Home-made Helicopters in Nigeria

W33dz writes "A 24-year-old undergraduate from Nigeria is building helicopters out of old car and bike parts. Mubarak Muhammed Abdullahi, a physics student, spent eight months building the yellow model seen on yahoo or on Gizmodo using the money he makes from repairing cell phones and computers. While some of the parts have been sourced from a crashed 747, the chopper contains all sorts of surprises."

Ay AY yay caramba!

Knowing a little bit about the many safety and quality control measures required to build a barely acceptable helicopter, I don't think I'd ever ride any home-made one, not for ten seconds.

Certain absolutely mandatory items, like X-ray and ultrasonic parts inspections, are not practical for the home builder and are likely to lead to a very short trip.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

yeah - one of the 'surprises' it contains will almost certainly be the last for someone on board or in close proximity to the thing.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

The safety record of air travel in Africa is already so bad that it can't get any worse. But seriously, the first inventors of powered flight fearlessly went up into the air, and nowadays we know so much about flight that it's probably safer than that first generation.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

the first inventors of powered flight fearlessly went up into the air, and nowadays we know so much about flight that it's probably safer than that first generation.

I don't recall the Wright Brothers' first plane weighing half a ton, and being powered by a 133HP engine...

Experimenting with powerful engines, allowing for heavy construction, means that any small mistake is going to be much, much more disasterous than it would have been in the old days.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

You're right. Their plane didn't weigh half a ton and have a 133HP engine. It weigned a bit over 600 pounds and had a whopping 12HP.

I'm not sure that ligher weight has anything to do with safety though. I can take my 385 pound motorcycle and hit a cement wall at 150MPH after all. I can take a 12HP scooter and hit the same wall at 60-70MPH too.

Generally you weaken a structure when reducing weight. I'd immagine this helicopter is probaby more sturdy than the Flyer I.

Keep in mind you can learn more about planes, trains and automobiles (and helicopters) in a 15 minute internet search than the entire world knew in 1903. I bet the second-hand civic engine is more reliable than the flyer I's one-off custom hand built (in a mere 6 weeks) engine.

Kudos to the kid. He's done what the vast majority of /.ers haven't and probably couldn't. Yes, I'd be hesitant to go for a ride but really. If a kid in Nigeria can build a working helicopter it shows how pathetic the rest of the world has become. I'm still stuck riding a train to work every day that's late one out of 15 trips on average.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

The heavier it is, the faster it falls from the sky.

Actually, Galileo demonstrated that weight does not change the speed at which something falls. You might want to go back and take your high school physics class again.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

Galileo demonstrated that weight does not change the speed at which something falls.

Helicopters don't fly in a vacuum.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

The heavier it is, the faster it falls from the sky

Not according to Galileo..

The sheer amount of...

hate on this website is appalling. Yes the kid does have unrealistic expectations if he thinks the government will buy his helicopter. But, is it not impressive that he was able to fashion a working helicopter out of existing materials? And he is not an aeronautical engineer, he's just an undergrad college student, with (apparently) very limited resources and alot of motivation. For that, all he receives here are lame jokes about crashing into elephants and other stupid 3rd world Africa jokes and several people saying they wouldnt fly in it. I wouldnt fly in Orville and Wilbur's plane either. And who cares?

Re:The sheer amount of...

This kid is amazing. I doubt I could build a helicopter from a kit never mind from odds and ends. Then he teaches himself to fly from reading about it off the web. He has a lot of brains and nerve if you ask me.

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

A stepladder is provided as part of the safety equipment.

Re: D&D Trap worthy of Tomb of Horrors

Yeah, the fall is only 1D6 damage, but the couple of tons of steel and burning fuel falling on top of you shortly after could be probably modeled like this:

Crashing Home-made Helicopter: CR 10; mechanical; location trigger; no reset; Atk +16 melee (8D6+8, bludgeoning); burning fuel (equivalent to an incendiary cloud spell, 15th-level wizard, 4D6/round for 15 rounds, DC 22 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: unknown (unique).

Re:Ay AY yay caramba!

Well, that's because of something very much like opportunity cost. If you recall from economics, if you invest your money with a return of X, when you could have invested it with a greater return Y, then you have in effect incurred a cost of Y-X. Let's say the first investment was a socially responsible investment fund that earned you $1000, and the second was in a profitable rape-the-earth-and-the-poor fund that would have earned you $1500. You just spent $500 for the satisfaction of being true to your values.

So, think of your building your own helicopter vs. buying one from somebody in the business. For simplicity's sake, let's say that if you pay yourself a reasonable amount for your time, the cost comes out even. In your homemade helicopter, you have a death risk of 1% per thousand hours of flight. In a "real" helicopter, let's say your risk was 0.001% per thousand hours.

If you go ahead and build your home helicopter, you have just spent 0.999%/hr of "opportunity risk" for the thrill of flying in your own invention.

I can't tell you whether that's a good "investment" or not. Maybe the thrill means a lot more to you than it does to me. Maybe you were on the fence about committing suicide, so the risk doesn't really mean much other than an end to unbearable indecision. It's up to you to make the calculation. I can say this though: if the thrill of flying your own invention has no value to you, you're a fool to try it.

On the other hand, the marginal risk calculation may be utterly meaningless to this guy. If having access to his own helicopter is for practical purposes an impossible dream, it makes no sense to upbraid him for not choosing that instead. His calculation is only based on having his own aircraft versus not having his own aircraft.

Even if it weren't, the project may have utility for him that we can't even imagine. Maybe he'll be the Igor Sikorsky of Africa. Goodness knows small scale aviation innovation is glacially slow in the US because of safety concerns. The cost of Africa developing indigenous technology would seem appalling, but it's up to them to determine if it is worth it.

Sour grapes?

According to the article — which we all read, did not we — the contraption is built in part from the pieces of a 747, which crashed nearby some years ago.

This points at two things at once

1. the well-inspected/X-rayed construction can still fall from the sky.
2. The guy's implement may be using some aviation-grade pieces after all...

That said, I'm afraid, the regulations/inspections you consider "essential" are not really such — I sense the "sour grapes" sentiment. Sure, it is far riskier to fly in this guy's machine than in a factory-built helicopter. But the fact, that it flies at all — and that he is still a student, who works on the copter in between studying and repairing other people's electronics to supplement his income — are rather remarkable. If a 24-year old in the dirt-poor Nigeria can do this, where is my flying car in the US?

hummm..

It may hover in ground effect but I doubt that it can fly out side of it. 133 HP is way under powered for a four seat helicopter. It is a wonderful attempt but I hope he doesn't kill himself. He has talent that is for sure.

No pitch control

Looking at the photo it looks like the blade pitch is fixed and the braces look like the hold the shaft at a fixed angle. It is thus hard to figure out how it gets any forward motion, or how he would compensate for a tilt in the aircraft. Not sure how this works.

Re:Indeed

You really don't need any instruments to fly in clear weather. I think the only "required" instruments for VFR flight are an altimeter and airspeed indicator. Lots of hang gliders don't even have those.
In a helicopter seven feet is enough to kill you. Heck you can kill yourself on the ground with just a little bad luck. All it would take is for the transmission to let go and have a 133 HP chain whip through the cabin. Helicopters are complex beasts.

Re:Indeed

The minimum required instrument list differs a little between different airplanes (the manufacturer decides.)
Here's what the FAA requires:
A - Airspeed indicator.
B - Altimeter.
C - Magnetic direction indicator. (read: compass.)
D - Tachometer.
E - Oil pressure gauge.
F - Oil temperature gauge for each air-cooled engine.
G - Fuel gauge indicating the quantity of fuel in each tank.
H - For small civil airplanes certificated after 1996, an approved aviation red or aviation white anticollision light system.
I - An approved safety belt with an approved metal-to-metal latching device for each occupant 2 years of age or older.
J - For small civil airplanes manufactured after 1978, an approved shoulder harness for each front seat. (other req'mts R.S. 1986)
K - An emergency locator transmitter, (excepts - sing. place ++)

Now, if you're flying an ultralight -- under 250 pounds -- you can do any fool thing you want, but in the US, if you have an airplane with an airworthiness certificate, you have to take along some stuff.
(The above list from an Experimental Aviation website quiz [eaa1267.org].)

Would you buy one?

Personally if I received an e-mail from Nigeria offering me a cheap helicopter I doubt I'd trust it.
I think I'll keep saving for my skycar [moller.com]

I WANT ONE!

NT required.

Helicopter or Hovercraft?

it will be able to fly at an altitude of 15 feet for three hours at a stretch...

or until it encounters a tree, telegraph pole, house, giraffe....

Excellent!

I mean, what could possible go wrong..

Seriously good luck to him, the guy has talent, but I wouldnt ride it..

Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

Although some government officials got very excited when they saw him conduct a demonstration flight in neighbouring Katsina state, Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has so far shown no interest in his aircraft.

"No one from the NCAA has come to see what I've done. We don't reward talent in this country," he lamented.

And here you see the plight of Nigeria and many other countries, they will save money in the short run by buying from a country that already has the infrastructure and expertise to build commodities but they will never take the steps to set that up in their own country. This destroys any chance of the people ever building a stable economy & providing employment for its citizens.

Nigeria would pay a premium to start up a helicopter plant or to start R&D but since the resources are not readily available and there's already another country selling the choppers, this man will most likely partake in the brain drain and go somewhere where his knowledge and resourcefulness are recognized and rewarded.

The government should either change its ways or just deal with being known only for e-mail scams and human suffering from inept governance. That's the problem with inept governance though, it usually persists by definition.

Re:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

So what are you suggesting? That they take a one-of-a-kind helicopter made from car, bike, and 747 parts seriously? That they should approach him with tons of cash and beg him to start a helicopter manufacturing plant?

I'll admit it's amazing that he managed to build it. I'll admit that he has big dreams. I'm not yet willing to admit he's capable of making a safe helicopter, and I bet they aren't either.

If he really -can- do it, he should be looking for investors, not buyers. He's never going to manage a proper, safe helicopter without a lot more money than he put into his current one. And he's never going to get a buyer until he has a prototype.

It's like saying, "I've got a small garden at my house. Why won't they pay me to grow cabbage for the whole country?"

Re:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

No but sending him to college might be a brilliant start.
After he goes to college then maybe building helicopters in country could be an option.
Or crop dusters?
Or UAVs?
Or maybe even just a shop to do helicopter maintenance in country?
The man seems to have lots of raw talent. Now he needs education and opportunity.

Re:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

Agreed, but his attitude is not 'teach me' but rather 'nobody wants to pay me.' It's not helping him any.

Re:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

Here's another amazing example of what you can do with very little. A south african boy makes a homemade paraglider from fertilizer bags...
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/09/paraglider/ [wired.com]

picture here...
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/09/gallery_paraglider?slide=1&slideView=2/ [wired.com]

With what money?

The problem with "inept" government in the third world usually goes somewhat like this: to build anything, you need money. Loans and foreign aid are available, of course, only they come tied to one or both of:

1. you _must_ use that money to buy from the country that gave you the money. Often they'll even tell you what, and from exactly what company.

For example, let's say Nigeria wants to build a dam. (Or anything else, including helicopters.) The sane way would be to pay some local construction company to build it. After all, they work cheaper, you inject some money in the local economy, and might even stimulate some specialists to stay in your county instead of skipping over the border at the first oportunity. But you won't get a loan, much less foreign aid, for that. Unless you can prove that you're so solvable that you didn't even need a loan at all, except for some uncontrollable desire to pay interest.

The loans you can get come with strings attached like "but you'll contract the building from this American corporation." Sometimes you don't even actually see the money. They're transferred from an USA bank account to another USA bank account, and that's that. Of course, it only costs a few times more than letting the locals do it, and helps ruin yet another local industry, but such is being on the shit end of the imperialism stick.

And if you think that dam building is something you can do without, picture the same deal on grain, trucks, and other such. Essentially there's a _shitload_ of loans and foreign aid that isn't what you think it is. It's tied to destroying your local agriculture and industry.

2. you _must_ implement some good ol' right-wing reforms. Cut government spending, let companies go bankrupt, cut down social security, raise interest rates, etc.

Sounds like good, common sense advice, right?

Well, the problem with common sense is that it isn't that common and often makes no sense. In this case, according to modern Keynesian economics, those are the exact measures that will transform a recession into a depression, or a depression into a crash. That's stuff you do in an economic boom, not during times of crisis. It's counter-intuitive, but modern economics tend to be that way.

Essentially we, the West, have been asking the third world countries to destroy their own economy, ever since WW2. Welcome to the wonderful world of imperialism. They're supposed to be busy sewing cheap sports shoes and mining cheap iron for us, not to start industrializing.

And as a third world government, you'll be nailed to a cross whether you take it or not. Your choices there are (A) refuse and get to explain to a whole country why they'll have less bread or more brownouts this year, and that in the long term it's better for them, or (B) take it even if you know that in the long term you're only harming your country. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and someone will blame you for either choice.

