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."

Would be interesting to see how it "flies"

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

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.

Re:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

[Aladrin]

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?"

heh.

[apodyopsis]

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...

[sm284614]

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?

Re:Indeed

[LWATCDR]

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:Unusable Prototype But a Promising Individual

[werdnapk]

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]

TEH OMG!!! Tell teh CIA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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!!!

Re:Would be interesting to see how it "flies"

[Stonent1]

Here's my take. If I were designing something like this inexpensively, I'd use the two bars shown to adjust the angle of the shaft to lean it forward or backward. The shaft would be connected to the engine output via a universal joint pulled from a car drive shaft. I'd use the tail rotor to adjust the direction the helicopter was pointing. This would be a simple helicopter, so you'd be missing the ability to strafe.

Re:Well done!

[TheSharpCrayon]

After being around aircraft all of my working life 30+ years, maybe just maybe there is someone who looks outside of the mindset box and see's one without all of the stray parts. Helicopters have driveshaft's running every direction except forward. Definately give the boy a Visa and put him to work.