Building a Rocket-Drone 

Hi James , it’s me Anthony Stama the kid who emailed you that’s building a 3-D printed jet F 22 (edit wow this is the most likes I’ve ever gotten. Thank you.🙏🏻) edit 2 I did not expect to get more than five likes. Thank you.

Would the propellers cause drag when you ignite the rocket? And yes build a bigger and faster one!

Another banger James - love the rocket videos :)

Defense contractors are taking notes on this video for sure

Those grey English skies are classic. Wouldn't think it's supposed to be summer tomorrow.

Sweet! Hope you're well, James. On my 5 inch, running 6s, I get 106mph with a GoPro strapped on. That's with freestyle props, not racing. You managed to go well over that. Maybe you should build one that will lift the Turbine and fuel!!😂

GO BIGGER!!! Maybe something with multiple rocket engines and more powerful electric motors. Edit: Used the wrong wording. When you speak eight languages, getting everything is difficult sometimes. Thank you for the correction.

Great Video! Nice to see you get help from Emma. Hope this enables you two to approach even bigger projects!

Cool! I think you can combine the fins with the drones arms to reduce drag. Also a 5 inch should hit around a 100mph to begin with, check your config. Higher pitch props will be better for the top speed but drone props don’t come in very high pitches so you might need to check out some airplane props. Looking forward to seeing where this goes 😃

I fly quads, should say, your drone is kinda very slow in stock.. modern stock 5 inch setups fly 100 mph quite easily, without cones and rocket motors. 6s, 1950kv motors, 5146 props give 180km/h and that's quite typical setup

I watch so many of these project type channels I’ve gotten ridiculously good at seeing a pcbway sponsor coming from a mile away lol

this man is going to be SO valuable in the drone wars.

The take that space X got me cracking up 😂

This reminds me a lot of Thunderbird 1 from the 60's Thunderbirds show. An awesome build!

Now do a high altitude weather-balloon-rocket. The cool thing is, you don’t have to worry about detaching the hydrogen-powered balloon because the rocket will just blow it up! In all seriousness, though, this is a good idea. Imagine getting most of the way to space using a balloon and then coasting the rest of the way using the rocket, since the force resisting the rocket’s vertical motion is smaller (less gravity, less air resistance, etc). Not only that, but the rocket will be closer to space anyway, so a suborbital model rocket would be a lot easier to make. You just need a trigger for when the balloon pops, an automatic process, (which can be linked to the altimeter instead, since the altimeter can tell when the altitude begins decreasing) so you wouldn’t need anything more than the stuff that is used in traditional rockets. You could have the weather balloon attached to the platform and the rocket on the platform (probably with two or three guide rails) and then use gyroscopic stabilization (as fins wouldn’t work at such low speeds and launching off of a flying (or at that point falling) platform is unstable no matter how many guide rails you have) and just connect the wire to the altimeter, maybe with a tiny microcontroller if your altimeter itself doesn’t have a signal for when it starts to fall

Would love to see a bigger version, absolutely love your videos!! Engineering FTW!

Ukrainians watching this and taking notes…..

Excellent work and a perfect result. Bigger? Yes....absolutely.

Nice James! Nice work and great video material!

Truly an awesome project and great idea. Thanks for sharing !

You know we all want you to go BIG!!

So.. Rocket = awesome Drone = awesome.. Rocket drone = Double awesome... But when is the Reliant project?

Love your work! However, on this project I would go in an opposite direction, i.e "send" the drone initially with the rocket (possibly with folded drone arms), then, near the destination reachd, switch to drone motors for controlled loitering/landing...

Nicely done! If you want to improve the system, bury the rotor spars in the fins. That'll fair in both the fore and aft of the spars and sharply reduce the drag.

Love your vids bro

I would set up horizon mode on a switch and flip it on then line of sight land it possibly. Great video as always. I'm getting old robot Giant's TV flashbacks from this.

Great video, as always! Your work provided me inspiration and I got back into the hobby last year after a 30-year break! Keep making great content!

Dude, that was VERY IMPRESSIVE!!!! You absolutely need to keep testing this idea!

My drones already do 135+ mph without rockets...

I love this man

Very cool! Great work. Yes, definitely build a bigger one!