Oh, and if you chose A, congrats, now you've got all the first world treating you like the great Satan too, for refusing to play their game. Some economic sanctions might be in your future, to destroy you that way. On the other hand, choice B at least makes you look good in the short term and often comes together with some bribe.

It's easy to blame it on inept governments or kleptokracy, but that's really the only choices they typically have there. It's a lose-lose choice. But option B at least doesn't cause massive unrest and a bunch of other problems.

It's easy to look at it and say that they took choice B only because they're fucking stupid or because of the bribe. And I guess it some cases it even is so. But in a lot of cases I genuinely wonder if it's that simple.

Would be interesting to see how it "flies"

From the picture I am not able to make out how he did the most crucial thing for the helicopter, controlling of the collective pitch (sometimes called total pitch) and the cyclic pitch. Without it, the craft will lift off and "fly" uncontrollably and land. I see two large struts holding up the rotor hub and the hub seems to be a ball. He might have done away with total pitch, relying on throttle ( input power) to self adjust the "lift" and the ball being pivoted to provide just the cyclic pitch control. That will give some rudimentary direction control. Interesting toy. Hope a youtube video appears soon.

Sure I am glad there is atleast one Nigerian working with his hands and brain instead of sening emails about 18 million dollars in a slush fund left over from the coffers of General Abacha.

DEAR SIR

GOOD DAY TO YOU AND GOD BLESS. I HAVE BEEN MANUFACTURING HELICOPTERS FROM USED CAR SINCE 10 YEARS (AS SEEN ON YAHOO) AND RECENTLY SOLD MY FLEET FOR THE SUM OF $100,000,000. UNFORTUNATELY, THE PAYMENT OF THIS MONEY IS STILL SITTING IN ESCROW IN A NIGERIAN BANK AS THE STATE AIRFORCE WHO BOUGHT THE HELICOPTERS REFUSE TO PAY. I NEED YOUR HELP TO UNLOCK THAT SUM FROM THE ESCROW, FOR THIS SERVICE YOU WILL BE PAID A FULL 5%, THAT IS $5,000,000. IF YOU CAN HELP ME PLEASE FAX ME YOUR PASSPORT.

(hey it's caps-lock day today anyway)

Good for him.

Seriously, I don't care how crude or rudimentary it is, build a helicopter that actually flies, wow. With proper tools, and funding, he could go on to make some great innovations, unfortunately, like he said, his government doesn't recognize achievements, and he'll likely end up going elsewhere.

I wish him better luck than the X-Wing

But for his sake and his family's, I hope this is also a remotely controlled helicopter, at least for the crash-er, flight tests. People have enough trouble with machines purpose-built for flight by engineers and tradesmen who know what they're doing. From watching youtube videos, I can easily imagine a dozen failure modes that will send pieces rapidly in multiple directions.

BS

I would love to see more photos of this but suspect we wont. His description of the controls doesn't really fit with how rotary wing aircraft operate and there are other reservations.

133 horsepower is very underpowered considering the smallest I work with is the Gazelle with 858shp and the quoted 300 rpm on blades that size is very low to give any kind of lift, in fact it is ridiculous. Car engines are relatively heavy and looking at the welded head and the car seats, I cannot imagine this has the capability to lift off with a person on board.

Looking at the photo, it also appears not to have a swash plate or similar mechanism, so how the rotor disc is positioned to give directional flight I have no idea. On the plus side he does have a big red navigation light on top. Never mind that it's not on the port side as it's supposed to be.

Gazelle != good example

The Robinson R22 [wikipedia.org]has only 160HP and is a real helicopter in widespread use as a trainer.
Obviously you don't need over 800hp to get a helicopter to work. Granted, I'm sure his aircraft weighs a great deal more than an R22.

heh.

I dunno, its home made, Heath Robinson, scrapheap challenge and scary as hell ...

... but strangely a lot more plausible then Air Wolf and Blue Thunder.

(I'm informed by a pilot colleague that without squash plates and cyclic controls - whatever the hell they are - its not a true helicopter and hence is uncontrollable. Still we all agreed it was better then we could do.)

Whoever measured the 'copter...

For a four-seater it is a big aircraft, measuring twelve metres (39 feet) long, seven metres high by five wide. It has never attained an altitude of more than seven feet.

If you look at the picture of said helicopter, something is amiss: seven metres high? The guy standing next to it is as tall as it. Is Nigeria a land of giants, of does sombody need to fix their metric conversion?

