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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.
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 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...
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 noticed that too. I don't think there actually was any conversion, they just replaced the word "feet" by "metres". It looks about seven feet high, five feet wide, twelve feet long. Why they would include that sentence is beyond me, on the picture it looks quite cramped for a four-seater.
Maybe
According to Wikipedia, the smallest engine ever mounted into a Bell 47 was 200 HP--considerably more than the 133 he's fooling around with.
Chris Mattern
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.
From the article: "Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria". Looks like he's already in school.
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.
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
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
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.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
THAN you cretinous illiterate fuck
Ground effect.
When a wing approaches the ground, the air that it is pushing on bounces back at it (not technically correct, but the analogy is close enough to envision the effect). Ground effect becomes pronounced at about 1 wingspan's distance from the ground. He could be planning on a 15ft rotor.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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"