Video: Matt Hunter Hates Drones

 if that last catch was really made when he was alone, without any external help and succeeded at the 1st try, PROPS! such a creative idea, i love this guy!

 Good night. This is his career! So Jealous.

 @chrisingrassia > www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU0PYcCsL6o. Enjoy your Self

 @WAKIdesigns : I'll still be myself and who I am, I just want his life =)

 I think it should be titled "Release and Catch". Just sayin'

 Hope specialized doesn't ditch him too.

 No company ditches riders, other companies offer betterconditions and at the same time some people just want a change

 Gawd. You sound like you believe in free will and markets and stuff. Ick.

 We believe in nothing @powderturns - nothing - and tomorrow we come back and cut off your Johnson

 Guys he clearly wasnt alone and this glider has to be radio controlled, otherwise it would crash after a short time. You can even see that, if you take a closer look at the wings. I mean the video was kinda nice yeah that bugs me a little bit. -someone whos flying rc planes a lot

 Who the f*ck neg props a big lebowski reference?

 There is your answer to why is he still sponsored by Spesh, he is just too good to let go

 I know what your saying because I fly too but I think that he had some type of dog where it would follow him because there was a fpv antenna on his Goggles.

 Thing*

 same here

 Props

 ^That one almost flew over my head

 Guy's just winging it.

 That guy is making bank with these videos.

 Just gliding thru life...chill as a mofo

 These puns are getting old, I'm yawing, just reading them

 Maybe we should just pitch the whole notion. Clearly this is the wrong angle of attack, and with not a single addition in a day, the whole ploy seems to be stalling.

 You tried too hard and your joke crash landed.

 Its not remote controlled, strictly driven by the wind.

 You're all idiots. Its indeed dark magic.

 We have all seen Matt rail that berm. The guy just has mad skills, even with planes.

 The gliders name is 'Easy glider' made by Multiplex. Is a radio controlled glider. But there can be an other explanation the glider follows the rider, The glider is a Matt Hunter..

 The plane just gets attracted by the intensive awesomeness of Matt Hunter...

 At 0:17, you can observe a servo

 correct. servos powered by dark magic

 George Orwell worst nightmare.

 Jedi mind tricks

 I'm guessing by the number of tracks down that dirt hillside, many takes to get a usable shot. Still a fun and interesting edit. Matty is the Man!

 "Some sort of air flaps".
I'm an aircraft technician and you just ruined my day.

 All the comments that say it follows Matt by sensors are actually all right, but disliked. Wtf? There's no way it can just fly towards Matt when it is flying downwards with just the force of the wind. If it was wind powered it would keep flying an wouldn't try to keep Matt in the shot. There's a drone called Lucy and it follows the person by sensors. Learn to do some research people and not just down vote comments.

 Lily won't be out until this coming spring... round the time you will learn to develop a sense of humor.

 After reviewing all your answers, I will stick with jedi mind tricks

 @velociraptor-clintthrust I am glad you're an aircraft technician, but the majority of people on PB aren't, so I was trying to keep it simple.

I guess I should've worded it a bit differently.. It likely has a sensor connected to a servo, which actuates a rudder or some device that turns the plane in the direction of the opposing sensor(on the rider).

 Ailerons, bro.. They're called ailerons.

 @logcabm77, As far as I know they haven't done that with RC planes yet. There are indeed Quadcopters(drones as many people know them) with GPS wich can follow you.

But I'm sure this one is powered by Magic air flaps and Dark air waves of some sort. There's really no way of ever finding out what really is going on.
Only Matt knows.

 Yup. He took me and some buds up riding around Kamloops in September. He couldn't have been any better. Dude is all class.

 i envy you! must have been incredible

 It was. We were almost apologetic asking him to take us on some trails. He said he loved doing that because wherever he travels with Specialized there are always locals taking him out. It's his way of giving back and sharing. That kind of attitude is the norm, not the exception in the MTB community.

