12 ms·

Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

179 points by skbohra123 5y ago

spoonjim 5y ago
Creating an almost-working helicopter with this level of resources is a huge achievement — it’s like a 5 foot guy making a slam dunk. To a seven footer it’s “just a helicopter” but honestly the world has lost a great talent.
- Natsu 5y ago
  One problem with helicopters is that even if you get it working mechanically, you have to actually fly it in a controlled manner. Having tried to fly a simulated helicopter with no control system, my conclusion is that I would've died in seconds from flipping over while trying to move forward. So I have lot of respect for the people who worked out the math on that.
- zo1 5y ago
  Tend to agree. We'll never know what other cool but smaller and safer things he would have worked on. Especially in a "Third world" country like India that still has a lot of room for low tech solutions, surrounded by a very high tech world that neglects that market.
- bserge 5y ago
  Personal achievement, definitely. For the rest of the world, it's nothing. It's like building an E-Bike, drone, car, boat, anything else - people will say "that's nice, but you can just buy a better one cheaper". And if your design has some good ideas, a big factory will just copy them.
brutus1213 5y ago
I was watching the Stuff Made Here Youtube channel (amazing channel btw) and was getting tempted by Shane's (guy running said channel) shop tour ([1]). Surely I could get tool X and operate it safely? But yeah .. I'd likely get myself maimed or worse. YouTube makes this sort of stuff seem so accessible, this is a reminder of the obvious .. power tools and moving parts can kill. As software people, we sometimes don't realize this. Stay safe y'all! I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? I thought high school shop class no longer exists. Makerspaces sometimes have kind souls willing to help but I have seen people do dangerous things happen. [1] just to be clear, the channel's author does talk about the importance of safety and doesn't promote recklessness. It is just me getting tempted to replicate.
- vicda 5y ago
  > I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? While getting mentored at jobs that takes OSHA violations seriously? Most youtube maker channels are full of comments complaining about how lacking the hosts are in their safety.
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    I wouldn't put much stock in those comments. Every cat video also contains comments that the cat is either about to die or the owner is abusing the cat.
- m4x 5y ago
  > I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? Doing a trade apprenticeship is the common way to do it, but not an option for people looking to get in as a hobby. But even as a hobbyist, an "apprenticeship" is helpful if you can make friends who already have the experience you're after and are willing to hang out and build things with you. You can learn a lot on your own, but you will miss some important safety and productivity tips that just aren't obvious except through experience. And slightly off topic, but power tools are honestly not what frighten me - it's dust and chemical exposure that keeps me awake at night.
- sezna 5y ago
  > I thought high school shop class no longer exists. anecdata: I graduated high school in 2015 and had woodshop, auto shop, and metal shop classes. Also welding, and, for what it is worth, cosmetology. This was at a public school in Houston. We had wood and metal shop in middle school, as well. These classes are still offered at my school according to my relative who still works there.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Very common in rural areas too - I wonder if it's mainly being able to find someone to teach it.
SapporoChris 5y ago
>The inventor taught himself the basics of aeronautical engineering using YouTube and over two years built a single-seater helicopter using a car engine and scrap metal. I am speaking without enough knowledge. But I have to wonder if this serves as a harsh criticism of Youtube. I do understand Youtube is a mixed bag of resources. More structured learning might have resulted in better understanding of material strengths, testing, and safety. Inspite of the failure, I admire his pursuit and find the article inspirational.
- mgarfias 5y ago
  It also could have been a fabrication problem. A stress riser in a highly stressed part is going to fail sooner rather than later.
- q-rews 5y ago
  > I have to wonder if this serves as a harsh criticism of Youtube That's not how I see it at all. The guy built a working helicopter from scratch watching YouTube; That's crazy (good). Even with structured learning he made the helicopter from scraps so it would have never been "safe" by modern standards. Plenty of other people died trying to fly their own device.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Better not let the commoners learn too much. They might hurt themselves.
  - PikachuEXE 5y ago
    I guess it's caused by not learning enough instead of learning too much?
    - ma2rten 5y ago
      Maybe either would have worked: learning less or learning more.
    - lmz 5y ago
redis_mlc 5y ago
Most of the original airplane inventors died testing their inventions, and even more helicopter and submarine - and half of the X-plane pilots. It sounds like he was using the "tie it to the ground with a rope" technique, which most of the pioneers used, so credit for that. I'd probably go further than just a rope (a telescoping ground mounting with pipes), but note that ground resonance can still destroy a helicopter and kill you. Building personal full-size airplane models is common across India and China, but this is the first time I heard of one with an engine and that was flyable. (In the US, most people can afford to be involved in aviation, but it's 10x outside the affordability of the average person in the developing world.) Hanna Reitsch, the famous woman Nazi test pilot, actually became famous for demoing the first production helicopter, the Fa 61, daily at a "fair" inside a building (!), so some people are just really talented at flying. Ironically, after being captured by the British, she was released because although she was a great test pilot at manipulating the controls, she knew nothing about aeronautical engineering beyond subjective descriptions like, "the controls were too heavy", etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch
diskzero 5y ago
It is sad his passion to build and create ended with this accident. I have built and flown my own aircraft and even with excellent supervision and safety procedures in place, I still wonder if an improperly deburred rivet hole or a bad batch of resin will end up being the cause of my demise.
