China: Man builds flying contraption powered by eight motorcycle engines

http://boingboing.net/2011/09/21/china-gentleman-builds-homemade-flying-contraption-powered-by-eight-motorcycle-engines.html

by matan_a • 15 years ago

84 53 15 years ago

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analyst74• 15 years ago

I look forward for the days of commodity personal choppers.

jonmc12• 15 years ago

I can't read Mandarin - does the text along the side translate to 'Deathtrap'?

civilian• 15 years ago

It says: China Outer Space School.

byw• 15 years ago

"Outer Space" was in quotes, so it's probably some pun that I missed.

Jun82• 15 years ago

This is an example of grassroots innovation, jugaad is the Hindi word for it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad). Countless millions are spent each year on "how to foster innovation" etc., most of which is BS. As seen here it only takes a hacker that doesn't know that what everyone else believes, i.e. what s/he is building is impossible/very hard.

EDIT: Most comments here are missing the main point, he doesn't care if the center of gravity is high or if the thing is pretty much uncontrollable or that you can't mass produce these or that it has been done before. He just BUILT IT and as far as his goals are concerned he is extremely successful, i.e. the thing gets off the ground. That, to me, is the quintessential hacker spirit.

tptacek• 15 years ago

People aren't remarking about the elegance of the design; they're pointing out that he's lucky the design hasn't killed him already.

rkon• 15 years ago

If only I had a dollar for every post about some new "flying machine" that can only hover 3 feet off the ground...

georgieporgie3• 15 years ago

Every one that I've seen appears to be capable of going arbitrarily higher, it's just nobody in their right mind would take the risk.

VladRussian3• 15 years ago

this one was taken a bit higher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLsqyphVERA&feature=relat...

zeteo• 15 years ago

> Shu managed to hover for 10 seconds at about 1 meter

He would have probably done better if he had read a detailed article on the Wright brothers first. Successful flight is a matter of control, and eight engines do not compound well with a lack of background in electrical engineering.

bprater• 15 years ago

Agreed. There are ropes tied to the edges. He won't go beyond a meter without some serious flight control software. Even with software, this octopus will be a tough beast to tune.

bsmith• 15 years ago

Assuming he didn't study mechanical engineering either, the fact that he's still alive proves he's good enough at self-teaching to figure that one out well enough. (Hell, he didn't even wear safety glasses.)

Given that, I bet he wouldn't be too hard-pressed to sort out the control part in typical hacker fashion. How many hackers on HN are expert programmers who weren't formally trained?

softbuilder• 15 years ago

I don't recall any of my programming mistakes chopping my head off.

wicknicks• 15 years ago

I would guess he barely has access to Western literature. And even if he did, he doesn't seem to be fluent in English to read technical material. Check out this interview:

http://io9.com/5843571/chinese-farmer-builds-eight+propeller...

jastanton• 15 years ago

Video?

siphr2• 15 years ago

Very nice.

siphr2• 15 years ago

Marked down by -4? Are you people anti chinese or something? All I said was very nice.

georgieporgie3• 15 years ago

I can't imagine very much more questionable than a flying machine built around two-stroke motorcycle engines. He probably realizes this, though, and has no illusions about its suitability to 'real world' use.

VBprogrammer2• 15 years ago

Actually, microlights of the last decade were built around 2 stroke engines originally designed for snow-mobile use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotax

My main concern is that an engine failure in that design is an instant crash from whatever height you happen to be at.

0x124• 15 years ago

Rotax also makes a four stroke (the 912).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotax_912

I've flown an ultralight once and hung around an airfield for a while it's an amazing world. The aircraft that class as 'ultralights' these days can be pretty amazing:

http://www.mcp.com.au/sting/

Retractable landing gear on an ultralight? Check ;)

I decided against taking lessons because it felt like I could very easily get addicted to this.

edit: and wikipedia lists another 4 stroke, the 914

0x124• 15 years ago

You should visit an ultra light club, two strokes are pretty common.

georgieporgie3• 15 years ago

I'm well aware of ultralights. Don't you think it's somewhat different strapping a motor to something which already glides safely without power?

pella• 15 years ago

YouTube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbSnonCVUy0

matan_a• 15 years ago

Video really shows how scary that is. Doesn't seem like there is any "flight control software" considering the way it was trying to take off.

Still, pretty impressive considering his junior high education and limited resources.

droithomme3• 15 years ago

Ha ha, really cool. These designs with man-on-top are somewhat unstable though due to the high center of gravity. That's the main concern with Chris Malloy's awesome Hoverbike. However, he does fly the thing, so if you want to go for it, you can do it.

http://www.hover-bike.com/index.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20071088-1/will-flying-m...

rbanffy3• 15 years ago

My thoughts exactly. The high center of gravity would have caused the thing to flip over and kill the pilot had it not been tethered (and close) to the ground.

For it to properly fly, he will need thrust control on each engine (either rotation of variable pitch), gyros, accelerometers and some brains to keep the thing stable. I'd also advise lowering the center of gravity (putting the pilot under the engine plane) to make things easier to the stabilization system.

