Scaling a motor up is straightforward. Keeping it efficient, controllable and thermally stable under a payload is not, and that is the problem the AOS Supernova 4220 was designed around.

The 4220 is AOS’s heavy lift and X-class motor, engineered for 13" props and above. At this scale inertia is very high, thermal loads are sustained rather than transient, and mechanical stiffness becomes a structural requirement rather than a refinement. A design scaled up from a 5" motor tends to fall short on all three. The 4220 was designed for this size from the start.

The result is a motor with the torque to accelerate very large props, the efficiency to make useful flight times possible for heavier drones, and the thermal and mechanical margin to do it repeatedly. For X-class racers that means size translated into power and control. For heavy lift and cinema operators it means a motor you can rely on day in day out.

The 4220 uses the same design approach as the AOS Supernova 3220, the motor that broke a world drone speed record, scaled up and re-solved: thousands of finite element simulations, including 3D transient field modelling, resolving the magnetic, thermal and structural compromises particular to a motor this size.

Great designs need great execution. The AOS Supernova 4220 is manufactured by RCinPower, whose motors have a long history winning races and breaking records. At this scale, with this much stored energy and this much payload value in the air, their excellent reputation for quality components matters more than at smaller scales.

Setup tip: Before your first flight, AOS recommends checking your ESC’s continuous current rating against your chosen prop and battery combination, balancing large props carefully, and enabling bidirectional DShot with RPM filtering. Large props reward a clean, well-filtered tune.