The US Army and Griffon Aerospace have flown the VICTOR mid-sized tactical drone with a 3D-printed, air-cooled heavy-fuel hybrid engine. The design aims to remove liquid cooling and let mid-sized drones use standard battlefield fuel; test data is feeding into the PULSAR swarm initiative, and designs are slated for handover to military evaluation units.
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Illustrative image · Source: Interesting Engineering · VICTOR drone in flight near Huntsville, Alabama. · Rights unverified · Reencoded as WebP with metadata removed. Display may be resized or cropped.
A hybrid engine built with 3D-printed metal parts and running on standard battlefield fuel has completed its first demonstration flight, installed inside the VICTOR unmanned aircraft, a mid-sized tactical drone developed by the US Army alongside Griffon Aerospace.
The project addresses a known difficulty: heavy fuels such as diesel and kerosene-based fuels are safer to transport and widely available, but do not vaporize easily in compact combustion chambers, often leading to incomplete burning, power loss and fuel leaks. The US Army said ARL researchers used advanced computational fluid dynamics modeling and a clean-sheet design approach to address efficient heavy-fuel burning in a rotary engine.
Advanced 3D metal printing allowed the team to test, adapt and reprint intricate engine components within days, and made it possible to cool the engine entirely with ambient air, removing pumps, radiators and liquid coolant that normally add bulk and weight. The air-cooled rotary engine drives a 400-volt motor-generator in a series-hybrid configuration, with the electrical system providing high power bursts for vertical take-offs and landings while the fuel engine sustains long-range cruising.
Dr Chol-Bum “Mike” Kweon, who leads the project at the Army Research Laboratory, said moving away from delicate fuels and bulky cooling systems transforms what mid-sized drones can achieve, and that extending operational range beyond the horizon allows commanders to gather intelligence and coordinate missions from safer distances, substantially lowering risks to ground personnel.
Data from the test flight is feeding into an operational initiative, PULSAR, under which armed forces aim to coordinate multiple VICTOR drones into autonomous swarms capable of dividing surveillance, reconnaissance and transport missions in real time. Army researchers now plan to hand over the aircraft and hybrid propulsion designs to military evaluation units for tactical field exercises, while commercial partners adapt the manufacturing techniques for wider aerospace use.
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