Neat...

More power to this guy. Any info on its mpg? Safety is a bit of an issue, but that's if he runs into something in front of him - not much will happen by falling from a 7-15 foot height.

Something like that would actually be handy for travelling in many parts of the world where the roads are poor and access is difficult - cheap helicopters would be great for getting around and getting access.

Imagine using these in the aftermath of natural disasters when the roads are washed out and areas are inaccessible in places like the Honduras or New Orleans. In America, we can't/don't build cheap aircraft like this. Heck, an auto mechanic could probably do most of the maintenance on the thing...

Re:Neat...

Its mpg? Easy -- 0 mpg. Doesn't matter how many gallons of anything you pour into it, unless it's Liquid Schwartz, I don't see it really flying anywhere. ... ... ... "Imagine using these in New Orleans"??!? We have actual rescue helicopters here, they are big and awesome and can actually fly properly, hehehe.

Cheap and small is all well and good, but when you want complex tech to be reliable, the "cheap" goes away real quick. Especially when you're trusting lives to that tech.

stealthy!

flies up to 15 feet? what a perfect altitude for "stealty" missions...I doubt that anyone would notice this thing as it crept up on you...

Why shouldn't they buy?

I don't see why Nigeria wouldn't buy his helicopter, beyond the few problems:
1. Built from random car parts. Parts from broken cars, obviously quality material to start with. Better make sure your junk yard is properly stocked with old buicks.
2. Maximum altitude is 15 feet. But if anything goes wrong, you can just jump to the ground.
3. Carrying capacity. If it can lift one person 15 feet, how high can it lift with 1 ton of cargo?
4. Besides the maker, who are you going to convince to trust their life to this?

Good effort, lots of kits for homebuilding

I nice little homemade helicopter. I'd be afraid to be within 100 feet while it's rotors are spinning, but a nice effort.

I was just recently at "Rotorfest" at the helicopter museum in Pennsylvania. There were a few small homemade helicopters on display. There are also more small home-built kiy helicopters available than I realized. An Air Command kit, Benson Sport kit, the Robinson, the Rotorway Scorpion kit...

Some nice kits, as well as the big well-known helicopters, shown here:
http://www.helicoptermuseum.org/Aircraft.asp [helicoptermuseum.org]

Shades of B.A. Barracus

"I watched action movies a lot and I was fascinated by the way choppers fly. I decided it would be easier to build one than to build a car,"

It's easier to crash one too.

Send this kid to the US and offer him a job....

One would think someone intelligent would offer this kid a job when he graduates.

Well done!

This is pretty amazing. The technical aspects of how flawed this helicopter is does not really go with the intent of the article. He obviously wanted a challenge, as I can imagine that being a physics student in Nigeria can't be too fulfilling, and building a helicopter and succeeding is a great accomplishment. Just reading what parts he used shows that he made something from nothing.

Give that Kid a Visa!!

Pretty sharp kid. Give him a visa and send him to the US where he can better money than he could ever make back home.... Gee, and I wonder why these countries are not able to keep their most talented people? :-)

all sorts of surprises.

"While some of the parts have been sourced from a crashed 747, the chopper contains all sorts of surprises."

How long is it going to be before he uses parts from a "crashed helicopters [made] out of old car and bike parts." ? That would be all sorts of surprises.

Someone should point him at hovercraft

Similar principles, similar components, and a whole lot less dangerous when something stops working. Far better at getting across country too.

ah huh!

So this is how we get homebrew sputnik into space!

Ninjas

I now know I've been reading /. for too long..

I read that title as "Home-made Helicopters with Ninjas"

--Q

Dear beneficiary

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr.John Ferguson who died while flying his home-made helicopter;I wish to notify you that late Engr.John Ferguson made you a beneficiary to his WILL. He left the sum of Seven Million One Hundred Thousand Dollars (USD$7,100.000.00 ) to you in the codicil and last testament to his WILL. Late Engr.John Ferguson died on the 22th day of October, 2007 at the age of 80 years, and his WILL is ready for execution. According tohim this money is to support your humanitarian activities and to help the poor and the needy in our society.I hope to hear from you in no distant time.

Yours in Service,
BARRISTER CHRIS WALLACE.
(Head of Chambers.)

some language translation for you:

"Mubarak Muhammed Abdullahi" is Nigeriasn for "MacGyver"

Quick! Somebody give that kid a VISA and...

