in power

This month, Ferris Mowers introduced a new mower blade it calls the AeroMax High-Efficiency Blade. Like many of you, I know the difference a lawn mower blade can make in cut quality, energy use, and noise. The blades on several battery-powered push mowers, for example, are designed as much for easy spinning and low battery drain as they are for cutting grass. That often means better battery life than cut quality.

Lawn mower manufacturers don’t talk a lot about blade design, but in a recent call with Jeff Richlen, VP of product management and engineering for Briggs & Stratton, I heard a lot about blade engineering, even though our call was to discuss Ferris’s new mowers.

Blade Engineering

“We used computational fluid dynamics or CFD to look at airflow around the blade at full RPM,” said Richlen. He said the patent is pending. So I found the patent application for this “Rotary Cutting Blade;” it’s No. US2026/0144186 A1 (with a publication date of May 28, 2026).

The 27-page PDF is mostly images but plenty of words, including CFD and lift wing and cutting edge and blade speed. And one of the keys to the design, and perhaps a differentiator from all the other high-lift blades on store shelves, seems to be the blade’s “wing tail.”

As Richlen put it during our call, “But we did it differently. We engineered [the AeroMax] so that it smoothed out the airflow to take less load whether it be an electric motor or in our case now, the gasoline engine. And by doing that, we can measure it. It’s not just hocus pocus, it’s not marketing fluff. It’s real.”

My analysis of the patent indicates the lift wing, which run roughly parallel to the cutting plane (see the diagram below and its yellow highlights showing the wing tails). It does two things: First, it keeps airflow attached and smooth to reduce suction and drag on the blade. Second, it widens the blade at the tips so air can flow smoothly – again, less drag on the blade.

The patent document argues the tail cuts aerodynamic drag on the blade without sacrificing lift, so less power is needed to spin the blade at a given speed. Less drag without losing lift, and an engine that burns less fuel, whether that “fuel” is battery-stored energy or gasoline.

In the patent, it says their testing showed fuel economy savings of greater than about 25% may be observed for a combustion-engine mower. The patent also reports a 1 to 3 dBA noise reduction. Richlen mentioned that noise reduction too, though he admits that “you still have a gasoline engine and you have exhaust and intake noise, so you can’t really say the machine is so much quieter.”

One important note from the patent, it describes spinning the blade with no load. Real-world measurements would add impacts of different grass types or conditions among other things. Still, Briggs & Stratton will have this potentially business-boosting blade available soon. Who knows where gas prices will be in the near future.

As the press release said, the AeroMax delivers up to 20% more acres cut per gallon compared with industry-standard blades, giving landscape professionals the potential to reduce refueling time, lower fuel costs and keep crews productive longer.

The new blade is currently available on the new Ferris Z1-P 32” stand-on mower and will soon be available on additional Z1-P deck sizes as well as the Z1-PX stand-on and forthcoming 600S and 700S zero-turn units.  The Ferris AeroMax blade is available as a replacement part for the Z1-P and will be available on future Ferris innovations.

Briggs & Stratton did not yet release retail pricing for the new AeroMax blade.