Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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
NT required.
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....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I mean, what could possible go wrong..
Seriously good luck to him, the guy has talent, but I wouldnt ride it..
"A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
"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.
My work here is dung.
That is freakin awesome. More power to him.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I would bet a large sum of money it could not exceed an altitude ceiling of seven feet (granted, I cheated, see my name). Since it only goes that high, and he recognizes it lacks instruments, I think he's safe for now.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
..provided you name me as your sole heir....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
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)
\u262D = \u5350
Reminds me of the Kit Copters that came about around 20-30 years ago. Go to Sams or Home Depot or whatever, buy the family kit-copter for what was then a price of 40 dollars, and spend hours of good wholesome fun in the garage with pops perfecting that cox motor that probably will never run more than twice. I give the man props for his ingenuity, but safety may be a tiny bit of an issue. I can only imagine to horror of auto-rotating that out of a stall. Hopefully he won't be sued for pirating and copyright issues for make a mashup of his own favorite parts and then combining them into a usable work that is actually kind of cool. Something people see and say 'ooh' and 'ahh' but doesn't actually cause profit losses to the Motion Picture Ass...I mean the helicopter industry.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
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.
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
"No one from the NCAA has come to see what I've done. We don't reward talent in this country," he lamented. Dude, you're gonna have to fly it for more than a couple seconds and 7 feet off the ground. If you toured around Nigeria in this chopper they might consider it. Though I'm willing to bet if you did that your life is going to be very short.
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
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.
Putting moderation advice in your
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.)
In related news, Ballmer now claims this Nigerian helicopter violates Microsoft IP for processes that endlessly spin out of control causing crashes.
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...
His new machine is intended to fly at fifteen feet. Sounds like ground effect to me.
I don't know about the power though. A Bell 47 had a piston engine that wasn't too big, a couple of hundred HP. OTOH, he's talking about using a motorbike engine for his next try. That's ultralight territory for sure. It can be done though. Here's an example I googled: http://www.innovator.mosquito.net.nz/mbbs2/index.asp Also remember that iirc a Bell Jet Ranger only gets about 400 HP on the shaft.
One question: A regular 'copter controls the tail rotor with the pedals. He doesn't mention pedals. How do you think he controls the tail rotor? Does he control the tail rotor?
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...
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Damn, shouldn't be giving them these ideas..! Sorry guys!
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?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
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
"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.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
One would think someone intelligent would offer this kid a job when he graduates.
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.
Teh OMG!!! This is a guy from a non-American country with a funny name... he HAS to be a terrorist! Why else would he have an interest in technology?
Someone alert teh CIA!!! Don't have a pre-9/11 mindset!! We must live in fear of everything and everyone!!! Call Faux Noise Channel!!!
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? :-)
"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.
Similar principles, similar components, and a whole lot less dangerous when something stops working. Far better at getting across country too.
So this is how we get homebrew sputnik into space!
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
I now know I've been reading /. for too long..
I read that title as "Home-made Helicopters with Ninjas"
--Q
The Robinson R22has 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.
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.)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
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).
No sig for the moment.
"Mubarak Muhammed Abdullahi" is Nigeriasn for "MacGyver"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...a plane ticket, before he kills himself.
Nice talent and even better, motivation.
If Nigeria doesn't appreciate him, somebody else will.
Blogging because I can...
Has anyone really *seen* this thing fly? Because I doubt it can. ...
Sorry to sound negative, but from the looks of it, it's much too heavy to lift off with that rather small engine. Also there's the problems with rotor control others mentioned.
So, without any evidence, I'd say this is something *resembling* a real helicopter that may *turn* it's rotor, but won't fly at all. The power should be enough to throw it on it's side however
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.
technical writing / development
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.
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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
WTF? A nerd site (/.) features a story about a true nerd doing some truly impressive hardware hacking, a nerd wannabe puts him down for it, but the guy who rightly tells him he's a pussy gets modded as a troll?
I'm disgusted. I guess I need to find a real nerd site.
-mcgrew (sm62704 if any of you wannabes can use a search function)
This helicopter, which HASN'T crashed, is made out of the bits of a plane that did. A Boeing 747, that is made with all that modern tech and those high safety standards.
So tell me again, what is riskier? Remember, that quality western aircraft consist entirely of parts made by the lowest bidder, checked by a company under constant pressure to cut costs, and operated by an airline desperate to squeeze every last mile out of a decades old machine.
Odd thing is that an amateur will often take more care then a proffesional, after all, it ain't the pro who actually got to fly his own deathtrap. Just check aviation history how many real aircraft accidents are down to design flaws. Including choppers whose blades explode if hit by lightening, denied for years by the helicopter industry of being possible.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
no, bad nigerian.
