WATCH: South African father-and-son team breaks world record for fastest drone

A Cape Town father-and-son team has set a new Guinness World Record for the fastest battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter in level flight. 

Mike and Luke Bell achieved a measured top speed of 670 kilometres per hour with their home-built drone, Peregreen, which was designed and assembled in their workshop over a period of two and a half years.

"It was an idea that just mushroomed into something quite huge, and that's actually the fastest electric flight ever. There's nothing; there's no electric flight that's quicker than what we've done. It does one kilometre in five seconds, so it is really, really fast. It's difficult to comprehend, actually," said Mike Bell.

Weighing about 2.5 kilogrammes, Peregreen was built specifically to break speed records rather than for practical use.

The drone uses around 15 kilowatts of power (roughly the equivalent of three households) and relies on extreme aerodynamics to overcome massive drag at high speed. 

Bell said the project involved repeated crashes, fires and redesigns before reaching record speed, with each new version pushing faster than the last.

"We don't need to trademark, we'll just keep improving, that’s how we go fast. If they copy us, we'll come up with new ideas; that's how you keep your edge, but it's aerodynamics, and it's managing the power.

"Stuff was blowing up, and fires, like crazy, lots of crashes, but we've now solved that, and it's going super-fast.

"You iterate, you do 300, you do 400, you do 500, and you keep going, and you keep problem-solving.”

The achievement places South Africa at the centre of a growing international competition, with teams in countries including the US, Germany, China, and Australia all chasing similar records.

To listen to Bell in conversation with CapeTalk's John Maytham, use the audio player below: