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 here, using the
money he makes from
repairing cellphones and
computers. While some of the parts have been sourced from a crashed 747, the chopper contains all sorts of surprises.

The 12-meter-long aircraft,
which has never flown above
a height of seven feet, is
powered by asecondhand 133
horsepower engine from a
Honda Civic. In the basic cockpit there are two Toyota
car seats, with a couple more
in the cabin behind. Controls
are simple, with an ignition
button, an accelerator lever to
control vertical thrust and a joystick that provides balance
and bearing. A camera beneath
the chopper connected to a
small screen on the dash gives
the pilot ground vision, and he
communicates via a small transmitter.

Mubarak says he learned the
basics of helicopter flying
through the internet after he
decided it would be easier to
build a chopper than a car.
Flying his creation is easy, he claims. “You start it, allow it to
run for a minute or two and
you then shift the accelerator
forward and the propelleron
top begins to spin,” he
explains. “The further you shift the accelerator the faster
it goes and once you reach 300
rpm you press the joystick
and it takes off.”

Undeterred that his home-
made transporter, which lives
in a hangar on campus, lacks
the gear to measure
atmospheric pressure, altitude
and humidity, Mubarak is working on a new
machinewhich “will be a
radical improvement on the
first one in terms of
sophistication and aesthetics.”

A two-seater with the ability
to fly at 15 feet for three
hours at a time, Mubarak’s
new creation will be powered
by a brand-new motor
straight from Taiwan, normally found in
motorbikes.

it sounds interesting, if its true.