Homemade helicopter made from old motorcycle parts

by admin on October 23, 2007

Whilst I have seen many “custom” motorbikes made by entrepreneurial Indians made from the parts of old motorbikes, I have never seen a helicopter made from motorbike parts!

Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi in Northern Nigeria has managed to used salvaged motorcycle parts to create a working helicopter. Mubarak is a physics undergraduate at the local university and managed to uses his skills to construct the helicopter. It took him just under eight months to build the machine which is capable of flying to 15 feetĀ  for 3 hours.

Motorbike  helicopter

It amazes me how such an amazing machine could be created from the things that we in the west would throw out. I think this week, I am going to try and dig around in my “scrap heap” and try and create something amazing! I will keep you posted!

{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }

noniche October 23, 2007 at 3:16 pm

why is flight limited to fifteen feet? would like to see a vid!

Danny Ashton October 23, 2007 at 3:47 pm

I think the flight is limited due to the lack of power – motorcycle parts where not meant to be made into a helicopter!

Mark October 24, 2007 at 5:29 am

not enough horsepower to lift it beyond the ground effect. Its still pushing against the ground at 15ft, but above that it must push against the mass of air, which takes more power. I’ll wager the neighbors are well entertained, but he’d have more fun where there was more savanna to fly over, and fewer trees to avoid.

azu February 22, 2008 at 8:43 pm

i am very glad that a nigerian like me has put up something of this nature, as for mubarak he should reduce weight and reconsider his angle of attk. pls advice:since i started my PIK 26 lookalike (body almost completed) my confusion was either my homemade turbojet or a 5.5hp piston engine(affordable engine).
pls reply ASAP

sarki September 16, 2008 at 2:44 pm

nothing to display contact mye through my mail

Steve March 5, 2009 at 9:05 am

Amazing. This must have taken some serious time. How many frustrations did this create in the process?

shiv shankar June 7, 2009 at 7:36 pm

i love helicopter , Just like you , i want too build helicopter but small only one
man. you too try that

biki June 10, 2009 at 10:57 am

hi really a mind blowing effort . i have a dream to make my own helicopter in which i can fly ,can any body help me how to make it . i m a mechanical engineer.

Wamus October 19, 2009 at 5:16 pm

fight limitation is due to the weigt of machine and Engine and my question is about what type linkage and swash did he use

Am Planing to build one in Uganda

Peter October 27, 2009 at 3:54 am

Don’t bother, it simply cannot fly, its a joke!

That thing in the picture will only fly if you throw it over a cliff. Seriously, I fly Robinson R22′s, but even more importantly, over 20 years have designed and built many large scale remote controlled helicopters for use in university research and for fun. As everyone even remotely involved with helicopters will tell you, is that regardless of size, helicopters are mechanically similar, and the thing in the photograph is just a pile of junk put together to look like one to the untrained eye.

Firstly, the dimensions quoted simply don’t make any sense, unless he used a strange tape measure, ie its 39 feet long and 7 meters high, ye right!

That aside, it has no visible swashplate or likages to each rotor blade, and the tail rotor looks like it was glued together out of two pieces of wood, probably from the forest behind him. Ever tried to fly a helicopter without a swashplate? Furthermore, a motorbike engine would simply have insufficient power/weight to lift just one of those ‘Toyota’ seats, of which there are four, let alone the rest of this wooden garbage he claims to have hovered………..LOL

It simply amazes me as to how people believe anything they see on the internet, but worst still is that crap like this gets published in the first place.

Its just sad.

Wamus November 1, 2009 at 11:32 am

Peter,

You Must have made good observation,
but I think you should invite this guy for a chart online to give him more ideas on aerodynamics and their application. I believe that all inventors normally may try out some thing but at times they fail. We need to give him some technical advices or refer him to useful sites for his success.

Thanks Peter

Good luck to Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi

manish May 5, 2010 at 2:28 pm

about me scooter helicopter

manish May 5, 2010 at 2:30 pm

kya mai bike ke engion se helicopter bana sakta hu

stephen May 24, 2010 at 11:07 pm

alright, heres the deal, to the professor who CLAIMS to know all about helicopters, it is possible to fly using a motorcycle engine. it only take 2k RPMs to fly. depending one the blade size of course, the longer the blade, the more air resistance, the more capable of flying. matter of fact, just looking on YOUTUBE will show you that there are many people who have created helicopters out of motorcycle engines, and watching the news theres a guy whos pattented the idea of a motor cycle helicopter that indeed FLIES. so before you go being a big smartass why dont you look outside the box, and do a little more research before you claim anything as fact, and look like a damn fool.

stephen May 24, 2010 at 11:09 pm

oh, extra side note, if you dont think that a motor cycle engine is good enough to fly? what about the fact that people have flown using lawn mower engines. hmm? single one manned air craft. made out of a lawn mower engine. so you were wrong. AGAIN.

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