YouTuber Luke Maximo Bell, working with his father Mike Bell, is a now the proud holder of an official Guinness World Record — after building the world's fastest drone, capable of accelerating from 0-186 miles per hour (0-300 kilometers per hour) in just two seconds and hitting a top speed of nearly 300 miles per hour.
"Last year I created the fastest drone in the world, but I always felt like it was a kind of prototype and not quite fast enough," Bell says by way of background. "This year my dad and I decided to improve every aspect of the original Peregreen drone to create an epic successor. And yes, this drone is even faster than the Red Bull Formula 1 drone!"
The drone created by the Bells, Peregreen 2, looks more like a rocket ship than your traditional quadcopter, though it is indeed driven by four motors on a carbon fiber frame. These are driven by larger motors than the original: a quartet of T-Motor Velox V3115s, compared to the Velox V2808 motors used in the original. Initial bench tests, though, revealed a problem: the motors drew too much current for the given battery, necessitating a swap to something a bit more robust.
"We found another issue," Bell adds. "Our motor wires were getting suspiciously hot during full load. Eventually, during one of our bench tests, the motor wires even burst into flames — so, as we have now very dramatically learned, the wires that come installed with teh motors are not quite thick enough for our application."
Even then, the prototype drones had a tendency to burst into flame — necessitating a complete redesign of the 3D-printed body. Initial testing of the new body reached speeds of 400km/h (around 250mph) — and a final motor swap brought that figure up to an impressive 480.23km/h (around 298.5mph), as officially recorded by a witness for the Guinness World Records.
One of the more challenging aspects of the build: trying to prevent the drone from bursting into flames. (📷: Luke Maximo Bell)
"We are officially the new record holders for this title," Bell says of the Fastest Ground Speed by a Battery-Powered Remote-Controlled Quadcopter record, "which is so exciting. It's been such a long work in progress to get that result, and to get that confirmation just means a lot to me and my Dad."
More information is available in Bell's video, embedded above and on his YouTube channel, while verification of the record is available on the Guinness World Records website.