VladRussian3• 15 years ago

>The high center of gravity would have caused the thing to flip over and kill the pilot had it not been tethered (and close) to the ground.

man, learn the subject before commenting. Over-stability, not un-stability, is a problem of such a design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_UtPmb3Z-o

For Hoverbike - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9i7WKdimPU&feature=relat...

beej71• 15 years ago

"Mommy, it's raining red!"

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

I remember the Nike ads with the slogan "just do it." This strikes me like that sort of attitude. That being said, I presume he either understands the risks (probably the most fearsome is the shrapnel cloud should one of the engines break free or a propellor lose integrity.) and does it anyway. And I admire folks who are willing to do things even though it may shorten their lives (helicopter skiing always struck me as an example of this).

That being said, I'm suprised he didn't go with a Quadracopter type design. Probably not enough lift but even a hexacopter might be easier. And the software to control them is already available on an Arduinio.

Jun82• 15 years ago

Danger never held the truly driven people back :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_the...

I would be very amazed if he knows the Quadracopter design. Same for Arduino.

One can think: If this guy came up with this without Arduinos, robot kits, HN and other social contacts, what could he have done if he had those? I think that's the wrong approach. I know of a few such mechanical tinkerers who wouldn't even have started building what they've built had they known more about the field.

Arhur Fry, the inventor of Post-Its has said that it was good that he was ignorant of the articles on that subject (creating the glue for such a product) because they conclusively showed that it cannot be done.

martinkallstrom• 15 years ago

Sometimes I think that access to all the literature and success stories prevents more of this kind of tinkerers to appear in this day and age. If you can see it on Youtube you don't have to do it yourself to still your curiosity. It's like the bazillion cooking shows on TV that for the most part fails to actually make more people cook their own food.

botj• 15 years ago

Will it blend? Yep, I'm pretty sure...

invisiblefunnel• 15 years ago

Hard to imagine how deafeningly loud it must be.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

No louder than a motorcycle race, I'm sure

fuzzythinker• 15 years ago

I'm sure he verified a thousand times the blades are secured, but just looking at the picture gives me chills of one of them coming apart, and the scene captured in "Many faces of death".

0x124• 15 years ago

Real men apparently put their mid section in the plane of rotation of not one but eight propellers without so much as a piece of sheet metal inbetween. He must trust the manufacturers of those props and his welding pretty good. Awesome. But very very scary.

rbanffy3• 15 years ago

> He must trust the manufacturers of those props

Or be completely oblivious to the risks he is incurring.

polemic• 15 years ago

Epic. Death. Trap.

athst• 15 years ago

Who cares how viable it is? The fact that he built it, and it sorta works, is awesome.

If you said this came out of DARPA instead of some guy in China, I doubt you'd get the same critical comments.

rorrr• 15 years ago

It looks incredibly unstable. A gust of wind will tip it over.

kamaal2• 15 years ago

This is amazing,

I would like to narrate a story which happened with me, I come from low financial background. I have always been to education institutions where people are generally from around my background.

During my pre-university college(10th grade + 2 years, In India) there was a guy who probably couldn't afford engineering. His dad used to work at a automobile mechanical shop. The guy bought a absolute dead discarded engine and built a small airplane with it. The airplane didn't do much. It would just moved around, struggle to take off, loose balance and fall over on the sides. But he was forced to learn so many things on the way. As his classmates we took huge pride in sometimes going to his home and helping him out.

Very soon HAL(Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) took note of it, and sponsored his mechanical engineering. He is doing fine now. Generally when someone does something like this, its not for building an actual airplane, but just out of desperation to do something in life. The product is just a way to express what the person wants.

This was around 2002, I hope I could show you the photo graphs. I don't think they were taken at that time. Affording a camera was a pipe dream then. But I remember there was a small article somewhere in the news paper back then, that's how HAL noticed it.

0x124• 15 years ago

That nails it exactly. It shows ambition, guts and drive. All the elements required to succeed.

It's better to build a crappy hovering device with the tools that you've got and the materials that you've got than to sit and comment about how crappy it is.

I've built a fair bit of stuff in my life and not always in a way that was 'responsible engineering' (see 'plane of rotation' comment below, there is an element of experience in there) and it strikes me that if the Wright brothers had not existed that it is guys like this that we would remember as the Wright brothers instead.

kamaal2• 15 years ago

It's better to build a crappy hovering device with the tools that you've got and the materials that you've got than to sit and comment about how crappy it is.

Exactly, very correctly put. To be doing something is a lot better than commenting while sitting on the bylines. No matter how bad it is, building something material into existence is thousand times better than just talk.

When effort and work is multiplied over time, the sheer volume of effort and work brings in success sooner or later.

siculars• 15 years ago

There is a video linked here in one of the comments and after having watched it I'm left amazed by the fact that those involved still have all their limbs.

China: Man builds flying contraption powered by eight motorcycle engines

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