Making machines go fast has always been a seemingly unavoidable impulse for humans. With the advent of radio control, it’s possible to get a taste of the rush without putting your life and too much money on the line. In the spirit of speed, [James Whomsley] strapped a jet turbine engine to an RC car, and learned some hard lessons along the way.
The car started as a four-wheel drive electric race car, but [James] removed most of the drive train components and mounted the jet turbine engine on a pair of 3D printed struts. Originally intended for large-scale RC planes, the little jet engine produces about 120 N of thrust. To allow the car to stop, [James] kept the drive shafts and connected them to a centrally mounted disk brake unit.
For the first high-speed test runs, James added a vacuum-formed shell and a pair of large vertical stabilizers for high-speed stability. On the 3rd test run at a local racetrack, the car got up to 190 km/h (118 MPH) before it veered off the track and crashed. Fortunately, the chassis and engine only sustained minor damage and were easy to repair.
James rebuilt the car with a lower engine to reduce the center of gravity and added an electronic gyro in an attempt to stabilize the car at high speed. Time ran out, and he wasn’t able to test the car before taking it to a high-speed RC event held on a runway. This led to another crash when the car again veered off the track after badly oscillating. After checking the onboard footage, [James] discovered the receiver had experienced a loss of signal, and an incorrect fail-safe setting made the engine go full throttle. After more tests, James also found that excessive play in the steering mechanism had caused the gyro to induce oscillations.
Although this car failed in the end, [James] intends to take the lessons learned into a new high-speed car build. [rctestflight] also did some testing with an EDF-powered RC car recently, and used a drone flight controller for high speed stability. This is not [James]’ first foray into speed machines, having previously experimented with a rocket plane.
Is it time to dust off the “Fail of the Week” series?
For me, it would probably be Fail of the Week. For James, it looks more likely to be Iteration of the Week.
Not sure why this is a headline worthy story… seeing as there are a few RC cars that teach that speed right out of the box. Plus the world record is above 180mph.
Journey vs. destination.
This story is about the lessons learned along the way to a goal, not necessarily about only achieving the end goal. It’s an important distinction.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone strap a jet to an rc car. Maybe I’m visiting the wrong hacking website?
World record is 204mph. Testing in Rossa recently put this car over 180mph by itself.
Looks like it has potential!
I have seen two rx cars that go above 200mph, even on camera it looks terrifying. a rocket flying by can be redirected towards the watching people by any number of small events. Strapping a jet on these things presumably makes it worse.
Still I find it interresting to watch.
Brilliant to watch, for the split second we get to see. The sound is very addictive even more than Nitro cars. I don’t know how he manages to control it , or not in some cases. My rc does 70mph and that is hard enough. Full respect and hope you reach your goal soon.