Drone racers might seem like ideal combat pilots. But trainers say they have to relearn almost everything.

Pilots who fly small drones for sport are very capable at the controls. But that doesn't make them good operators for combat.

Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion shows that drone pilots do need to be able to quickly reach and aim at targets, but they also need to be able to move slowly, to bide their time, and to hunt.

Viesturs Silenieks, chairman of the board of Drone Force — Europe, a Latvia-based group that teaches people to fly drones, including in combat situations, said that sports drone operators typically work at high speed in very different conditions.

But when it came to getting people with that sports drone experience to fly in a military style, "They don't know how to fly it slowly." His group needs to "change their mindset," to the extent that they are "training again from zero, actually," he said, speaking at the Drone Summit in Latvia, a gathering of industry and military personnel attended by Business Insider.

The two ways of flying are "totally different," he said.

Taras Berezovets, the head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, said at the summit that being able to move slowly is absolutely key for a war drone pilot.

Drone operators, he said, often have to be "the hunter. To be patient, to wait for a long time."

He said both Russia and Ukraine use so-called "sleeping drones," where operators have to stage their exploding drones and then wait hours or even days for their target, like a soldier or a vehicle. It means operators have to watch, wait, and be ready, with their grounded lurking in standby for long periods.

Other drones must fly slow to relay video back to command posts to spot new targets for attack.

Drone racing is a sport with events that range from hobbyist gatherings to elite competitions between professional racing pilots. It can take the form of first-person view (FPV) drone racing, where pilots fly at rapid speeds through obstacle courses in front of roaring crowds in stadiums.

It was these FPV drones that Ukrainian tinkers weaponized out of desperation to stop larger Russian forces.

Some racing skills are relevant in war, but they need to be combined with other training and a mindset shift.

There is overlap between the sports drone and military world in Ukraine: Some Ukrainian units have introduced drone-flying tournaments where speed is key, to improve pilot skills.

It's true in the US, too. The US Air Force and other militaries take part in and sponsor drone-racing events, and Air Force officials have described racers as future recruits.

Companies that originally started in drone racing have also moved into defense work. US drone maker Performance Drone Works (PDW), which now makes drones for the US military, began making racing drones.

This war is using drones more than in any other conflict in history, and the type of warfare is so new that soldiers' skills developed outside of the military are still having a big impact on its development.

Civilian skills make for good pilots

Skills learned in civilian life can often make people into the best wartime drone pilots. Drone schools in Ukraine previously told BI that gamers often make good pilots, as they are typically already comfortable with controllers, joysticks, and looking at a screen for a long time.

Members of Ukraine's Typhoon special drone unit previously told BI that gamers make great drone pilots, but they warned at the same time that real drone warfare is a lot more complicated and dangerous. Drone pilots typically must go forward to launch their drone and control it despite jamming — both sides actively hunt for these crews.

One operator in the unit said that "people think flying a military drone is like playing 'Call of Duty,' until they realize there's no restart option."

Western drone pilots have previously expressed similar sentiments. Tanner Yackley, a former US Air Force drone operator who left in 2018, previously told Business Insider that it's fundamentally different because "you're making life or death calls every single day." "There's not a single game in the world that can prep you for what you're going to do," he said.

The Ukrainian drone schools also previously told BI that young people are often better pilots, as well as people who have a technical mindset from IT or engineering, but that they could train almost anyone.

Silenieks agreed at the summit that younger people typically make the best drone pilots.

Western militaries are also finding that young people often make the best pilots naturally, but say that doesn't mean others can't be great, too.

Lt. Col. Ben Irwin-Clark, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the UK's elite Irish Guards, said that, when training his unit for drone warfare, he found that young people were typically the most talented. "I don't think I'm ashamed to say that as a 42-year-old, I'm never going to be the world's best FPV pilot, and it's definitely the youngest ones who are the best at this," he said.

He said young men and women in the unit "are incredible and can pick that up really quickly. They're really adaptable, and they are really tech savvy." He said that when he took command, he worried "that we were going to be overloading these soldiers with expecting them to know how to do too many things, but I haven't found that point yet."

Maj. Rachel Martin, the director of the US Army's new course to teach soldiers on drone warfare, previously told BI that with the right training, people with all different backgrounds and skillsets could be made into good drone operators.

She said that initial reporting from Ukraine had suggested that only people with specific skill sets could fly drones, but that, when they started testing people from different military occupations, backgrounds, and ages, "a good majority of people can learn how to do this and do it well." Only a small proportion of people couldn't progress.

They had expected far more people to fail, and concluded instead that "just about anyone can pick up this skill if you're provided the resources to do it."