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.
Go read the rest. It's inspiring. Makes ya wonder how many, or even if, young Americans with all the advantages are doing stuff like this Nigerian kid is. I'll bet not many, more's the pity. A few years back, some inmates at a Nevada State Pen built a helo out of an old 350 Honda, but they got caught before they could find out if it could get up high enough to get over the wall.
I've built motorcycles from the ground up, but I never tried to fly 'em!
This young man gets today's "Gordon's Gyro Gearloose Award".
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