He looks like the guy from the 419 scams
I'm impressed. The fact that it's not safe, who cares. How many of us have either ability or will to do such a thing? It probably won't turn into a commercial project but maybe he and a few other folks like him can get together and figure out something new. Four years ago there were people from Cuba who turned a pickup into a boat and were 'driving' to Florida. They were caught partway out and sent back to Cuba. These are the ones you want. They see a problem, do something about it, and try to take care of it themselves and use creativity and thought. Deport the rest of the lot, keep the innovators. Here is a link: http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/cubans_found_at_sea_on_pickup_truck_converted_to_motor_raft
...only holds two people and on a hot day when the density altitude is high, is very underpowered with two persons aboard. The R22 is a good trainer, and a great chopper to fly solo. We use them a lot in the cornbelt states for low-level flying over the fields where the rotor downwash helps spread the pollen around the corn plants, a practice which we jokingly refer to as "corn screwing".
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?
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 days.)
-- Alastair
Your pilot friend is referring to the swashplate. As the rotors turn, their pitch changes relative to their position. This allows them to develop more lift in one spot and less in another. This, in turn, is what causes the pitch and roll of the helicopter to change. The cyclic control is the stick typically positioned between the pilot's knees and allows him to change the orientation of the swashplate. The rudder pedals (typically) alter the pitch of the tail rotor blades, which adjusts the yaw. The collective is the handle/stick typically found at the pilot's side which (again, typically) adjusts the baseline pitch of the rotors and the engine power and is the pilot's overall lift control.
I mean really, this just ain't that bad for a first attempt from a poor garage mechanic point of view. I seriously doubt most dudes here have even done something as simple as swap an engine using modern tools and hoists. In a few months he built something that flies, a rotorcraft to boot, albeit ground effects, from junk parts. It's taken moeller skycar 30 years to do about the same and millions of dollars. Not an example of a unit from an old established airframe manufacturer, but for a home made built out of scrap rig in the "developing world"? Not too shabby at all. He's getting dissed here from a lot of guys who's biggest claim to fame is installing neon lights inside their gaming rigs and compiling a kernel or installing ongowah linux. A little fellow geek perspective here is more in order I think. Kudos to the lone backyard inventor! Also note within one generation, these guys with drive in the developing world are going to be your bosses. Guys from india, china, brazil, the old eastern block, and like here in nigeria, they got bupkis to work with and are still coming out with the coolest shit, damn robots, this hellicopter, alternate energy stuff, electric drive bikes and cars that work and are cheap, the big jump to all wireless tech, building and using biofuels tech at small farm size with junk parts while the west has to subsidise ethanol to even get it off the ground,etc. They got *geek spirit* and a *can-do attitude*,while the west is in decadent fat lazy slob ritalin addicted decay. Hoodies and starbucks lurkers, what's the diff? Hey, pass a lawyer and a platefull of IPtroll casserole, that is now the west's contributions looking forward. Look at the universities, 7/8ths non westerners are doing the most advanced research, the other 1/8th is getting puking drunk and playing WoW and calling that an "education". That 7/8ths is gonna be giving you orders soon, just watch.
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....
a sample from OEPC (One Elicopter Per Child) project?? I heard somewere they'll be sold for as little as 100$....
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
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?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
A quick search for "RMP" comes up with "Risk Management Plan," something that will no doubt come in handy in any homemade helicopter.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
the reason why Bill Gates would like to stay... this is a great place and people make helicopters! yayyy!
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
Geez, you must be an evil DM. I'd rule that a helicopter falling from 7' can't possibly do more damage than a falling block trap, so it would look like
Crashing Home-made Helicopter: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; no reset; Atk +10 melee (4D6, bludgeoning), hits all targets in 2m radius; Burning Fuel (roll 1d100, if result >=75 treat character as poisoned, 1d6 damage per second until doused with water or otherwise put out); Search DC 30; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: unknown (unique). Special - Blades (All characters within 5m of trap landing site and standing must make a DC 15 reflex save or take 6D6 of Slashing damage).
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Nigerian dude has a big problem with power/weight ratio.
I spent a couple of weeks one summer being flown around in a Bell Jet Ranger, doing survey archaeology.
That thing had a gas turbine engine with sufficient power to lift four people (plus gear) and fly at 200 kph at 2000 m.
The engine was the size of a Honda four-cylinder.
An automotive engine is not going to cut it, unless he boosts the compression ratio to about 40 to 1 (which will have instantaneous and messy consequences).
I wish him good luck.
But also: good engines.
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
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
who thinks "airborn spam"...?
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.
Faster, better, cheaper. Pick two.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
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...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just modded you insightful!
Oops...
Well, it's kinda f. The fact is, all first world governments nowadays are essentially Keynesian. There have been some minor refinements of it, but essentially no big change to the core of it. The whole USA, EU _and_ Commonwealth (the UK one, not the ex-USSR) still _are_ keynesian, and the majority of economists still are keynesian. By what kind of reckoning, then, is it not modern any more?