...a plane ticket, before he kills himself.

Nice talent and even better, motivation.

If Nigeria doesn't appreciate him, somebody else will.

Media hype?

It has never attained an altitude of more than seven feet. This story seems overhyped. I wonder if Nigeria is our next gallant ally in the war against terror and drugs.

Sikorsky

I suggest everyone read up on Igor Sikorskiy, the inventor (more or less) of the helicopter.

"You can't make a helicopter without ultrasonic and x-ray fracture inspection."

Well sure that makes it safer, but Sikorskiy didn't have any of that. Hell, I don't think they did that in the Vietnam era.

"You need 900 horsepower (or some damn thing) to make a working heli."

Sikorskiy's first helicopter ran on a 90-hp piston engine, with a welded steel frame.

It's true that this guy's helicopter is probably overweight, flying on ground-effect only, and it seems to be missing the most important (and complicated) part, the swashplate / cyclic blade control. But give him the resources Sikorkiy had, and I think he could do it.

A real GEM

As in "Ground Effect Machine". At a seven foot altitude, this thing is well within its own ground effect. In other words, it's a hovercraft that looks like a helicopter.

Mind, I'll give the guy props for effort and ingenuity, and if he gets the 15 foot altitude version working that would be kind of fun to skim around in over open enough terrain. But an actual helicopter that can fly out of ground effect is a bit more of a challenge. (Me, I've lusted after Rotorway's homebuilt kits since their original Scorpion [rotorway.com] days.)

well... couldn't they wait for..

a sample from OEPC (One Elicopter Per Child) project?? I heard somewere they'll be sold for as little as 100$....

Telling typo in TFA

"You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin. The further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you reach 300 rmp you press the joystick and it takes off," Abdullahi explained from the cockpit.

A quick search for "RMP" comes up with "Risk Management Plan," something that will no doubt come in handy in any homemade helicopter.

The Real Story...

Request for urgent business relationship

First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and 'top secret'. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude involving a pending transaction requiring maximum confidence.

I am a physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria who is interested in production of helicopters with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria. In order to commence this business we solicit your assistance to enable us to transfer into your account the said trapped funds.

The source of this fund is as follows; during the last military regime here in Nigeria, the government officials set up aircraft companies and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-invoiced in various ministries. The present civilian government set up a contract review panel and we have identified a lot of inflated military contract funds which are presently floating in the central bank of Nigeria ready for payment.

However, by virtue of my position as a physics undergraduate, I cannot acquire this money in my name. I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the university to look for an overseas partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of US$21,320,000.00 (twenty one million, three hundred and twenty thousand US dollars). Hence we are writing you this letter. We have agreed to share the money thus; 1. 20% for the account owner 2. 70% for us (the students) 3. 10% to be used in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses. It is from the 70% that we wish to commence the helicopter manufacturing business.

Please, note that this transaction is 100% safe and we hope to commence the transfer latest seven (7) banking days from the date of the receipt of the following information by telephone/fax; 234-1-7740449, your signed and stamped letterhead paper. The above information will enable us write letters of claim and job description respectively. This way we will use your name to apply for payment and re-award the contract in your name.

We are looking forward to doing this business with you and solicit your confidentiality in this transaction. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above telephone/fax numbers. I will send you detailed information of this pending project when I have heard from you.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi

First steps of many.

This Nigerian has a great idea. Remember we, in the western world, have an advantage of over hundred years of steps and missteps before we got to this state of flight but even then we still have accidents. Remember that Niger doesn't have a state of the art aeronautical program hence the large amounts of accidents there and most of Africa so like the western world in the early part the heavier than air flight they need some help and good engineering to get up to speed. This person who built this, like any kit plane, has the understanding of principal of aerodynamics and physics so this is a start but he needs later understand material sciences to get to the next level. Remember he is a under graduate in college so he still has much to learn so give this person a break. We geeks have built enough things in our lives and most of them break and we learn from those experiences so we can do better on the next try and this learning process will go on forever so if he crashes, as long as he doesn't kill himself or other s he an try again and learn.

Snarky reply

I can't help but think, if I wanted to go seven feet up in the air I would use a ladder.

That said, cool idea to build your own copter...

Stanley Hiller did it..

