(Credit: Drone Pro hub)
YouTube channel Drone Pro Hub has published a new video showcasing the raw speed of their new Blackbird drone design, and it looks like another record-breaking effort, TechSpot reports. Reaching speeds over 450 miles per hour in downwind testing, it blew past the existing Guinness-sanctioned world record. Now all it needs is officiating.
Drone development has advanced at an accelerated rate since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Ukrainians leveraging technical expertise and desperate innovation to extend drone ranges and attack capabilities. A big part of that has been accelerating the speed of interceptor drone designs. But the global civilian sector has been making incredible advances of its own, and on the speed front, they just keep getting faster.
With several teams competing to be the best, Blackbird has its work cut out for it. In this latest iteration, the developers used new carbon-fiber propellers with a sawtooth leading edge, built at an extreme pitch to deliver maximum top speed. Although there was some concern over how that might affect low-speed flight stability, it didn't prove to be any problem in real testing.
The sawtooth leading edge helps direct air over the broadest part of the propeller blade, improving its efficiency. They also look pretty cool, which, as we all know, makes everything go faster.
It wasn't a smooth path to the perfect test flight; an initial run failed due to a video cutout, possibly due to the Doppler Effect. They lost that drone, so it was down to the last remaining model they had to make a second attempt. Fortunately, that time, it all went to plan.
On the first downwind test, the Blackbird reached 453mph. When they flew it back the other way into the wind, they hit 398mph. With an average of 426mph, that's a new world record waiting to be certified. The previous record was 409mph (658kph), set by father-and-son duo Luke and Mike Bell in January.
That record stands for now, though, as the Drone Pro Hub channel team has yet to have their new drone record certified.
The Blackbird had to face some extreme conditions during its flight, not just from the elements. The drone pulled 400 amps for about 10 seconds during its high-speed flight, and the batteries reportedly hit 80 degrees C, with the heat shrink around them starting to melt. That doesn't bode well for long-term flights at these speeds, but it shows where clear improvements could be made for additional longevity.
With this drone design looking remarkably similar to Ukraine's Stinger interceptor drones, which are designed to fly fast and hard to hit incoming one-way Russian attack drones often equipped with jet engines, we wouldn't be surprised to see these kinds of hobbyist innovations bleeding into defense tech before long.