For our world record builds we need 3d printers that just work with engineering grade accuracy. That's why we use Bambu: - My workhorse: 2 years of heavy use and still going strong (P2S) tidd.ly/49l2a7h - My new favorite dual nozzle large build volume (H2d) tidd.ly/4jnTJeW - Best Value / Entry Level: Bambu (A1 mini) tidd.ly/3YQMQJo - The best filament dryer box bar none - (AMS HT) tidd.ly/44OGAWb
Congrats to you Mike and to your son Luke. You didn't just break the drone speed record, you now have the record for the fastest battery electric aircraft, period.That record was 622 km/h and it was established in 2022 by the Rolls Royce ACCEL. First Ben in Australia, and now you and your son Luke in South Africa have managed to surpass Rolls Royce and its massive resources! I don't know if people realize the significance of this: a small team of smart and dedicated people with limited resources can achieve what large established companies cannot!
As you approach bullet speed, beware the enemies of the Second amendment mmm ?? The government does not like the Freedom of Velocity you demonstrate ....
Exactly ... it was a double take moment for me that .. a did I hear that right moment ... tech is freeing up so many brilliant engineers, home engineering, and invention . It's so cool and positive to see ...👍🕯👍
For the spinners consider printing them in a single piece by pausing the print and then dropping the prop into place and resume. It should be stronger, lighter, and eliminate the screw holes and seam. It's at least worth a spin on the test rig.
@Mike-Bell Wow. Thank you for the reply and considering my idea. You could definitely retain the tight tolerances after looking at it more closely. I think an ideal solution would require a smaller diameter print matching one side of the prop geometry to be inserted along with the prop during the pause on the final print. Then you could resume printing the next layer directly on what was originally the bottom surface of the first print.
It's possible that they are actually much stronger with the screws. Metal is OP compared to plastic. I think that in the future 3d printers could insert metal screws at intervals to strengthen the plastic parts. It solves the Z axis weakness issue and it's pretty simple to achieve if you remove the second nozzle of the H2D and have a screwer mechanism instead. For a first generation printer, the screws could be vertical only, but eventually maybe multi axis. It's also pretty simple to implement in software as it's not much different from the peg connectors you can do in Bambu Studio. Inserting 10% volume of M1.5 screws in a critical area of a PLA part makes the part 360% as strong as the regular PLA part. M1.5 screws fits nicely in 3mm thick walls. You get aluminium strength parts if you're willing to insert 30% volume in critical areas.
Am I just discovering this drone speed record arms race now? Or has everyone started taking it really serious all of a sudden because following this on RUclips is the greatest entertainment I’ve seen in years, far better than any Tv series! I’m absolutely loving it!
Welcome aboard. Yeah its great. This is the perfect aircraft class because it can be achieved by a small team with a little corporate backing and yet still be fastest on the planet. And Luke inspired a whole community and gave it traction with his Peregreen 1 RUclips post 2 years ago.
@Mike-Bell it’s fantastic to see the back and fourth, and I don’t think people quite understand the complexity of the aero engineering you’re putting into this! Brilliant achievements all around, well done guys 😊
First came across this in a RedBull post, but that was already a year ago and using speeds of just around 300km/h. Mike, it might be worthwhile to contact RedBull SA to organise a drone like competition to get the various drone competitors together. I Imagine aerobatic-like course (with quidditch like rings or something) around Kyalami or Killarney race track.
@Mike-Bell For you, these are toys; for us, Ukraine, these are weapons, and your developments are interesting. We need a drone to intercept cruise missiles. If your drones can reach speeds of 1,000 km/h, that would be great.
I am gonna be super honest here...I am a 47 year old Cajun man, retired and living simply in Costa Rica. That is merely context for the hard truth: I don't have a drone and I know next to nothing about engineering. Having said that, this is one of the most fascinating videos I have ever seen. I snort laughed when you all presented the bit about discussing the speeds in the VERY recent past! Great content. My mind was blown at 300mph. Super cool video. And you made it accessible and enjoyable to folks like me who are not techies etc. Well done, fellas. Liked and subscribed!
@Mike-BellI feel like you guys are going to keep having breakthroughs and the technology will improve exponentially. That is a VERY cool thing to be a part of.
The record keeps being swapped between countries... one of them being USA. The They don't need to call him - they have talent right on their doorstep already.
@ToxicBro-q8u They have already been trialing hunter killer drones with a similar configuration ... .. There's a UK one, Anduril from the US ?possibly and their own indigenous efforts...but they are quick on the uptake ... The military battlefield electronics are more of a focus for them to date .. ECM and control ...
You need a second channel where you concentrate on engineering details. I get it that the viewership tanks when you do this but I am sure there are a significant number of us viewers that want to see such details.
