and a new pilot/engineer is born.

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:37:27 -0800 (PST), wrote in
:

Plenty of homebuilts here never got off
the ground because they are still in the garage after 20, 30? years
and never get built. Come on... give the youth credit for ambition.

Exactly. Not only that, but:


http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-...unk-313408.php
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.

Eight months! Who has built anything that flies in 8 months?

MMmmm..I guess I have:
http://www.dighera.com/otto_meet_5-23-71_larry.avi :-)
http://www.dighera.com/otto_meet_5-23-71.avi
(These take a little time to load; be patient.)
It still took about a month of weekends to complete.

Historical information he
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...a?dmode=source

On Jan 15, 3:21 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
Eight months! Who has built anything that flies in 8 months?
....

The late Tim Crawford built a complex homebuilt that flew for a long
time (a long EZ) in nine months. Its not the months or years, it's the
hours. Took me about 2300 hours to build mine http://www.abri.com/sq2000
Some people do 2 hours per week and some 40.

But the Nigerian unit is hardly complex - got only a few feet of the
ground. So I say to all those guys putting him down, he still deserves
credit for ambition - not that I would want to fly in the thing.

And I don't agree with the hinted implication. Just because the kid is
from Nigeria does not mean he is guaranteed to be dishonest..... Just
because somebody is from North America does not guarantee they are
honest.

wrote:
On Jan 15, 3:21 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
Eight months! Who has built anything that flies in 8 months?
....

The late Tim Crawford built a complex homebuilt that flew for a long
time (a long EZ) in nine months. Its not the months or years, it's the
hours. Took me about 2300 hours to build mine http://www.abri.com/sq2000
Some people do 2 hours per week and some 40.


North American Aviation took the P-51 from doodles on a napkin to lifting off
the tarmac in 117 days.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

But the Nigerian unit is hardly complex - got only a few feet of the
ground.

Really?

Do you *know* this?

No one on this list has seen the aircraft flying, nor a video of it
flying, nor a picture of it flying.

If a link to a legitimate new source can be found (not to a blog),
then it will at least be some evidence. As it stands now, there is no
evidence this is anything but a hoax.

On Jan 15, 12:43*pm, wrote:
But the Nigerian unit is hardly complex - got only a few feet of the
ground.

Really?

Do you *know* this?

No one on this list has seen the aircraft flying, nor a video of it
flying, nor a picture of it flying.

If a link to a legitimate new source can be found (not to a blog),
then it will at least be some evidence. As it stands now, there is no
evidence this is anything but a hoax.

"new" should be "news"

Also I got nothing against Nigerians, if one of the above was hinting
that I was hinting that Nigerians are scam artists.

My DE was Nigerian. An excellent pilot from my perspective. I don't
think he was scamming me, nor was he a hoax.

On Jan 15, 12:43 pm, wrote:
But the Nigerian unit is hardly complex - got only a few feet of the
ground.

Really?

Do you *know* this?

No one on this list has seen the aircraft flying, nor a video of it
flying, nor a picture of it flying.

If a link to a legitimate new source can be found (not to a blog),
then it will at least be some evidence.

OK. Maybe you are right. Some of us will have to arrange a trip to
Nigeria to verify it. You go ahead, I can't afford it.

As it stands now, there is no evidence this is anything but a hoax.

So where is this evidence that it is a hoax?

Lets see this logic. If a report is from the western world it is
assumed true (innocent until proven guilty). If a report is from
Nigeria (and some other places) than it is assumed to be a hoax
(guilty, of anything we want to assume, until proven innocent).

I am not leaving out the possibility that it is inaccurate or a hoax
or whatever. But we got to give all a fair chance without jumping to
conclusions - even though notorious scams come from Nigeria.

OK. Maybe you are right. Some of us will have to arrange a trip to
Nigeria to verify it. You go ahead, I can't afford it.

Not worth my time. The burden of proof for a claim like this is on the
person making the claim, not the person reading about the claim. How
hard can it be for Muhammed to have a friend take a picture of the
contraption in flight? Not as hard as making it fly, I presume.

So where is this evidence that it is a hoax?

