China's DIY Aviators Take Flight

ScuttleMonkey writes "China’s emerging aviator class is spreading its wings with a plethora of approaches, from the ramshackle to the sophisticated to the potentially revolutionary. They’re using everything imaginable, from old motorcycle engines to electric motors to even their own legs, like Mao Yiqing and his human-powered airplane. You could easily plot these adventurous innovators on a graph, with the X axis showing their skill and the Y axis their financial means."

Comments

Re:Gotta say it...

[hey!]

But the technical sophistication of the effort and the wealth of the experimenter certainly *are* related.

The idea of a amateur homebrew helicopter is truly frightening, but *anybody* can dream, especially if he doesn't realize how incompetent he really is.

The minimum successful example is the guy with the autogyro. For that you need the kind of practical skills a farmer who maintained his own equipment would have. The most sophisticated component he'd need is the rotor, which *could* be manufactured from glued wood.

The next step up is the human powered guy. He needs a long carbon fiber boom as the main longitudinal structural component, and probably another one to carry the lift generated along the wings to the main boom. That's pretty expensive. Once he has that, then the drivetrain is bicycle technology.

The rest of the wings and pilot's nacelle are fairly sophisticated, but within the capability of a weekend tinkerer to construct. The key is the sophisticated materials you can buy. You make a basketwork out of lightweight wood and Kevlar tape, then heat shrink polyester sheeting on it to create a skin. Weekend boatmakers have been constructing ultralight boats this way for *years*. You can make a 17 foot canoe that weights under ten pounds this way, or a full sized rowboat that weights maybe fifteen pounds.

The guy who is working on a certifiable electric aircraft needs to have the most money. He needs a real machinist and sophisticated fabrication techniques. Batteries aren't really good enough for practical aviation yet, so for his demo he needs the best batteries and motor money can buy.

Each of these guys is designing the most practical aircraft possible within his financial means. Give the homebrew helicopter guy a million dollars, and he'll *probably* end up killing himself, but it would no doubt be in a more impressive aircraft.