Each blade of an airliner turbine engine is made in a way that the actual grain of the metal continously runs a single direction, also they are hollow to allow air to cool them inside and out, they are essentially right on the verge of the limits of the material abilities. Between Jet Engine design and EUV photolithography I can't decide which is more impressive in terms of human ingenuity.
After getting up to date on why shortening the prop length makes sense, then, showing the many blades of the jet engine, we are left hanging... wondering why only two prop blades are better than three or ten. Meh...these are not the droids I'm looking for.
@MsTyrie - Fewer bladed have less interference drag in free air - (duct flow changes things - because the blades are no longer dealing with free air pressure on the low pressure side of the blade - the air is now being channelled between "walls") as the fewer the props, the fewer the nacelles and intersections - the lower the total drag.
@MockatLordmocktechnically doable though. I guess it depends on what the rules are, as I think they’d have to do away with the traditional propellers and move to jet turbines and possibly rocket assist.
No prop-driven aircraft has ever broken the sound barrier in level flight. If they are able to achieve that it would be a coup in aerospace engineering. The main problem is that at supersonic speed the shockwave would break off the propeller blades.
It would take switching to bladeless propulsion, because supersonic engines get their power from the expansion of exhaust gases. Maybe a revolution in AMET/AMPT thrusters to achieve useful and sustainable thrust at sea level instead of all the way up at VLEO altitudes? The general category for these technologies is ABEP, Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion, and although we have MPD and MHD thrusters, the former uses its own easily ionized fuel (or just the ionosphere's existing plasma) while the latter is low-speed through a conductive medium, water (especially seawater), to make a MAD thruster you'd spend magnitudes more power to strip oxygen and nitrogen of their electrons to make them into plasma which only then can be pushed on by the thruster, and at that point your power supply far, far outpaces the thrust output, not to mention the fact a MAD thruster would suffer immensely from having only static thrust that just kind of goes away as you increase in speed, and that's to say nothing of all the Joule heating it would cause wasting most of its power. There is Astro Mechanica's Duality engine, it feels to me like its a massive and long EDF pumping high speed air into a ramjet combustion chamber, its a hybrid engine. There's also Sylphaero, but I haven't seen anything from them in a while, they did get a microwave-pumped atmospheric thruster going, it was a small engine maybe two inches in diameter, and it produced bright green plasma in a foot-long or so exhaust plume for a couple seconds before they shut it off, which apparently is from oxygen in the auroral green line between two excited states, those being O(1S) and O(1D). From what I can tell (and from what Gemini could comb the internet for) Sylphaero is the only one out there who has publicized any tests of sea-level ABEP engines. Edit: The only place a MAD thruster is feasible is for use as the workhorse thruster on atmospheric mining vessels around geomagnetically-powerful hydrogen-rich gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, flying through the atmosphere and scooping up a full payload of gases and using the scooped hydrogen as rocket fuel to ascend back to orbit and deposit the majority of its hydrogen-rich mixed gas payload.
NO! Only 3d printed parts or they lose their bambu sponsorship. No real carbon fiber mat either, only 3d printed chopped carbon fiber filament, which defeats the purpose of continuous fiber composites.
With a cone structure with high rotational speed the parting line would be cylindrical and not longitudinal. The structure mating would be cylindrical, that is, centered on the axis of rotation, such that all the mating parts, which could include metal inserts, such that each is perfectly balanced. To achieve laminar flow from turbulent, from the prop to cap (hub) interface, to laminar, you would have to understand that the hub propeller interface cannot be blunt and has to taper in a helical fashion (similar to prop twist) from the prop (with a known pitch and twist), the large end of the helix, to the tip which would terminate the helix and terminate with a hemispherical cap. With a pusher prop arrangement, the cap is an extension of the propeller, so it is really a part of the propeller. The end of the cap would not be blunt it would have a curvature (the curvature could be mathematically complex). Ideally the prop, cap, helix, tip, etc., would be a single part, with provision for high speed balance. To achieve a tight interference fit you could use a cryogenic interference fit sleeve, which is cooled in liquid Nitrogen, then place on the motor shaft, with the prop/hub metal insert over the sleeve. As the sleeve warms it will produce an interference fit connecting the assembly. Unfortunately, it would be a permanent joint. But would be incredibly strong and if you extended the motor shaft further into the cap would aid in mechanical rigidity. From an aerodynamic/strength standpoint having motors with props at the end of wing tips is a bit strange. For vertical take off you could have a single motor central to the fuselage coaxial with a single combination counter rotating propeller, which is a bit complicated but would simplify the thrust vector and reduce weight but may require having a parachute landing approach. However, with a single main wing design (not necessarily a flying wing) with a centerline pusher, you could use a blended/lifting body approach which would greatly increase flight efficiency. But, more importantly have a compound sweep to maximize performance as you approach the speed of sound. If the wing tips do not need to support a thrust motor they can be tapered very thin at the tips, meaning you have the opportunity to have an efficient thin wing, by moving some of the lifting force to the body of the aircraft (popular is having a forward canard elevator/horizontal stabilizer). With the approach mentioned above you would have a known upright aircraft orientation, which would allow all of the known advantages for autonomous flight, meaning you could easily create a autopilot (and a fly by wire control law), obviously requiring a gyro platform and a GPS locator (to be completely autonomous if communication is interrupted). The weight savings could be used to provide a retractable landing gear, which would be an optional way to land. If you move towards a stable flying platform (slight wing dihedral, etc.) the aircraft will be more forgiving being subjected to external flight perturbations (turbulence), which you will encounter at higher altitudes (optimum flight altitude, perhaps 8500 feet above sea level.)