Stanley Hiller did it, so why not this young Nigerian? His chopper was yellow too!
http://www.hiller.org/in_memory.shtml/ [hiller.org]

Stanley finished high school despite the many extracurricular activities in his life, entering the University of California at Berkeley at age 16. His college phase lasted but a year: he was consumed with the history and technology of vertical flight, intensifying his designing of a co-axial with the aid of a draftsman, a welder and a part-time auto mechanic. Although many materials were frozen by the War Production Board, he managed to improvise a 100-pound model. Discouraged by Army officials, the 17-year-old inventor lugged his aircraft and drawings to Washington DC, where higher authorities not only permitted his proposed XH-44 helicopter to be finished, but granted Stanley a deferment from the draft board.

Although UC Berkeley had little chance to influence young Stanley because he dropped out to build his business at the end of his freshman year, the university did yield the love of his life, Carolyn Balsdon, whom he married when they were both 22.

By 1944, Stanley Hiller, Jr., completed the first successful flight of a helicopter in the western United States. He flew his yellow fabric-covered contraption himself, although he had never flown a helicopter nor seen one fly. After at least one mishap, in August of that year a successful demonstration was made at San Francisco's Marina Green, where a plaque today commemorates the historic event. The flight propelled the young inventor-who had no engineering degrees and, in fact, never finished college-into international headlines. He became the youngest person ever to receive the coveted Fawcett Aviation Award for major contributions to the advancement of aviation. Eventually, the little co-axial XH-44 "Hiller-Copter" would earn a permanent place in Smithsonian Institution.

try it in the usa

imagine if he did it here. He'd probably be shot down by some trigger-happy f-16 pilot if he got anywhere close to an air force base, even if the FAA ever certified him as a pilot or the helicopter as an aerial vehicle. Still, it doesn't hurt to dream. I'm just waiting for the story about how some high-schooler mounted a paintball machine gun on the side to harass people.

For those of you that want to build and fly

Having built quite a few RC Helicopter kits myself and having crashed many times due to some type of mechanical or electrical issue... I am not really sure where I stand on this. I mean kudos to the guy for building the thing. I have seen LOTS of home built RC helis but, I doubt seriously I would ever jump in to some home built, real, scale helicopter. I think the Mini 500 [wikipedia.org] proved that cheaply built helicopters are a BAD idea.

For those of you that want to learn to build and fly a RC Helicopter check out HeliFreak.com [helifreak.com]. Heck, they have helicopter build videos from box to flight you can download for FREE! Building a model is not as exciting but it has got to be a 100 times safer ;)

6 Buttons

Anyone else do a double-take-wtf at this?

"The cockpit consists of a push-button ignition, an accelerator lever between the seats which controls vertical thrust, a joystick that provides balance and bearing.

A small screen on the dashboard connects to a camera underneath the helicopter for ground vision, a set of six buttons adjusts the screen's brightness while a small transmitter is used for communication."

Let's see ...
Button 1: Brighter
Button 2: Darker
Buttons 3 through 6: ???

Moller needs to move to Nigeria?

If Moller can't do free flight tests of a device with 4 partially redundant engines in the US, and this guy can fly his single-engine car-engine-powered "helicopter" without a problem in Nigeria, it sounds like Moller's doing his development in the wrong country.

He's a biggen...

"For a four-seater it is a big aircraft, measuring twelve metres (39 feet) long, seven metres high by five wide. It has never attained an altitude of more than seven feet."

Looking at the image on the article, that makes him about 6 metres tall and probably a metre or two wide. I think we can assume that none of those measurements are correct...

Or maybe it's 7 metres tall when the rotor breaks and folds upwards...

and..

...I for one welcome our new nigerian car-copter overlords!

Don't worry about autorotating

He says the next model will be able to fly at an altitude of 15 feet. That implies that the current yellow model flies lower than 15 feet. Even if the rotors suddenly broke off (which might be a likely occurrence) and it lost all lift, you don't have that far to fall. You might get a broken leg or a concussion from falling less than 15 feet, but the main safety issue is probably going to be bystanders hit by flying pieces of rotor.

Re:Ballmer says helicopter violates Microsoft IP

...and when the rotors dig in, think how far the chair will get thrown!

Re:Come on dude... whiner

...you're gonna have to fly it for more than a couple seconds and 7 feet off the ground.

The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. [eyewitnesstohistory.com]

Patience, Grasshopper

re: -1 redundant

Hey! No fair! There was only 1 comment visible, total, when I posted this. Then I refresh the page and 5 other people have the same joke posted.
Life, at the speed of Slashdot, I guess....