Drone Racing League Sets Guinness Speed Record With 163mph Flight

Drone racing hasn't quite yet set the world of sports entertainment on fire, but that doesn't mean it hasn't found an audience or that there aren't impressive feats on display. Case in point: the Drone Racing League (DRL), which uses a specific quadcopter design that all competing teams use, has engineered a model that reached a flight speed of 179.6mph, in turn setting a Guinness World Record.

Dubbed the DRL RacerX, the drone far surpasses the Racer3 model that's currently used in the second season. The groups' engineers managed to take four electric motors, each capable of speeds of 46,000 RPMs, two 1,300 mAh batteries, and cram it all into a quadcopter that weighs just 800 grams (1.7 pounds). Early prototypes of the RacerX were even said to burst into flames when hitting top speeds during test flights.

The DRL has published a video of their record-setting flight (above), but while the RacerX reached a top speed of 179.6mph, that's not quite what goes in Guinness' record books. The official entry speed is listed as 163.5mph, as the organization takes the average top speed from both parts of a back and forth flight down a 328-foot long course.

Fortunately, they still smashed the previous official record of 125mph, and even the unofficial top speed of approximately 145mph. Meaning DRL's drone could easily top the speeds of today's average sports cars.

SOURCE Drone Racing League