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Tsung Xu
I made a 3D printed VTOL drone that can fly 130 miles
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I made a 3D printed VTOL drone that can fly 130 miles

With no background in CAD, 3D printing or aerodynamics modeling

 
Tsung Xu's avatar
Tsung Xu
Jun 10, 2025
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Tsung Xu
I made a 3D printed VTOL drone that can fly 130 miles
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I made this 130 mile capable VTOL drone in only 90 days. It can fly
for 3 hours on a single charge. That would make it one of the longest
range and endurance 3D printed VTOLs in the world.

This is the thing I'm most proud of building to date!

Before this project, I was a total CAD, 3D printing and aerodynamic
modeling beginner. I had only built and flown one VTOL before. My CAD
skills were restricted to extrusions of basic sketches. My Bambu A1
3D printer was only one month old, and I had never tried printing
foaming PLA. I had never used any aerodynamic modeling tools to
simulate lift-to-drag ratios or stability curves like Cm-alpha.

This video edit ended up shorter than I planned. Being my first
Youtube video with significant post production effort, I
underestimated the work required to make a longer in-depth video with
voiceover, edited footage, etc.

Because of that, I did not discuss dozens of project challenges like
how I chose the design parameters, learnt airframe CAD design,
sourced components, improved foaming PLA print quality, in-depth
power loss troubleshooting, and many more challenges this project
faced.

If you want more details on my design and build process, let me know!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Reid Hoffman just quote tweeted my viral video post on X:

    A century ago, you needed at least a brother and a bicycle shop
    to pioneer flight. Today, you just need the right toolchain...

Incredibly humbling!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Get the latest updates on my quest to build an eVTOL for personal use

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I made a 3D printed VTOL drone that can fly 130 miles
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annie's avatar
annie
1d
Liked by Tsung Xu

Very impressive!

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Tim Upchurch's avatar
Tim Upchurch
1d
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Awesome! Have really enjoyed following this build.

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