I think they are testing themselves by relearning aerodynamics from an entry level. Instead of copying the latest technology, they are copying old tech and working their way up.
Massive congratulations Mike and Luke, on the record and for another great video! Between yourselves and your Aussie competitors you really must be keeping Guinness busy, I had a look and its already updated with this latest record! Well done again, Steve
@Secretlyanothername Not with propellers, I'd say. Probably gonna hit a wall for a while, until people figure out electric turbofan engines or scramjets or something...
Imagine a camera on the front AI recognition software, it would make a terrifying kamikaze drones. Very difficult to shoot down something moving that fast . I know we shouldn't be making this into a weapon, but you can guarantee someone with deep funding will
A video where you talk about what you learned about high power ESCs would be great! How to avoid fires, temperature, capacitors, ratings, tricks, etc. Would be useful for many other applications.
At 13:05, I see that our previous exchange of comments in another video about the duct acting as a diffuser that slows down the freestream Mach to 0.6 found its way into your video. This is nice to see!
@Mike-Bell No, thank you! As an aerospace engineer and a self-avowed AvGeek, your videos are extremely fun and inspirational to watch. If you're ever in the LA area, I'd love to meet over coffee or lunch.
It's cheaper and more effective to spam 5 cheap slow drones which overwhelm the guy with the shotgun rather than to use 1 expensive drone that goes faster. That is the whole point of drones as weapons: cheap and numerous.
I feel like you should really partner up with the smarter every day channel to try and work out a way to film it at high speed. pretty sure Destin has said a few times his day job for a time was highspeed weapons tracking. long shot maybe lol, but I bet he would be super into this.
Thanks. That's a great idea. I suspect sea level or the super dense air of Antarctica is best but it would be fascinating to confirm once and for all if higher elevation is faster.
@Mike-BellBrilliant Thanks so much for responding, I'm an inventor myself, I'd like to invite you to do the test at 700m on my 110H land in the most beautiful national park in Brazil? , Also I want to show you personally my patent of my device that will allow unlimited drone flight. Please drop me a line on my YT mail.
EDF are simple not efficient enough. There is a reason they are using propellers that are much larger and then cut down to size here. Those motors are already spinning almost as fast as EDF the way they are using them. Ducting although it helps streamline airflow is not the entire picture, there is added weight to the airframe. They would have already been using EDF if it was capable of this, but sadly they are not up to this task. They could squeeze a but more possibly by having blades manufactured that have tip vortex reduction on their ends but that would require R&D and lots of money to manufacture.
The nice thing about 3D printing on Bambu Labs is that it gets saved to the cloud in China. If they like it, they will give it to their military. This would be a great kamikaze kill drone. China thanks you for sharing the design with them.
Well, this team's previous record was funded by and is held - jointly - by the Dubai Police so if you want to be righteous you don't even need to speculate as to what may happen some day somewhere.
you are just obvious clueless. These drones are fully optimized for a single very special usecase: speed record so they lack anything which would make them valuable for military use cases. And speaking about military use cases and drones it isn't china that would raise my concerns (Obama drone war).
I have a special affection for that speed, you see back in 1990-1991 I was a part of the team that set the world land speed record for a piston driven car at 409.986 MPH at the salt flats in Utah. Great job Guys!
@Irgendwas_geistreiches Yeah, Ukraine is defending themselves against Russia's invasion with drones of a very similar design. They've proven to be good interceptors.
@LAD-321 My guess would be that this kind of drone would very hard to defend against but also much less versatile. Most of the currently used FPV drones are slower to provide greater maneuverability and load capacity.
Seriously well done guys. That's way beyond a hobby project. It's engineering at a world class level, with problem solving any team of engineers would be proud of. It's wonderful that you shared the details of how you flew so fast. Of course the other teams are going to watch your videos over and over, and make use of your research. I am subscribed now, and look forward to seeing you hang on to this record.
