A college student says he designed and built the world’s fastest RC airplane in his dorm room, and the photos back up at least the building part. Tomas Salvo posted his project, named Reaper, on X late on July 1: a 5 kg carbon-fiber delta wing powered by a 250-newton turbojet that he claims flies at 500 mph. The post racked up more than 8,000 likes and 700,000 views in hours.
Reading the thread this morning, two details stood out to me before any speed claim: the winglets carry a mock “Anduril Industries” logo, and when asked where one gets a turbojet engine, Salvo answered “Email Anduril for money!” The joke lands differently when you see who showed up in the replies: Boom Supersonic founder and CEO Blake Scholl wrote “Congrats, this is badass. DM me,” and another commenter offered to test the design in Ukraine.
A Dorm-Built Carbon-Fiber Jet In Five Months
Salvo says he started the build in February, which puts the whole project at roughly five months from design to flight. The construction photos show a hand-laid carbon-fiber delta wing with an internal carbon rib structure, twin canted winglets, and a turbojet buried in the fuselage behind a nose section packed with electronics.
In replies to other builders, Salvo says he CNC-cut MDF molds and did wet layups himself with two layers of twill carbon cloth. On endurance, he is blunt: “The plane runs out of fuel in 2 mins at full throttle,” though he believes he can “probably push 15 mins”. He also says some flights covered over 30 km of total distance, with the aircraft up to 4 to 5 km away from his position.
The 500 MPH Claim Against The Actual Records
The claim of “world’s fastest RC airplane” needs two asterisks, because both existing records are specific and documented. The fastest jet-powered RC aircraft on record is Niels Herbrich‘s Inferno, a 7.5 kg turbine model the German pilot flew to 465 mph (749 km/h). The fastest RC aircraft of any kind is Spencer Lisenby‘s unpowered dynamic-soaring glider, which hit 548 mph in January 2021 riding wind shear at Parker Mountain in California, no engine at all.
If Reaper genuinely sustains 500 mph, it beats Herbrich’s powered record by a wide margin while still trailing Lisenby’s glider. But “if” is the operative word. Salvo’s figure is self-reported, with no timing gates, no official observers, and no sanctioned record attempt. Herbrich’s record runs were measured and verified. A GPS logger screenshot, which Salvo has not yet published in the thread, would be the minimum evidence to take the number seriously. He says flight videos with landings are on his LinkedIn, and that he’ll document the full build on X in the coming days.
No Realistic Legal Path For A 500 MPH Hobby Jet
US rules leave no room for a flight like this, and the replies under the post were quick to point it out. Under Part 107, the Federal Aviation Administration caps small drone groundspeed at 100 mph (87 knots). Recreational flyers operating under the FAA’s exception must follow the safety code of a community-based organization, and the Academy of Model Aeronautics’ turbine program, the standard route for legally flying jet-powered models in the US, requires a turbine waiver and caps speed at 200 mph. Both frameworks also require the aircraft to stay within visual line of sight, which a 5 kg jet at 4 to 5 km out at 500 mph plainly is not.
None of that is academic. As DroneXL covered when a red-and-white RC plane was spotted near JFK’s approach path earlier this week, the line between hobby aircraft and airspace hazard is exactly what regulators and the public are on edge about right now.
DroneXL’s Take
Let me separate two reactions, because both are honest. The engineering is seriously impressive. A student who CNC-cuts his own molds, wet-lays a carbon airframe, integrates a turbojet, and flies the result within five months is exactly the kind of talent the American drone industry says it can’t find. The “Email Anduril for money” joke will probably work. Anduril has spent years arguing America must build cheap hardware at scale, and a dorm-built jet on a $13,000 budget, the figure Salvo cites on his LinkedIn, is a better resume than most degrees.
And still: don’t be that guy. Part 107’s speed and line-of-sight rules are technically waivable, but no FAA waiver for a 500 mph BVLOS hobby flight has ever been granted, and none was claimed here. One JetBlue pilot report of a phantom drone strike at JFK generated days of national coverage this week. Now imagine the coverage if a 5 kg carbon jet at 500 mph meets something that bleeds. Every reckless viral flight hands ammunition to the people writing the restrictions the rest of us fly under. The right move for Salvo, and I mean this as encouragement, is to make it official: a sanctioned record attempt with calibrated timing, observers, and documentation. A post from one of his collaborators on LinkedIn says a record-breaking flight is planned in the Mojave Desert. Good. Beat Herbrich’s 465 on the books, in the middle of nowhere, with the paperwork done right. That’s a story I’d love to write next.
Source: Tomas Salvo on X
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.
