Forget about flying cars. If you want to get off the ground, build helicopter. Nigerian physics student Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi did exactly that, making his four-seater whirlybird from old car seats, parts from a Boeing 747 which crashed nearby and the engine from a Honda Civic.
The 133hp engine will lift the copter to an altitude of seven feet, and Mubarak controls it with a joystick and accelerator lever. It even has a camera underneath, connected to a screen, to give ground vision, and – somewhat inexplicably given that the vehicle never gets much above head height – a radio transmitter.
Speaking to AFP, Muharak said that he learned to fly from the internet. And this is just v1.0. He's already working on MkII, a two seater with a whopping 15 foot altitude and three hour flight time. Muharak: We hereby name you the Gadget Lab hacker of the week.
Home-made helicopters hit northern Nigeria [Yahoo/AFP via BoingBoing]
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