Congratulations Mike and Luke-this is absolutely incredible. Your attention to detail and determination are inspiring, and I love how openly you share your findings so others can learn from them. A truly well-deserved accolade!
Thanks Nadia, appreciate that. We’re proud to bring this record to South Africa. We share enough to inspire others to even more ludricous speed, while still keeping some things back so we can stay competitive.
For our world record builds we need 3d printers that just work with engineering grade accuracy. That's why we use Bambu:
- My workhorse: 2 years of heavy use and still going strong (P2S) tidd.ly/49l2a7h
- My new favorite dual nozzle large build volume (H2d) tidd.ly/4jnTJeW
- Best Value / Entry Level: Bambu (A1 mini) tidd.ly/3YQMQJo
- The best filament dryer box bar none - (AMS HT) tidd.ly/44OGAWb
Many thanks for producing this amazing video.
Love it, Keeping the record alive in SA as it should be!!
Have you explored toroidal propellers?
Well done!
You need some lessons on geography.
Congrats to you Mike and to your son Luke. You didn't just break the drone speed record, you now have the record for the fastest battery electric aircraft, period.That record was 622 km/h and it was established in 2022 by the Rolls Royce ACCEL. First Ben in Australia, and now you and your son Luke in South Africa have managed to surpass Rolls Royce and its massive resources! I don't know if people realize the significance of this: a small team of smart and dedicated people with limited resources can achieve what large established companies cannot!
I just realized you mentioned the ACCEL at the end of your video. I wrote my comment before finishing the video!
@kaviator won't be to long until it's 700km
Incredible achievement.
The PROBLEM is "large, and established...." Well done. From one who knows, it is individual commitment that drives innovation.
"Big Pharma"....lol
As you approach bullet speed, beware the enemies of the Second amendment mmm ??
The government does not like the Freedom of Velocity you demonstrate ....
Seeing 12kw of power draw from a tiny drone is genuinely mind blowing. That is an unbelievable peak power output.
Exactly ... it was a double take moment for me that .. a did I hear that right moment ... tech is freeing up so many brilliant engineers, home engineering, and invention . It's so cool and positive to see ...👍🕯👍
@davidhyslop115
Yes, that is 4hp per propeller! I did not know that it was possible with such a small propeller. It has to be insanely high rpm.
The older version has a peak draw of 16.2 kW
@everydaytech2004🤯
So nobody else is underwhelmed by the fact this all well established aerodynamics, off the shelf parts, and 3d printed parts. It’s copy and paste.
At this rate, we will be getting supersonic drones by 2030
warp-speed by 2040
I wish but i dont know of a propellant technology suitable besides turbine engines (rockets dont count) and certainly not anything electric
For the spinners consider printing them in a single piece by pausing the print and then dropping the prop into place and resume. It should be stronger, lighter, and eliminate the screw holes and seam. It's at least worth a spin on the test rig.
Interesting idea...
my question would be , why splitting the spinner vertically. aren't spinners normally a base and a cap with the prop sandwiched in-between?
@Mike-Bell Print as one unit? You’ll eliminate the need for extra weight ie. Screws which surely throw the centre of gravity out?
@Mike-Bell Wow. Thank you for the reply and considering my idea. You could definitely retain the tight tolerances after looking at it more closely.
I think an ideal solution would require a smaller diameter print matching one side of the prop geometry to be inserted along with the prop during the pause on the final print. Then you could resume printing the next layer directly on what was originally the bottom surface of the first print.
It's possible that they are actually much stronger with the screws. Metal is OP compared to plastic. I think that in the future 3d printers could insert metal screws at intervals to strengthen the plastic parts. It solves the Z axis weakness issue and it's pretty simple to achieve if you remove the second nozzle of the H2D and have a screwer mechanism instead. For a first generation printer, the screws could be vertical only, but eventually maybe multi axis. It's also pretty simple to implement in software as it's not much different from the peg connectors you can do in Bambu Studio.
Inserting 10% volume of M1.5 screws in a critical area of a PLA part makes the part 360% as strong as the regular PLA part. M1.5 screws fits nicely in 3mm thick walls.
You get aluminium strength parts if you're willing to insert 30% volume in critical areas.
Am I just discovering this drone speed record arms race now? Or has everyone started taking it really serious all of a sudden because following this on RUclips is the greatest entertainment I’ve seen in years, far better than any Tv series! I’m absolutely loving it!
Welcome aboard. Yeah its great. This is the perfect aircraft class because it can be achieved by a small team with a little corporate backing and yet still be fastest on the planet. And Luke inspired a whole community and gave it traction with his Peregreen 1 RUclips post 2 years ago.