That's a really cool Idea! The speed was definitely a bit underwhelming though, a well-built normal 5'' FPV racing drone can easily reach over 100mph without a rocket

BUILD IT BIGGER!!! PLEAAAAASE

Excelent work! Greetings from Ukraine 😉

So well done. I have dreamt if this. Thanks for making it happen. Better than I even imagined.

Great video James!! I’d definitely want to see how much bigger you can go and still manage to have a stabilised flight!!

Please can you do another rocket powered plane that was sick

Killer concept. I wonder how much ordinance this could carry with some long range wings? Fire the rocket to defeat countermeasures at the last minute, type thing. Slava Ukraine!

Loved to watch this! 6S battery with some high speed props (higher attack angle and biblade) should see you being less restricted at the top end. Looking forward to the next one

Brilliant indeed. Mission accomplished! 🎉 Keep pushing that envelope.

I absolutely love this! Have you ever had a knock at the door about these specific (solid motor powered RC stuff) projects? I don't know what our kind of laws are, but I am pretty sure this is a no-no in the US. Frankly, I'd hope they'd see the hobbyist side to it all (and content of course) and let it fly (heh). In an interesting turn, this is one piece of free, open source software (ardupilot) away from being an AI controlled, guided... Well, keywords and all that :P I don't know if it's been done, but I'd love to see a drone in this fashion fired straight up, the showing the reduced control authority of the thinner atmosphere at altitude. Perhaps a staged version of this? Maybe even go terrestrial on the next video with a rocket powered RC car. Rival your Jet powered one with even more of the technical issues faced at high speed and small scale! :D

What about instead of rocketing the whole drone with the rocket, you detach the rocket (just literally use the drone as a launch pad)? Would be a good use of a titanium strike plate and then just need to design a nice latch system to hold it up until you get ready to fire the rocket

Well done again James

Keep It UP! Fulfil Your Dreams You have my full support

Build one like Luke Bell and than put a rocket engine. His went so fast and made world record

I think you should not start talking within the first half second of the video as RU-vid sometimes fades in the sound (seems to be some kind of A/B test) and thus makes the first one or two words that come too early hard/impossible to understand.

That's a brilliant first showing for the concept! My first thought for getting more speed out of this setup is some kind of lightweight (foam or 3D-printed) fairing on the rear face of the drone arms and motors - I'd say at a ballpark guess that in the current config they have at least double the drag of the rocket body once you get up to speed. If you search up some of the recent world-speed-record quad designs here on YT, you'll see they all have it. If fairing just the center of the drone (by adding the rocket) gave you such a decent increase in speed, fairing the rest should too.

Wow, this is such an amazing build! I'm so impressed with your creativity and skill. Thank you for sharing your work with us!

501 Missed calls from Lockheed Martin

Ukraine and Russia have entered the chat

I.... did not think that would remain controllable. Excellent work!

Hey James excited to watch this one looks epic

Try make thunderbird 1

Hey, avid fpv drone pilot here, just wanted to comment that I came with a nice gust of wind at a downward swoop from about 500 meters high with the dji fpv and managed 186 kmh, I'd recommend you do the same , take it high, swoop down with the wind, then engage the rocket, also try to use lighter parts anywhere you can Edit: maybe heavier might actually not be too bad either.... If you do see this comment and try it with success, please give me a shout :P Furthermore: maybe give it dual control surfaces so some servos to use control surfaces like an airplane, and maybe a rat trap mechanism of sorts that folds the arms with props down and out the way, then kind of glide it down... i dunno this last part is a very far stretch.

Go for it! Bigger faster greater thank you.

Heck yeah! Top work emma 👏

I see you’ve updated your radio to something decent, now you need to stop using 8 year old motor technology, use Xing or Tmotor stuff will make it much faster. A stock Xing 2306 send my wing to 220mph without much effort last year.

Not to rain on your parade, but with the right combination of parts you can build a 5 inch racing drone that goes faster than this rocket drone.

Awesome work

Please continue working on this. A suggestion; try a body wing configuration and use some kind of ducted variable blades for propulsion possible, and/or one central prop behind the quad props at the bass. I've got many more ideas. Or a "fan jet trainer"

Great vid man keep the content coming

Heck yea, go bigger and faster! That was a cool project!

