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Home-made helicopters hit northern Nigeria
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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
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Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, seen here, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts. |
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.
--Kano, AFP
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