The RC car speed record chasing is also fun to watch. Several channels on RUclips into that!
@Mike-Bell it’s fantastic to see the back and fourth, and I don’t think people quite understand the complexity of the aero engineering you’re putting into this! Brilliant achievements all around, well done guys 😊
First came across this in a RedBull post, but that was already a year ago and using speeds of just around 300km/h.
Mike, it might be worthwhile to contact RedBull SA to organise a drone like competition to get the various drone competitors together. I Imagine aerobatic-like course (with quidditch like rings or something) around Kyalami or Killarney race track.
@Mike-Bell For you, these are toys; for us, Ukraine, these are weapons, and your developments are interesting. We need a drone to intercept cruise missiles. If your drones can reach speeds of 1,000 km/h, that would be great.
I am gonna be super honest here...I am a 47 year old Cajun man, retired and living simply in Costa Rica. That is merely context for the hard truth: I don't have a drone and I know next to nothing about engineering. Having said that, this is one of the most fascinating videos I have ever seen. I snort laughed when you all presented the bit about discussing the speeds in the VERY recent past! Great content. My mind was blown at 300mph. Super cool video. And you made it accessible and enjoyable to folks like me who are not techies etc. Well done, fellas. Liked and subscribed!
So glad you are fascinated by this global competition like we are
@Mike-BellI feel like you guys are going to keep having breakthroughs and the technology will improve exponentially. That is a VERY cool thing to be a part of.
I need a youtube Playlist of all these different world record battery electric drones.
I have followed the records from the onset (three different teams involved). I might make a playlist now
@everydaytech2004 Or maybe you could tell us the names of the youtube channels :D
@timbonator1 I have now created the playlist. ruclips.net/video/qbGVtUHK_Ek/video.html
This thing is gonna scare a ton of people in neighborhoods which will start making UFO calls
10 missed calls from US Military
It was actually Ukraine. They want their order their first shipment asap.
The record keeps being swapped between countries... one of them being USA. The They don't need to call him - they have talent right on their doorstep already.
@ToxicBro-q8u
They have already been trialing hunter killer drones with a similar configuration ... .. There's a UK one, Anduril from the US ?possibly and their own indigenous efforts...but they are quick on the uptake ... The military battlefield electronics are more of a focus for them to date .. ECM and control ...
You need a second channel where you concentrate on engineering details. I get it that the viewership tanks when you do this but I am sure there are a significant number of us viewers that want to see such details.
NO WAY...realize that arms manufacturers want this...that's just plain STUPID...sod off
This may satisfy some curiosity Worlds fastest drone pilots and record holders | Q n A
ruclips.net/video/I9qXbiFkasY/video.html
“Scotty, I need more power!” -Kirk
Each blade of an airliner turbine engine is made in a way that the actual grain of the metal continously runs a single direction, also they are hollow to allow air to cool them inside and out, they are essentially right on the verge of the limits of the material abilities. Between Jet Engine design and EUV photolithography I can't decide which is more impressive in terms of human ingenuity.
Amazing technology for sure
EUV for sure. Turboprops are not that much worse than turbofans.
After getting up to date on why shortening the prop length makes sense, then, showing the many blades of the jet engine, we are left hanging... wondering why only two prop blades are better than three or ten. Meh...these are not the droids I'm looking for.
@MsTyrie - Fewer bladed have less interference drag in free air - (duct flow changes things - because the blades are no longer dealing with free air pressure on the low pressure side of the blade - the air is now being channelled between "walls") as the fewer the props, the fewer the nacelles and intersections - the lower the total drag.
@kadmow Ah, duct flow! Got it.
Now who's gonna break the sound barrier?!
they'll have to double their speed
@MockatLordmocktechnically doable though. I guess it depends on what the rules are, as I think they’d have to do away with the traditional propellers and move to jet turbines and possibly rocket assist.
No prop-driven aircraft has ever broken the sound barrier in level flight. If they are able to achieve that it would be a coup in aerospace engineering. The main problem is that at supersonic speed the shockwave would break off the propeller blades.
It would take switching to bladeless propulsion, because supersonic engines get their power from the expansion of exhaust gases. Maybe a revolution in AMET/AMPT thrusters to achieve useful and sustainable thrust at sea level instead of all the way up at VLEO altitudes? The general category for these technologies is ABEP, Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion, and although we have MPD and MHD thrusters, the former uses its own easily ionized fuel (or just the ionosphere's existing plasma) while the latter is low-speed through a conductive medium, water (especially seawater), to make a MAD thruster you'd spend magnitudes more power to strip oxygen and nitrogen of their electrons to make them into plasma which only then can be pushed on by the thruster, and at that point your power supply far, far outpaces the thrust output, not to mention the fact a MAD thruster would suffer immensely from having only static thrust that just kind of goes away as you increase in speed, and that's to say nothing of all the Joule heating it would cause wasting most of its power.
