A father-and-son team recently established a new Guinness World Record. Guinness World Record for the fastest quadcopter drone, surpassing the previous title holder. After months of fiery trial-and-error, Luke and Mike Bell’s remote-controlled Peregrine 2 design flew through the air at a remarkable 298 mph.
While the team’s four-propellor drone reached its top speed on April 21, Luke Bell shared his project details and Guinness confirmation earlier this week on YouTube. According to Bell, there were many challenges to overcome. a lot to overcome before they even managed to get their design airborne without bursting into flames.
First, the Bells didn't have a proper wind tunnel to test their various aerodynamic design ideas. Instead, they used their 3D-printed prototypes, a car, and an open stretch of highway. While one Bell accelerated, the other held each quadcopter frame model out an open window and filmed its interaction with increased wind speeds. Meanwhile, battery tests kept resulting in fiery failures until the Bells eventually believed they found a system that worked.
After deciding on a final schematic, the Bells installed the necessary wiring, motor components, and propellers, then subjected the drone to its first test flight. Unfortunately, they didn’t account for the interior heat caused by the amount of electrical current flowing through the system. With temperatures reaching as high as 266 degrees Fahrenheit, the drone’s wiring ignited and sent their first attempt crashing towards the ground.
After briefly considering giving up on their goal, the Bells went back to the drawing board, built a second iteration, and launched the new quadcopter—which promptly burst into flames, as well. This caused the pair to “completely redesign the whole drone body,” according to Luke. More testing and design tweaks followed, but after weeks of work, they believed they finally had a quadcopter ready to take the world record spot.
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After assembling multiple independent witnesses (a Guinness World Record requirement) Peregrine 2 was ready to soar. The drone flew a total of four runs, with the two fastest flights’ average clocking in at 298.47 mph. Almost 65 mph faster than the previous world record. previous world record, there was no doubt about the new champion—in not one, but two categories.
Because the Bells equipped Peregrine 2 with a camera to document its flights, the quadcopter also technically set another world record, this time for the fastest camera drone. Not bad for air times that only lasted a few blinks of an eye.
“Three months of hard work, failures, and engineering ultimately came down to a few seconds of high-speed flying,” said Luke in his video rundown.