There are fringe groups (e.g., the Libertarians, since you've linked to that site) which think that Keynes is wrong or outdated, that much is clear. But it will become "not modern" when, you know, at least one major first-world economy runs on something better. A theory only supercedes the old one when it's been tried and tested, not when one fringe group starts screaming that they know better. The way I see it, the Libertarians don't as much have "theories" now, they just have an untested "hypothesis". They think they know better how the economy should be run, but we don't really have any proof that things actually work that way.
In fact, if we're talking Libertarians, most signs point at "we've already been there, and it didn't work too well." Which places even more burden of proof on the ones claiming to know better. If I jumped off the house once and broke my leg, someone damn better have a very convincing proof that jumping off the house is good.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying their view is necessarily wrong. Who knows, they could even be right. Just that it's untested, and _didn't_ replace Keynesian economics yet.
As for that site and analysis of the Great Depression... well, I didn't have the time for an in-depth study of that particular text yet, but let's just say, as a superficial impression and gut feeling that:
1. Well, I might even take that site seriously, if it wasn't an overt libertarian propaganda site. The emphasis not being even as much on "libertarian" as on "propaganda". You only need to click on their "about" link to basically be told, in so many words, that it's all about propaganda. It speaks over and over again about being born out of a vision that they don't just need ideas, they need to disseminate them.
And somehow I don't expect a balanced view of the world from a site which is (A) overtly aligned with one point of view as their holy truth, and (B) overtly dedicated to bringing the Word to the masses. It's akin to asking for an unbiased academic discussion of the world's religions on Vatican's site.
2. Suspiciously enough, it also runs contrary the more mainstream analyses of the Great Depression which, funnily enough, are the exact opposite.
The fact is, the USA government didn't even have the means to do that at the time. It also omits the fact that it was just the latest and biggest of a whole cycle of booms-and-depressions that plagued the whole 19'th century and early 20'th century, most of which happened in decisively laissez faire times. (I.e., practically libertarian times.) And which cycles are not only documented everywhere, but even Marx's prediction of a self-destruction of capitalism was based on them. It was _that_ predictable where it's headed. It also seems to blatantly omit the fact that countries where the government _did_ massively spend (e.g., the USA with its New Deal, Germany with its rearmament, etc) got out of the depression the fastest, while those who stuck to lean government ideas (e.g., Canada) were stuck with a depression until the 40's, when they finally got dragged into WW2. Etc.
Briefly, it just seems to be a bit too unbelievable a whole to swallow.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
....attempt to roll our own operating systems ? I appreciate that the the opportunity to do oneself harm is appreciably higher with a home grown helicopter, but I can't help but think the position of Logic and Reason is a bit off in the context this particular forum.
My beloved brother Mubarak Muhammed Abdullahi recently pass away in crash. He left behind a vast amount of dollars from home made helicopter company. This monies tied up in bank and I need your help in securing funds for which I share with you 20%. All replies to Anonymous Coward treated secret and in trust.
I think some idiot wrote the story with the wrong measurements. This chopper is CLEARLY not SEVEN METERS tall, FIVE METERS wide and TWELVE METERS long. More like seven FEET by five FEET by twelve FEET just based on the guy standing in the background of the picture.
http://www.hiller.org/in_memory.shtml/ 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.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
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.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
For those of you that want to learn to build and fly a RC Helicopter check out 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 ;)
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: ???
Does anyone have any contact information for this guy? (E-mail address?) I'd love to Paypal him a few dollars to help with his endevours(sp?) This fellow obviously has talent and I'd personally be honored to help him buy more parts for his chopper or just help pay for part of his college textbook or something.
"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.
You are a little quick to quote physics, the earlier author demonstates a better understanding than you. We are discussing aircraft here, in addition to gravity we also have lift. While gravity is equal on light and heavy aircraft lift tends not to be. Heavier aircraft are usually less efficient with respect to lift. Greater airspeed normally compensates for this.
The safety record of air travel in Africa is already so bad that it can't get any worse.
;-)
Perhaps we could create some sort of online mechanism to solicit donations to improve Nigerian air safety. An email campaign?
Only on slashdot would a bunch of D&D dice stats be modded +5 Insightful. I LOL'd. Really.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
But the helicopter will win from the ladder in the 100 mile dash across the savanna.
If by "win" you mean some parts of him will cross the finish line before me carrying my ladder, then I suppose it's possible given the velocity of the blades...
From reading the article it really seemed like this was not a thing built for durability!
I totally get what you are saying about a ground effect air vechicle though, that could be a cool thing. Like a more multi-purpose airboat. And being just fifteen or twenty feet up, you wouldn't worry as much about engine failure if you protected the passenger well enough (perhaps bike armor and a strong rollcage).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
15' is enough to do useful things you couldn't do with a hovercraft.
