If you’ve ever watched a wuxia movie and wished you, too, could make a sword, maybe even several of them, hover by your side and pounce on your enemies upon a whim, well, sorry, but that’s simply never going to happen.
Unless…
A tech blogger in Chengdu just controlled 10+ flying swords with hand gestures. Since Nov 2024, he’s been developing the first motion-sensing flying sword. His next dream? “Ten thousand swords as one，” a legendary wuxia vision of ultimate control. Do you think this bold wuxia-inspired dream could come true? Cr. Douyin@范十三 Chengdu wuxia flyingsword tech technology Chineseculture
Unless you’re Fan Shisan, a Sichuan-based tech blogger and influencer who unleashed a squadron of quadcopter swords that rise into the sky, acting as his sword army. To be clear, the swords are not real. They’re drones shaped like swords.
Each blade is outfitted with propellers at the tip, pommel, and cross-guard, along with motion controls that respond to his hand movements, allowing Fan to push and pull the airborne sword army around him.
More Flying Swords, but this one is ridable
This isn’t the first time Fan has combined drones and swords. Earlier this year, he went viral after creating a giant rideable sword drone. The man has carved out a hell of a niche few others would ever dare encroach upon lest they be run through by a flying blade, or perhaps dozens of them.
“Initially, we used 20 ducted fans, but the thrust wasn’t enough. We added four more, which gave us the power we needed, and that’s how the ‘flying sword’ you see in the video became a reality,” Fan told People’s Daily, per Futurism.
Fan is a sword guy, as you can tell. He holds two sword-related Guinness World Records: fastest time to slice five pieces of A4 paper in midair (7.46 seconds), and fastest time to carve through ten watermelons with a martial-arts blade.
Up next on his checklist of wild-ass sword stuff to pull off, Fan says he’s working toward a grand vision of a synchronized swarm of “ten thousand swords as one.”
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