Thought you would enjoy this story...

I wonder what he has for tools?

TMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071021...UbcH NmOs0NUE

Home-made helicopters hit northern Nigeria by Aminu Abubakar
Sun Oct 21, 1:06 AM ET



Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in
northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back
yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.

"It took me eight months to build this one," he said, sweat pouring
from his forehead as he filled the radiator of the banana yellow four-
seater which he now parks in the grounds of his university.

The chopper, which has flown briefly on six occasions, is made from
scrap aluminium that Abdullahi bought with the money he makes from
computer and mobile phone repairs, and a donation from his father, who
teaches at Kano's Bayero university.

It is powered by a second-hand 133 horsepower Honda Civic car engine
and kitted out with seats from an old Toyota saloon car. Its other
parts come from the carcass of a Boeing 747 which crashed near Kano
some years ago.

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.

The cockpit consists of a push-button ignition, an accelerator lever
between the seats which controls vertical thrust, a joystick that
provides balance and bearing.

A small screen on the dashboard connects to a camera underneath the
helicopter for ground vision, a set of six buttons adjusts the
screen's brightness while a small transmitter is used for
communication.

"You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift
the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin. The
further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you
reach 300 rmp you press the joystick and it takes off," Abdullahi
explained from the cockpit.

He said he learned the rudiments of flying a helicopter from the
Internet and first got the idea of building one from the films he
watches on television.

"I watched action movies a lot and I was fascinated by the way
choppers fly. I decided it would be easier to build one than to build
a car," he said pacing the premises of the security division of the
university which he uses as hanger for his helicopter.

He hoped -- and still does hope -- that the Nigerian government and
his wealthy compatriots would turn to him and stop placing orders with
western manufacturers.

So far, however, government response to his chopper project has been
underwhelming to say the least.

Although some government officials got very excited when they saw him
conduct a demonstration flight in neighbouring Katsina state,
Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has so far shown no interest
in his aircraft.

"No one from the NCAA has come to see what I've done. We don't reward
talent in this country," he lamented.

Abdullahi does admit that his first helicopter lacks "some basic
facilities like devices for measuring atmospheric pressure, altitude,
humidity and the like."

In a country with Nigeria's abysmal air safety record officials may be
loath to gamble on one student's home-made helicopter.

But Abdullahi, undeterred, has started work on a new flying machine,
which, he says, "will be a radical improvement on the first one in
terms of sophistication and aesthetics."

Currently just a spindly metal frame in the back yard, the helicopter
will be a two-seater and Abdullahi calculates it will be able to fly
at an altitude of 15 feet for three hours at a stretch.

It will be powered by a brand new motor -- albeit Taiwan-manufactured
and destined for the Jincheng motorbike so common on the streets of
Kano.