hesitation. That immersive reality sits at the heart of what the Northern Alberta FPV League has built, and a new short documentary called "Inside the Goggles," produced for CBC's Creator Network, captures both the sport and the improbable community behind it.

The league focuses on two main types of racing: Tiny Whoops, small lightweight drones built for indoor winter competition, and 5-inch quadcopters, which are reserved for faster outdoor summer events. The indoor calendar is no afterthought. Edmonton's climate makes it a necessity.

The origin story is blunt: "It was just a couple of friends getting together to fly our drones together." But what sounds modest quickly runs into a wall that anyone who has tried to secure unconventional venue access will recognize. "When people hear you're going to fly drones and you want to fly them in our building, the very first thing that we hear is we're not going to allow that." The hurdle, as one pilot described it plainly, was "trying to legitimize the hobby so that we can gain access to some spaces."

The breakthrough came through pilot Martin Vendrame, who had a connection to the Veterans Food Bank and secured the league its first reliable indoor space. Cody Hollis-Perdue brought the racing equipment. "As soon as we managed to find an indoor space to fly," the club started "pretty much exploding." From that foothold, the Northern Alberta FPV League grew into something that now draws racers including George Wenzel, Brent Friess, and James Adams to indoor venues across the city.

"Inside the Goggles" captures what FPV racing actually feels like: pilots flying drones using real-time video feeds from onboard cameras, wearing goggles that place them inside the aircraft. The documentary, directed and shot by Hadi Zounji, edited by Jackson Wiebe, and produced by OCD Productions, goes further than race footage. It traces how a technical sport evolved into a structure built on shared knowledge and mentorship, complete with charity events and youth outreach that extend the league's reach well beyond its pilots.

The CBC Creator Network piece posted March 18, 2026, on the CBC News Alberta YouTube channel, where it drew 6,793 views and 380 likes. The numbers are a signal: a sport that struggles to get gym space has no trouble finding an audience once someone points a camera at it from the right angle.