A Chinese farmer has built his own functioning helicopter from scratch
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Get to the chopper! Image: Last month, OATS reported a man from Zhengzhou had fashioned a mini Lamborghini in his garage. In a grand show of one-upmanship, a Hunan villager has created a tandem rotor helicopter that completed its maiden voyage in April.
52-year-old Li Housheng, a farmer from the outskirts of Miluo city, began work on the helicopter back in August 2013.
While lacking any formal aviation education, Li relied solely on his love of aeronautics to fashion his flying machine.
The homemade helicopter has a 5.5m frame, a 6m wingspan, weighs 150kg and is powered by a three-wheeled motorcycle engine. Most of the body is made from stainless steel pipe and each blade is made from four pieces of metal.
In the machine’s test flight, it managed to soar a full 40cm off the ground before safely landing back to earth. In a recent interview with Xinhua News, Li claimed “the flight quality is still far from the idea I have in my heart”, and vowed to continue work on his invention.
Next month, OATS will report how a blacksmith from Baotou reconstructed a full-scale Boeing 747 from old coca cola tins.