There is Astro Mechanica's Duality engine, it feels to me like its a massive and long EDF pumping high speed air into a ramjet combustion chamber, its a hybrid engine. There's also Sylphaero, but I haven't seen anything from them in a while, they did get a microwave-pumped atmospheric thruster going, it was a small engine maybe two inches in diameter, and it produced bright green plasma in a foot-long or so exhaust plume for a couple seconds before they shut it off, which apparently is from oxygen in the auroral green line between two excited states, those being O(1S) and O(1D). From what I can tell (and from what Gemini could comb the internet for) Sylphaero is the only one out there who has publicized any tests of sea-level ABEP engines.
Edit: The only place a MAD thruster is feasible is for use as the workhorse thruster on atmospheric mining vessels around geomagnetically-powerful hydrogen-rich gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, flying through the atmosphere and scooping up a full payload of gases and using the scooped hydrogen as rocket fuel to ascend back to orbit and deposit the majority of its hydrogen-rich mixed gas payload.
The Russians?
All the tech and the pilot is doing the wet finger wind direction test.
I wonder if vapor smoothing the shell would help cut down on drag
this is some brilliant work guys!!
Congratulations!
A bells to each of you! A bottle when the sound barrier shatters....!
Im Australian, I didnt know we were rocking 600km+ drone records😂....and I thought my DJI FPV drone was fast
Thin titanium props
NO! Only 3d printed parts or they lose their bambu sponsorship. No real carbon fiber mat either, only 3d printed chopped carbon fiber filament, which defeats the purpose of continuous fiber composites.
Inspiring stuff guys!
As a recreational drone enthusiast I get jitters flying at 120kmph, I can only imagine what Luke is feeling when flying.
Im glad you can doe 120. My reaction times are so slow I'm am banned from the controls.
With a cone structure with high rotational speed the parting line would be cylindrical and not longitudinal. The structure mating would be cylindrical, that is, centered on the axis of rotation, such that all the mating parts, which could include metal inserts, such that each is perfectly balanced. To achieve laminar flow from turbulent, from the prop to cap (hub) interface, to laminar, you would have to understand that the hub propeller interface cannot be blunt and has to taper in a helical fashion (similar to prop twist) from the prop (with a known pitch and twist), the large end of the helix, to the tip which would terminate the helix and terminate with a hemispherical cap. With a pusher prop arrangement, the cap is an extension of the propeller, so it is really a part of the propeller. The end of the cap would not be blunt it would have a curvature (the curvature could be mathematically complex). Ideally the prop, cap, helix, tip, etc., would be a single part, with provision for high speed balance. To achieve a tight interference fit you could use a cryogenic interference fit sleeve, which is cooled in liquid Nitrogen, then place on the motor shaft, with the prop/hub metal insert over the sleeve. As the sleeve warms it will produce an interference fit connecting the assembly. Unfortunately, it would be a permanent joint. But would be incredibly strong and if you extended the motor shaft further into the cap would aid in mechanical rigidity.
From an aerodynamic/strength standpoint having motors with props at the end of wing tips is a bit strange. For vertical take off you could have a single motor central to the fuselage coaxial with a single combination counter rotating propeller, which is a bit complicated but would simplify the thrust vector and reduce weight but may require having a parachute landing approach. However, with a single main wing design (not necessarily a flying wing) with a centerline pusher, you could use a blended/lifting body approach which would greatly increase flight efficiency. But, more importantly have a compound sweep to maximize performance as you approach the speed of sound. If the wing tips do not need to support a thrust motor they can be tapered very thin at the tips, meaning you have the opportunity to have an efficient thin wing, by moving some of the lifting force to the body of the aircraft (popular is having a forward canard elevator/horizontal stabilizer).
With the approach mentioned above you would have a known upright aircraft orientation, which would allow all of the known advantages for autonomous flight, meaning you could easily create a autopilot (and a fly by wire control law), obviously requiring a gyro platform and a GPS locator (to be completely autonomous if communication is interrupted). The weight savings could be used to provide a retractable landing gear, which would be an optional way to land. If you move towards a stable flying platform (slight wing dihedral, etc.) the aircraft will be more forgiving being subjected to external flight perturbations (turbulence), which you will encounter at higher altitudes (optimum flight altitude, perhaps 8500 feet above sea level.)
Well done, are you guys going to develop a ducted fan design to pass through the 600 km/hr tip speed barrier?
I think they are testing themselves by relearning aerodynamics from an entry level. Instead of copying the latest technology, they are copying old tech and working their way up.
