AZ-1000, The Japanese-Made Superbike-Powered Drone

A company from Japan, Arase Aizawa Aerospatiale, has unveiled a super drone model dubbed the AZ-1000, and it is unlike any other out there. 

Special about the AZ-1000 super drone is that it underpins a powertrain from a superbike, in particular, the Suzuki GSX-R1000.

Selection of the Suzuki powertrain is in one part courtesy of its lightweight nature, and the other, its ability to produce high output.

Named Kunio, it is a 184 Hp four-cylinder 16-valve DOHC 998-cc liquid-cooled engine, with four fan blades that span 1,700 mm long each.

As for the overall dimension of the build, it stands at 1,000 mm tall, 3,020 mm long and 2,860 mm wide.

Interestingly, these dimensions can be lowered for storage purposes by folding the rotors, which then decreases the length to 1,510 mm and width to 1,405 mm.

Weighing a total of 110 Kg, the four-rotor super drone (quadcopter) is capable of lifting a maximum load of 150 Kg.

Petrol-powered, it has a 55-litre capacity fuel tank, and can fly up to six hours. However, with max load, the flight time is only around two hours.

That said, the minds behind the project are former Suzuki engineer, Kunio Arase who was involved in developing the Suzuki GSX-R and Suzuki Hayabusa series, the other is his friend, Yoshihiro Aizawa.

According to Arase, he wants this bike-powered drone to play a crucial role in emergency services, with the ability to function much longer than electric-powered drones on the market.

Plus, he further stated that the idea of ​​petrol-powered drones also attracted the interest of certain parties such as the fire department and the Japanese military.