A homemade drone designed by father and son duo Mike and Luke Bell in South Africa has set a world record by flying at a speed of nearly 483 km/h.
Peregrine 2 sets the Guinness World Record for the fastest drone. (Photo: Luke Bell)
The record attempt took place on April 21, but according to the Bells, the project had been in development for several months, as reported by Interesting Engineering on May 10.
Luke Bell is a photographer and content creator on YouTube. The journey of Mike and Luke in achieving the Guinness World Record was quite straightforward. Mike designed the device while Luke tested it, and they continued to enhance its speed until they broke the existing record and contacted Guinness. To achieve the desired speed, they needed to refine the aerodynamic design. However, without a wind tunnel, Mike and Luke extended the drone out of a car window and speculated on how to manage the airflow.
After much consideration, the father-son duo 3D printed and assembled the drone with all its components. However, during the first flight, the drone caught fire. They repeated the process and continued testing, but the second attempt also failed similarly. The drone, nicknamed Peregrine 2, seemed to struggle with the airflow through its system, causing the temperature to soar to 130 degrees Celsius. The motor’s wiring began to burn, and the drone shattered. The Bells spent several months overhauling the design, using thicker wiring for the motor and experimenting until the drone no longer caught fire. Even so, the vehicle was still far from achieving record speeds.
The Bell family continued to improve Peregrine 2. After months of hard work, they were finally ready to pilot the drone for the record attempt in front of multiple independent witnesses. Importantly, the drone had to fly a distance of 100 meters in two opposite directions. Although the drone only flew for a few seconds at high speed, Mike and Luke succeeded. Peregrine 2 achieved a speed of 480.23 km/h. With a small camera mounted on its back, Peregrine 2 also became the fastest camera drone in the world, reaching speeds of 400 km/h.
