The Mach Initiative, a student team at the University of Bath in England, published the build of KingChaser on October 3: a 3D-printed, carbon-reinforced jet aircraft with a 300-newton (67 lbf) turbine, designed to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest jet-powered model aircraft. That record has sat at 465 mph (749 km/h) since German pilot Niels Herbrich set it at Rothenburg, Germany, on August 23, 2017.
KingChaser weighs 9 kg (20 lb) fueled, needs more than 50 mph (80 km/h) to leave the launcher, and has completed five static engine runs at full throttle. It has not flown. The team’s previous aircraft, Kingfisher, flew in January and reached 205 mph (330 km/h) on a 60-newton engine. The jump the team is attempting is from 205 mph to past 465 mph in one airframe generation.
The video credits the Boom Prize for the surge of interest in high-speed RC. The Boom Prize’s published rules limit entry to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
KingChaser Swaps a 150 N Engine Plan for a 300 N One Because the UK Runway Is Short
The team planned a 150-newton (34 lbf) engine to replace Kingfisher’s 60-newton (13 lbf) unit. A UK attempt flown within visual line of sight leaves little room to accelerate, so the team scaled Kingfisher up 20 percent and fitted a 300-newton engine, five times January’s thrust.
The airframe is printed in PETG rather than PLA for better tolerance of aerodynamic heating. The engine bay is PPS-CF, a carbon-filled polymer that holds shape above 392°F (200°C) but is brittle, so the team wrapped it in carbon fiber. An earlier attempt to anneal a PETG bay in a secondhand oven warped it. Underneath, CNC-machined and laser-cut aluminum, carbon rods and steel engine mounts make up a structure the team sized for 20 G, with the margin reserved for steep banks that keep the aircraft inside the pilot’s view. The skin is sanded to 1,000 grit because skin friction, not pressure drag, dominates at these speeds.
Control comes from two 70 kg-cm servos driving geared elevon linkages, with servos and hinges bolted directly to aluminum to hold the tolerances that prevent flutter. A new power harness with ceramic and electrolytic capacitors, inductors and shielded cables keeps servo switching noise out of the FPV feed. Telemetry stays on TBS Crossfire with the geofence monitor and loss-of-link throttle kill carried over from Kingfisher. A modified RunCam 2, its board tucked inside the inlet with only the sensor exposed, films the control surfaces from behind to catch flutter. The 3-liter (0.8 gal) fuel bay buys engine start, two high-speed passes and a small reserve.
The Video Proves the Engine Runs, Not That the Aircraft Flies
Five full-throttle static fires with no cooling airflow confirmed fuel burn, thermal protection and a clean FPV feed under full electromagnetic load. Wing-loading tests matched the structural analysis. The team has no launcher yet: its pneumatic system fell through, and a replacement comes in the next video, then the flight.
That launcher is the open item. KingChaser needs more than twice the launch energy Kingfisher did, and the team itself calls Kingfisher’s launch “pretty sketchy.” The 205 mph Kingfisher figure and every KingChaser number in this article come from the team’s own video and have not been independently timed. The 465 mph mark it is chasing is the verified one: Guinness recorded Herbrich’s 7.5 kg Behotec-powered aircraft at 749.221 km/h, averaged over 200 meters in two directions.
The Boom Prize the team cites as the reason the hobby is hot is the $800,000 purse Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl formalized in July, after the $100,000 offer DroneXL covered on July 2. The published rules require U.S. citizens or permanent residents, an air-breathing engine under 25 kg (55 lb) including fuel, and Mach 1 sustained for five seconds twice in one day. As I reported when the rules landed on July 18, the nationality clause shut out Herbrich and every other record holder outside the United States. A Bath team attempting its record in UK airspace sits on the same side of that line.
DroneXL’s Take
I like this project more than the viral dorm jet that started the Boom Prize sequence, because the Bath team is doing the boring parts on camera: a geofence monitor, a throttle kill on lost link, a structure sized so the pilot can bank hard enough to keep the aircraft in sight, and a record attempt built around a planned venue rather than a college field. That is what a legitimate speed program looks like, and it is the posture the “don’t be that guy” rule asks of anyone pushing a turbine past highway speeds. My read is that the record is the right target and the prize was never theirs: Mach 1 is 64 percent faster than a mark nobody has touched in nine years, and Boom wrote its rules so the team doing this most carefully in public could not enter. If the launcher holds, the attempt worth watching is in England, judged by Guinness timing gates rather than a tweet.
Source: The Mach Initiative on YouTube, Guinness World Records, Boom Supersonic
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