Well done, Saffa from a Kiwi.
Congratulations on setting a new world record!
Thanks! We appreciate that!
Superb. Military electric munitions don’t reach these speeds. Best wishes from England.
I wonder the theoretical limit. There was a supersonic prop plane, but drones expand the possibilities.
its time to use the swept back propeller
Finally we got the ufos.
Give the man a cigar!
If you were to have a fire and crash, that whole field would burn.
Massive congratulations Mike and Luke, on the record and for another great video! Between yourselves and your Aussie competitors you really must be keeping Guinness busy, I had a look and its already updated with this latest record! Well done again, Steve
At the rate this evolving, someone is going to get awful close to breaking the sound barrier.
I actually think you could get past supersonic, if you get the aerodynamics right. That would be crazy.
@Secretlyanothername Not with propellers, I'd say. Probably gonna hit a wall for a while, until people figure out electric turbofan engines or scramjets or something...
The military is going to love this stuff
Chris Roseer will have to get back to drawing board with his AOS motors :D
Oh my gosh when there's two fly by I could swear I was listening to 90s Formula 1 racing!
Love that. I'll tell them to fly lower next time for more extreme doppler 😁
T-Motors have always been my favourite!!! Thanks for sharing all the great details.
Congrats! Love this!
Truly impressive engineering
Perfecting, this technology is amazing, but it's also terrifying.
Imagine a camera on the front AI recognition software, it would make a terrifying kamikaze drones. Very difficult to shoot down something moving that fast . I know we shouldn't be making this into a weapon, but you can guarantee someone with deep funding will
@cheetomussollini They pretty much already do in Ukraine, it's something like 90% of KIA's are drones.
Many thanks to all the experts who have devoted their careers to developing this amazing technology. 😊
Things are moving fast in this sphere in so many ways!
A video where you talk about what you learned about high power ESCs would be great! How to avoid fires, temperature, capacitors, ratings, tricks, etc. Would be useful for many other applications.
Thanks for the good idea. Seems Luke and I have some detailed knowledge on this subject… learnt the hard way
@Mike-Bell if technical stuff gets hammered by the stupid algo, maybe a 2nd channel with the hard lessons learned and in depth nerd stuff.
you are so inspirating people, congrats from France. Well done
At 13:05, I see that our previous exchange of comments in another video about the duct acting as a diffuser that slows down the freestream Mach to 0.6 found its way into your video. This is nice to see!
Hi Yes thanks. I expanded on what you said because its fascinating. Thanks for the detail.
@Mike-Bell No, thank you! As an aerospace engineer and a self-avowed AvGeek, your videos are extremely fun and inspirational to watch. If you're ever in the LA area, I'd love to meet over coffee or lunch.
Fantastic! T-Motors with 12S battery powering all that great engineering 🎉👍🏻👏🏻
At 14:58 I can see the influence of Tintin!
Well spotted. I forgot to mention the Tintin inspiration...
maybe next time we'll see red and white filament for printing...:)
made me real happy to see that too
@Mike-Bell Hergé's spirit was probably looking down from the heavens with a smile of approval.
Excellent work Mike! It really has me wanting to try again but, as you know, I have several disadvantages at the moment. Maybe in the future 🚀 🔥
Today it's a (harmless) speed record, tomorrow a (not so harmless) killing machine.
@joachimhaider997 My exact thoughts throughout the video.
It's cheaper and more effective to spam 5 cheap slow drones which overwhelm the guy with the shotgun rather than to use 1 expensive drone that goes faster. That is the whole point of drones as weapons: cheap and numerous.
Congratulations, what an awesome feat. I see that they are using similar designs in anti-drone systems
Well done boys! Big fan from durban. Love your content. Keep breaking those records 🎉🎉🎉
Appreciate the support from Durban! More records to come!
This is amazing. You and your son are the benchmark of father and son relationships!
I feel like you should really partner up with the smarter every day channel to try and work out a way to film it at high speed. pretty sure Destin has said a few times his day job for a time was highspeed weapons tracking. long shot maybe lol, but I bet he would be super into this.
Now that's POD RACING my young padawan
Awesome! Your dedication to details in the design and problem solving is inspiring!
Ukraine is going to want this technology!!
@roxter299roxter7 I’m assuming every military, business, etc will be dreaming up uses.
We use this type of drone (called Sting) for several years as an interseptor of standart russian one-wing drones (called Shakhed)
Any corrupt regime that is letting their people needlessly die in their useless war wants this.
@ronkvogel939yeap, russia, iran, north correa, venezuela all of them are corrupt non-democratic regimens
Well done my friend! Now build me one to fly sat in it
Congratulations guys! Why not attempt an altitude record? What's next? A jet version?
