Beating The World Record For Fastest Flying Drone Once Again

The fun part about world records is that anyone can take a swing at breaking them, which is what [Luke Maximo Bell] has been doing with the drone speed record for the past years, along with other teams in a friendly competition. After having some Aussie blokes previously smash the record with a blistering 626 km/h, the challenge was on for [Luke] and his dad to reclaim the title. This they did with the V4 of their quadcopter design, adding a range of improvements including new engines, new props and an optimized body to eek out more performance.

In the video we see these changes and the tests in detail. Interestingly, the simulations ran on the computer showed that the new body actually had to be larger, necessitating the use of a larger FDM printer. Fortunately a certain FDM 3D printer company sponsors just about everyone out there, hence the new design was printed on a Bambu Lab H2D, also making use of the dual extruder feature to print combined PETG/TPU parts.

It was also attempted to have a follow camera attached to a second FPV done in the form of a 360 degrees camera, but this turned out to be a bit too complex to get good shots, so this will have to be retried again.

In the end a new world record was set at an average of 657 km/h, which sets the stage for the next team to try and overtake it again. As for where the limit is, propeller airplanes have hit over 800 km/h,  so there’s still quite a way to go before details like the sound barrier become a problem.