Dorm-Made Drone Breaks Record
Tomas Salvo, an aerospace engineering student at Georgia Tech, designed and built a jet powered drone called Reaper in his dorm room, and says it has flown at 491 mph. That is about 790 km/h, and it beats the 465 mph mark that has stood as the fastest jet powered radio controlled aircraft. No record body has ratified the figure, and no independent timing has been published.
Tom's Hardware reports that Reaper pairs a moulded carbon fibre airframe and a laser cut internal structure with a 250 N turbojet and a 3D printed titanium nozzle, at roughly 5 kg all up. Salvo, who posted the flight data himself, says the aircraft carried a 1.2 kg payload, about 2.6 lb, and cost him around USD 13,000 to build. He built three prototypes, and says each of them held the same speed on a full tank.
But the flight profile is what separates Reaper from a fast hobby model. Salvo says it held its top speed for nearly four minutes, climbed to 6,500 ft, or about 2,000 m, and covered 31 miles, roughly 50 km, at full speed. The aircraft can climb to 2,000 m in under 20 seconds, launched from a rail or from the back of a truck.
The top speed is Salvo's own figure, and nobody has measured it independently. DroneXL, which first covered the project earlier this year, notes that the runs involved no timing gates and no official observers, so the number rests on Salvo's own telemetry. That caveat matters because the record he is measured against was timed and witnessed.
The mark belongs to Niels Herbrich, a German pilot whose 7.5 kg turbine model Inferno reached 465 mph. Reaper is also not the fastest radio controlled aircraft of any kind, since a dynamic soaring glider flown by Bruce Tebo reached 567 mph this year with no engine at all.
So the target Salvo is chasing is the Boom Prize rather than the 465 mph mark. Boom Supersonic put up USD 750,000 in cash and USD 50,000 in its own stock for the first amateur whose remotely piloted, air breathing aircraft exceeds Mach 1 in level flight for at least five seconds, lands, and then repeats the feat the same day. The purse is worth about USD 800,000 in total, and it has not been won.
The rules are tight in ways that matter to builders far from the American amateur scene. Entries must be mostly built by the team, weigh no more than 25 kg, or 55 lb, at takeoff, and come from US citizens, permanent residents or people granted asylum. That closes the prize to amateur teams in Asia, however capable their aircraft.
Speed is the harder problem. At 491 mph, Reaper sits about 276 mph short of Mach 1, which is roughly 767 mph at sea level. Salvo is already at work on a supersonic design, and Mashable reports that a prototype named Reaper M1 is being prepared for a test window near the end of the year, with total programme costs now put near USD 70,000 against the USD 13,000 he quotes for the build.
But the prize asks for more than a fast pass. A winning attempt needs the same airframe to fly twice in a single day and land intact both times, with the runs witnessed by a panel that includes the former Boeing chief executive Phil Condit and the SpaceX co founder Tom Mueller. Boom's protocol calls for a calibrated pitot and static system, total air temperature, sealed loggers and reciprocal headings.
Tomas Salvo built Reaper, a 5 kg carbon fibre jet powered drone, in his dorm room at Georgia Tech.
His 491 mph top speed is self reported and has not been ratified or independently timed.
Reaper held the speed for nearly four minutes, reached 6,500 ft and covered 31 miles at full speed.
The USD 800,000 Boom Prize for a supersonic amateur aircraft is unwon, and Mach 1 is about 276 mph beyond Reaper.
The prize is open to US persons only and requires two flights in one day with the same airframe.
Source: Tomas Salvo, Tom's Hardware, DroneXL, Mashable, Boom Supersonic
