The story of building Reaper (part 1) It started in early February, when I was at GT and came across a broken turbine that had sat in pieces for 5 years. I had been wanting to make a turbine RC plane, and the club that the engine belonged said that if I could fix it, I could use it for a project. I was ecstatic and got to work, but nothing about this engine existed online, so I reverse-engineered it: > fixed the kerosene igniter > patched the combustion chamber > designed a new nozzle with isentropic hand calcs + CFD That gave me a working 200N (50lbf) turbojet. The current 750km/h record was set on a 180N. I was planning to use this 200N turbine engine that I had repaired for the build, but the school club wanted the engine back after hearing it was fixed. For a moment, I was left without an engine, and with no engine there was no project. But, by then, I had posted about Reaper and gained some traction, so I wrote some cold emails and was able to land sponsorships from @anduriltech, JetCat, Automation Direct, and Tractian. Thanks to them, the project was back in full swing, and I quickly: > Bought a new 250N turbine engine. I saw some comments asking why my plane had an Anduril sticker: Anduril sent me money to buy a (discounted) engine from JetCat. > Designed and validated the full-scale airframe > Iterated on the inlet and nozzle geometries in CFD > Flew a 3D printed a 1:1.3 scale electric version to validate the airframe, avionics, CG placement, and stability Huge thanks to all the companies that have financially sponsored this project. This was back in March. Rest of the story coming soon, happy 4th of July weekend 🇺🇸