If it's a ground effect vehicle, it's a hovercraft, whether it looks like one or not. Ground effect isn't restricted to craft that have a mechanical wall around their air cushion, and it operates to quite a high altitude... there's a good argument that the Wright Brothers' "flier" and a lot of the other early airplanes were actually operating on ground effect and not free-flight lift.
I'd like to know how he arrived at 15' as a service ceiling. How would the aircraft know the difference between 15' on one day and 30' on day with higher air pressure?
That's the most likely reason to treat it as a hovercraft, not a helicopter, and operating on ground effect. That is, the 15' service ceiling would be the limit to how high it actually can get above the ground.
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.
Considering the parent's sibling, it should probably be informative.
The book Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll, tells the story of the CIA, which was supporting the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against the Taliban. The Alliance was flying helicopters out of a foreign base (in Tajikistan, IIRC). The CIA rode along from time to time. But the Soviet copter they were flying in made them nervous, so they dispatched a CIA mechanic to have a look inside. He opens it up and finds an Indian-made helicopter engine wired up somehow to drive the Soviet chopper. He carefully closes it up, backs away, and the CIA never goes near that machine again. They bought their own Russian surplus helicopter and hired their own paid staff to maintain it.
By your post, you may have clicked the link next to my name and noticed that I am a _black_ doctoral student. If you did and you used those words to anger me - then fuck you. If you didn't - and were just using them to make a point, then Ill just say that I am fully aware of the racism that is in this country. I lived all over it and was born and spent 6 years growing up in Germany - and guess what, I saw racism there too - I find it funny that alot of the world likes to lecture the US on racism, when the problem isnt confined to our country. Does our hypocrisy in that regard bother me - yes it does, to my core... there are people who come on this site and use all matter of slurs, when my family has been in this country for over 300 years, and my relatives have fought in every war from WWII on. For that reason, it doesnt really matter what people with that mindset think.
The posts I saw bothered me because I remember a few years ago how excited people on this site got seeing some jackass hook up a E-450R server in his van to play Mp-3s (later turned out to be a hoax i think) - big accomplishment to use - a computer to play mp3s, vs. a young man who built a helicopter out of scrap leftovers and taught himself how to fly it even if it barely picks up altitude.
I think I replied to the wrong post.. shutting down the computer now.. and going to do other things..
Additionally this student may have found a very interesting business :
- helicopter are vehicle that are very valuable in some humanitarian situation (can bring in food or take out evacuee in region whose road access have been cut by natural catastrophes), yet are very expensive, and thus not really accessible in the poorest region that may need them the most.
- he proved that he can build an functional unit out of scrapes for very low budget.
- now if he can develop some similarly cheap way to test the machine and see if it is secure enough to fly and transport people and goods, he may have the chopper equivalent of the OLPC : a valuable tool which traditionally didn't have a cost affordable in the 3rd world and which can now be acquired and used to perform important rescue mission.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
"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...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
When it comes to crashing helicopters my philosophy is to just let everyone roll against 20D damage and let karma (or the burning thereof) sort it out. Life can be so easy in the shadows... for the GM, that is.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
n/t.
Each year I also like to give the first class in Mechanics, the cornerstone of your degree.
Before we begin, I'd like to caution you all.
In high school you may have heard your teachers dumb down problems with caveats like 'ignoring air resistance'.
We don't let you get away with that kind of crap here.
Righto, lets being... I'm paraphrasing a little, but yes this was the actual introduction.
The guy plainly said that it falls from the sky.
Galileo wasn't in the sky when he tested his theory. He was just like on a tower or something.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
And, Bell Helicopter shares to boot?
RR
No, you have "been true to your values AND gotten a return of X instead of a return of 0".
Investing is speculative risk. There is no guarantee that you would have earned that $1500. Sometimes you alter the value of things by purchasing them.
...I for one welcome our new nigerian car-copter overlords!
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
Yes, he has a lot of brains, and a lot of guts. And if he keeps flying homemade helicopters without regard for safety, these will be on display over a wide area soon enough.
Still, kudos.
Deleted
Many car industries (Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, India and soon China) were started in precisely that way.
The Malaysian company for example owns Lotus, and China is serious about becoming a big time exporter of cars (and they will succeed).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... which is sent to rich countries, just to be received as criminals...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Amazingly, the guy walks away from this.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mo82pnyMR44
That African kid is amazing he can do all that. Even more amazing that he's managed to fly the thing. I hope he can keep himself from getting killed. What talent!
I've seen that before. I can't tell you how much it bothers me. I guess that guy video taping it should just be glad that his idiot friend couldn't afford a bigger helicopter.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?