Thanks. That's a great idea. I suspect sea level or the super dense air of Antarctica is best but it would be fascinating to confirm once and for all if higher elevation is faster.
@Mike-BellBrilliant Thanks so much for responding, I'm an inventor myself, I'd like to invite you to do the test at 700m on my 110H land in the most beautiful national park in Brazil? , Also I want to show you personally my patent of my device that will allow unlimited drone flight. Please drop me a line on my YT mail.
This is some very awesome stuff right here !!
🎉
I always watch your video before Luke’s, hope he doesn’t mind! 😅
I approve of your plan 😊
The next challenge is silence. Who can make the most quiet drone.
man. I love engineering.
Fascinating, thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Absolutely amazing fastest I’ve gone in a drone is 102mph with a tail wind
This is stunning congratulations 🎉
go with a center line pusher ducted fan tail pusher and 4 stabilizing drone props? youre pretty much at the limit of what open air props can get.
@renaissanceman5847 where would the battery go?
EDF are simple not efficient enough. There is a reason they are using propellers that are much larger and then cut down to size here. Those motors are already spinning almost as fast as EDF the way they are using them. Ducting although it helps streamline airflow is not the entire picture, there is added weight to the airframe. They would have already been using EDF if it was capable of this, but sadly they are not up to this task. They could squeeze a but more possibly by having blades manufactured that have tip vortex reduction on their ends but that would require R&D and lots of money to manufacture.
🤓 WOW! Incredible engineering!
Half spoke length for eight times gains that's radical
The nice thing about 3D printing on Bambu Labs is that it gets saved to the cloud in China. If they like it, they will give it to their military. This would be a great kamikaze kill drone. China thanks you for sharing the design with them.
Well, this team's previous record was funded by and is held - jointly - by the Dubai Police so if you want to be righteous you don't even need to speculate as to what may happen some day somewhere.
It’s Mr Trump’s country that would worry me the most 😅
you are just obvious clueless. These drones are fully optimized for a single very special usecase: speed record so they lack anything which would make them valuable for military use cases.
And speaking about military use cases and drones it isn't china that would raise my concerns (Obama drone war).
There always has to be that guy
@LivengoodScott This is false. You don't even need to connect the printer to the internet at all. Be reasonable. Fearmongering helps no one.
I have a special affection for that speed, you see back in 1990-1991 I was a part of the team that set the world land speed record for a piston driven car at 409.986 MPH at the salt flats in Utah. Great job Guys!
This is the best accidental advertisement t-motors could get :)
Thanks guys! Awesome work. You've come so far... what's the next big thing?
These names are awakening my german genes...
Even funnier cause you've basically built a guided missile fit for military application.
@Irgendwas_geistreiches Yeah, Ukraine is defending themselves against Russia's invasion with drones of a very similar design. They've proven to be good interceptors.
@LAD-321
My guess would be that this kind of drone would very hard to defend against but also much less versatile. Most of the currently used FPV drones are slower to provide greater maneuverability and load capacity.
Running your props so fast you may consider to make them ultra sonic types in a tunnel
This video should've been marked as a paid promotion.
I can confirm it is marked as paid promotion.
WOW You are changing the future for sure 👍
That is just plainly impressive. 👍
A manned version of that would be awesome.
Deadly Weapons. The Devil's Little Helpers
Seriously well done guys. That's way beyond a hobby project. It's engineering at a world class level, with problem solving any team of engineers would be proud of. It's wonderful that you shared the details of how you flew so fast. Of course the other teams are going to watch your videos over and over, and make use of your research. I am subscribed now, and look forward to seeing you hang on to this record.
Glad you approve 🤓
More to come
Perfect to bring down Iranian drones!
Sounds like something out of Star Wars.
Drone race is on 🔥
Cheer's 🍻🍻🍻 😮
Hahahaa i love this competition, pushing forward. Everyone tries their hardest. Good job all of you guys! Impressive
Thanks!
Amazing engineering. Excellent job.
Congratulations Mike and Luke-this is absolutely incredible. Your attention to detail and determination are inspiring, and I love how openly you share your findings so others can learn from them. A truly well-deserved accolade!
Thanks Nadia, appreciate that. We’re proud to bring this record to South Africa. We share enough to inspire others to even more ludricous speed, while still keeping some things back so we can stay competitive.
You guys are smarter than me, and I'm glad about that.
Klasse!!👍
Thats Amazing work Guys.Keep it Up.
Loved this, I am just a model pilot from the UK ! Incredible work!!!!
Amazing work guys!
Congratulations!! Really amazing
Thanks. Much appreciated.
That's amazing. 👍
congrats, you've developed a weapons platform!
Air defense system + side winders.
great engineering!
At 12:21 I said fan, then you said fan. Makes total sense.