Lack of credulity on my part:

1) Failure to show the aircraft in flight.
2) No valid source exists for the news as reported by the blogs. The
"Yahoo" link is bogus. The "raw feed" link is merely another blog.
3) The craft looks like it can't fly for various reasons.
4) It was built from junk in 8 months of spare time. He found all
these parts in a junk yard and made them work together for controlled
helicopter flight in eight months -- but only in his SPARE TIME. Hmm.
Must have a lot of that spare time and some damned fine junk yards at
his disposal.
5) No machining required. Apparently he didn't have to machine
ANYTHING for a completely custom, one-off vehicle. Or does he have
lathes and other machine tooling stuff at his ready disposal? Welders,
sheet metal manipulating equipment, digital equipment and interfaces
to make the "joystick" work as a controller. That stuff takes time.
More time than 8 months of spare time.

And you know, he's never done anything like this before!

This would be an amazing, and very unlikely, job to pull off ANYWHERE
in the world.

Lets see this logic. If a report is from the western world it is
assumed true (innocent until proven guilty). If a report is from
Nigeria (and some other places) than it is assumed to be a hoax
(guilty, of anything we want to assume, until proven innocent).

It has nothing to do with location in my opinion. If that contraption
were in my neighbor's backyard here in "the western world" and he
said, "hey, it flies. It flies up to 7 feet in the air," I'd say
"great, let's see it."

It has to do with lack of evidence that flight was ever performed in
the unique device pictured in a single picture only SITTING FIRMLY ON
THE GROUND.

The burden is not on me to prove that it can fly or that it can't.
It's at least possible I think, so, let's see it. Is it too much to
ask to see more pictures before you believe a story like this?

wrote in message
...
OK. Maybe you are right. Some of us will have to arrange a trip to
Nigeria to verify it. You go ahead, I can't afford it.

Not worth my time. The burden of proof for a claim like this is on the
person making the claim, not the person reading about the claim. How
hard can it be for Muhammed to have a friend take a picture of the
contraption in flight? Not as hard as making it fly, I presume.

So where is this evidence that it is a hoax?

Lack of credulity on my part:

1) Failure to show the aircraft in flight.
2) No valid source exists for the news as reported by the blogs. The
"Yahoo" link is bogus. The "raw feed" link is merely another blog.
3) The craft looks like it can't fly for various reasons.
4) It was built from junk in 8 months of spare time. He found all
these parts in a junk yard and made them work together for controlled
helicopter flight in eight months -- but only in his SPARE TIME. Hmm.
Must have a lot of that spare time and some damned fine junk yards at
his disposal.
5) No machining required. Apparently he didn't have to machine
ANYTHING for a completely custom, one-off vehicle. Or does he have
lathes and other machine tooling stuff at his ready disposal? Welders,
sheet metal manipulating equipment, digital equipment and interfaces
to make the "joystick" work as a controller. That stuff takes time.
More time than 8 months of spare time.

And you know, he's never done anything like this before!

This would be an amazing, and very unlikely, job to pull off ANYWHERE
in the world.

Lets see this logic. If a report is from the western world it is
assumed true (innocent until proven guilty). If a report is from
Nigeria (and some other places) than it is assumed to be a hoax
(guilty, of anything we want to assume, until proven innocent).

It has nothing to do with location in my opinion. If that contraption
were in my neighbor's backyard here in "the western world" and he
said, "hey, it flies. It flies up to 7 feet in the air," I'd say
"great, let's see it."

It has to do with lack of evidence that flight was ever performed in
the unique device pictured in a single picture only SITTING FIRMLY ON
THE GROUND.

The burden is not on me to prove that it can fly or that it can't.
It's at least possible I think, so, let's see it. Is it too much to
ask to see more pictures before you believe a story like this?



More food for thought.

Am I the only one that can't see a tail rotor on the tail boom?

Also, the main rotor shaft appears to be about 1" in diameter, with little
if any outboard bearing near the hub, perhaps even a universal joint. Could
this really be successful at harnessing 133 hp, at 400 rpm or so?

I have serious doubts as well. Here is a couple more photos but still not
much help.

http://www.afrigadget.com/2007/10/22...ains-by-storm/

Maxwell wrote:



More food for thought.

Am I the only one that can't see a tail rotor on the tail boom?

There is a tail rotor back there I just can't see what could be driving it.