 Highly likely. I have been flying RC airplanes for seven years and doing stuff like that is old school IF you have a secound person flying it. If not than he is using some cool equipment that I have not seen but would like to have! My brother uses RC quadcopters to video his freind on a dirt bike going over fifteen foot high jumps. Good video!

 I'm glad someone else is on the same page... My old man flys one of these 'Powered Gliders' as his main hobby. No way on earth that isn't being piloted.

 a motor for operating the flaps and directional functions.

 For sure. But that terrible loud wind noise in every Sony Action Cam should still be fixed, that's still enough reason for me to buy a GoPro. If they fix that, the gopro will have its first competitor

 In the Sony vid they generally do not use the waterproof case. You could have the same wind noise with a Gopro without the case if am right.

 There are other options aswell for preventing the noise of the wind, just seems like they didn't use any. Too bad; I wouldn't buy it purely because of this annoying noise. Sure many others would think the same.

 right, gopro has an amazing sound... with the waterproof case on you get excellent wind noise proofing, actually you get "any-sound-beside-tree-branches-hitting-your-helmet" proofing... you can still use it without the case, of course, if you can afford 400 € for a new camera each time you crash.

 They already are competitors....

 (HQ sound : www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcb1ZN7Jo_4)

 he says in the video, its a glider, it didn't seem to have any sort of flaps or controls

 yeah look at the pic of the plane its has flaps.

 At the beginning of the video when he picks the plane up, look at the top right corner of the screen and you will see a servo that is controlling the alirons for Right/Left turning.

 It even has an electric motor on the front, servos in the wings and the canopy has a tab for access to the battery. I fly radio controlled planes as a hobby, but hey what do I know. It's possible it's being flown as a glider but on one of the last shots it does pitch fairly hard down and right to keep him in shot, rather fortunate.

 I think someone would have to suck to fly it into trees as much as this did and why would he have to rush to much to catch it? Why couldn't the guy just whip it back around and give him time? Why wouldn't it keep him in frame better?

Because he said "I've got this glider, let's see how this goes"

 It may well have been used as a glider for most shots. The last one though, I'd be suprised if there wasn't a minor helping hand. Otherwise your lobbing a £400 camera into the unknown. If they catch lift and the go over the top they can head downwind pretty quickly

 Another RC glider enthusiast here - if you think that wasn't being controlled off-camera, you're a muppet. I wouldn't put it past being in 'glider' mode the whole time (...the prop never getting turned on), but the movements are too precise and well timed to be wind. It's a good idea though and a great laugh pretending it's not. Specialized are probably placing wagers on how many people he can fool.... oh and @TFreeman - the wing sets for these things are like $60 - well within budget to smash a few sets for the purpose of an edit. They've done their best to fool people, but it is a tough thing to achieve.

 www.pinkbike.com/photo/12884423

Thanks @Kirkby86, shame I keep getting down voted because I have no idea what I'm on about haha.

 I thought a drone was just any vehicle either controlled remotely or (partially) autonomous. So it could be anything from a crawling or rolling vehicle to something that flies. The flying ones were called UAV (unmanned areal vehicle) when I first learned about them, but apparently these are what they now call drones. Definitely makes sense to use a sailplane instead of something with rotors. I can't see the ones with rotors and a handycam keeping up with a cyclist going down the hill, or it has to be a very good (expensive) one. If the prop at the front was still intact and could be used, it could definitely stay airborne for a bit longer.

I do think you could achieve something similar with a completely passive vehicle. Tether a sailplane, kite or hang glider to your waist. Just between the tether and the vehicle, attach a camera mount so that it is hinged to the plane so that it could swivel without affecting the angle of the plane too much. Then mount the camera to the mount and fine tune the camera angle. Never tried this, but I just thought this could actually work. The only thing is that you don't want it to become entangled in the tether every time you stop, crash or slow for a climb. Oh, and use a breakaway mount at your waist so that it doesn't pull you off your bike when the vehicle gets stuck somewhere.

 Because there's two laws of physics, our physics and physics as edited by Matt Hunter. How else can you explain that jump in Seasons?

 for those who don't know about it www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YawKsnEOt0