Great. I've been building one for the last couple of years, but in my head only LOL, and on the opposite side of the rocket/drone ratio if that makes sense. But this one's rocking, way to go, just don't stop any time soon!

so cool, congratulations

Awesome, best one yet 👏

YESS NEW VID

I have to say this is one of the most interesting projects I've seen you do! What an unusual idea, and what a great result! Bigger would be a lot of fun!

Autolevel mode is worth putting on a switch. That way when you’re camera is facing the wrong way, you have a safe mode to land. Same for trying to land that rocket body. Fly in acro, land in autolevel.

I thought of something, similar to that with rocket motors and props back in the 70's even built a frame for them in the early 80's. It's funny but i had the idea for the drone back then lol. Nice work and results :)

Very entertaining! Thanks for sharing!!!

I’ve got a video idea: What about adding a VR to an RC plane?

Oooh, I've been looking forward to this since Maker's Central!

Hello James my name is Lloyd Harrison I am 10 and I've been whatching your videos for so long .my suggestion is that you could make a bigger rocket which could go for higher altitudes. Good luck on your next project.

Let’s go new vid I’m so excited

Nice, that has some proper Thunderbird 1 vibes! 😎

Cool video really enjoyed it as always! We should team up and make a rocket powered drift car! 😂

Outstanding mate! Yes please, go large 🤩🙂

Fantastic work, James! 😃 You guys killed it! Just add a capacitor to the esc input pads... It should help with the static! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Dang dude this is sick!

You can get actual model rocket motors that are just that, Booster. You tape them together with celephane tape in series and as the flame front hits the join, the heat melts the tape, empty rocket falls off, next Booster in series ignites. But don't forget, the more boosters the heavier it gets. Great video!

absolutely ridiculous and amazing :0

you should make this a series

wow, well done!

I am just so so inspired by your inventions they are just soooooooo cool thank you for sharing all theses really cool inventions of yours with me.

Cool to see Emma becoming a regular! Hope you two continue to build awesome things together!!!

Splendid Dalek Sir!

If only you'd painted it silver and blue to make it more like Thunderbird 1...here's hoping you actually do real life Thunderbirds stuff!

Great video. I'd really like to see you do it again, except add a second rocket engine. The smallest one that you can detonate separately to launch a parachute So you can watch it float down at the end instead of the what looked to be risky crashes (So you'd have to attach two detonators, and then you could use the big engine as your speed boost, and then when you want to land, you launch the 2nd rocket, which would split it open and deploy the parachute)

Well done, James and Emma! 🙂👍 If you rotate the motor support arms by 90° you should be able to improve the aerodynamics even further. At present they're face on into the airflow. You can also smooth the shape of the fins. Then, if you use a transparent rocket nose, you can mount the camera inside without needing that draggy bubble canopy. Additionally, if you can keep the weight down, you can lengthen the fuselage to reduce drag further. A longer rocket will have proportionally less drag for the same overall volume than a shorter, stubby rocket body like that one. The same principle applies with ships, aeroplane wings and land-based vehicles. Can you also shorten the motor support arms and move the whole propulsion platform further toward the nose? With all of those things in place, and the correct rotors, you might even exceed 100 mph without using the rocket motor. Just think; 250 km/h might be achievable with a rocket motor added.

this is crazy, i dream to one day be able to have the creativity and resources to do stuff like this

New game. High speed lawn dart. Hit the bullseye! Great vid!

Hey just found this channel and it is awesome. Id love to see a video with this same platform seeing how much you can maximize the altitude.

In the next version, you should include a mechanism that allows the arms of the drone to fold inward at the moment that the rocket engine ignites. During normal flight, the arms and propellers contribute to forward speed, but in rocket propulsion, any potential speed gains would be significantly hampered by as the air speed quickly exceeds the pitch x rpm of the propellers, creating a ton of drag.

The legend is back!

im loving the ProjectAir golden age

You can prevent the plastic that melts from sticking to the rocket motor by adding a layer of baking paper in between the plastic and the engine. It will still melt, but it wont stick and just harden again once the engine cuts out.

Dude you made a miracle again.

I've been binge watching you videos for days. Was watching the blue hydroplane boat when this dropped. Great channel and videos!

maybe for your next vid you could make a rocket go as high as legally possible and maybe start a collab with other youtubers and get permission to go to space!

Love the content mate Best wishes and all the luck on your projects