- rolleiflex 5y ago
  That sounds very interesting, have you written about it somewhere? I (and I’m sure many others here) would find it fascinating to read about.
  - diskzero 5y ago
    I wish I had the drive and discipline to write about some of the things I have done; airplanes, software projects, etc. but I just get so caught up in the process itself, I don't have the energy to to write about the process. I love reading other peoples descriptions of their journeys and am envious they can do amazing things and also write about them during and after.
  - coupdejarnac 5y ago
    Peter Sripol on youtube has made four airplanes from scratch.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
beprogrammed 5y ago
Dying buy your own creation is just the final tier of fun in inventing. Stand back, I built this sh*t myself! RIP buddy.
- agustif 5y ago
  There was this dude who jumped off the eiffel tower with his own -invention- flying jacket, didn't fly shit.
wincy 5y ago
He didn't have a helmet or so much as a seatbelt in the helicopter. The tail rotor flew off, hit the main rotor at a high speed, which knocked him sideways, out of the fuselage. It was at this point his head came into contact with the spinning main rotor, likely killing him instantly. A seatbelt seems like it would have saved his life. It was recorded, which is how I know this, I honestly wouldn't suggest looking for it as it's pretty horrific. It's sad that such a smart person didn't apply the most basic of safety protocol though.
- zapdrive 5y ago
  Safety comes last in India. Everywhere from construction to road, safety is usually the last thing people spend money on. I'm saying this as an Indian living in India.
  - wolfretcrap 5y ago
    Safety costs money. All those masks, gloves, helmets are not cheap in India. Saddest thing is even if it's being made in India the raw material for making this comes from China and taxed by Indian customs. If you've choice between buying yourself protective gears vs a new welder to weld the rotor which one do you think will be take him one step closer to his dream? Sure protective gear can give him more time but most have choices to make, if he could fly this helicopter off the ground, highly likely he also knew about the protective gears yet he choose to not have any maybe because he didn't have much money.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Another factor is that safety gears (atleast what is available in India) is not developed keeping the weather condition in mind. On construction sites, I have observed that in hot and humid weather, the workers hate wearing safety gears as it makes them very uncomfortable. Some even fear that it'll give them a heat stroke in such conditions, and thus avoid it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 5y ago
elromulous 5y ago
Relevant (and terribly interesting) wiki page[1]. I was impressed it was already updated with this accident. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_...
- lazy_kangaroo 5y ago
  weird read : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths
- jacquesm 5y ago
  On a technicality: this wasn't an invention, this was just poor execution. Same with the electric Tuk Tuk earlier, the line between re-implementation and invention is apparently blurring, personally I feel that the term 'invention' should be saved for things that were not done before.
  - system2 5y ago
    These inventors are usually from very poor countries trying to replicate a known vehicle. I strongly believe most of them are doing it to get some sort of recognition or to get funded to achieve financial freedom (or to find a job?). Tuk Tuk didn't show anything extra other than having solar panels on the sides. Simply, slapping several panels to a solar charger for lithium battery pack to operate an ebike-ish drive is not an invention in my opinion.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      There are quite a few professionally manufactured solar TukTuks.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
I saw the video. The rear propeller disintegrated during operation, seemingly from material failure. Two of the blades shot out to the ground and the third went into the main rotor a short while after, unbalancing it and causing the blades to hit the fuselage and the helicopter to jump, twist and throw the pilot out. Very sad accident indeed. It makes one think that maybe the ”hero inventor” stereotype does not lend itself well to our current level of technology: it’s too easy to fatally overlook something vitally important.
- bombcar 5y ago
  All those OSHA rules are "written in blood" as they say - and there are reasons for "stupid" rules like seatbelts and such - likely he would be alive had be been solidly strapped to the machine (thought of course he could have died other ways).
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    If not on this flight then on one of the subsequent ones, experimental helicopters are not something for those not schooled in materials science. The good news is that nobody else got injured or killed, that could have easily happened. When I built that windmill I spent hours planning individual welds, ensuring no inclusions, grinding the mating surfaces to get a perfect fit before welding, annealing them properly, magnafluxing them afterwards to make sure that it wouldn't come apart due to some weld inclusion. It had a safety factor of four because there was a house within throwing range of the blades, and a variable pitch windmill is essentially a helicopter in a different plane. Design speed was 600 RPM, the hub was spun to double that with some weights attached and the plane of rotation angled such that even if it came apart the debris would not cause any damage. As soon as you start spinning large things fast you need to be really careful. A windgust managed to overspeed it (it is very impressive to see your homemade windmill break the sound barrier at the tips) and the machine survived without any damage at all. That was very briefly the most power that it ever made. When the storm died down we pulled it down and modified the governor to ensure that that would never happen again, better safe than sorry.
    - 5y ago
hungryhobo 5y ago
as unfortunate as the event is, inventor is probably not the right description.
- OJFord 5y ago
  He can be an inventor without everything he does begin an invention.
vagrantJin 5y ago
Saw the "English version" of Indian news articles keep refering to the guy as a high school dropout in the headlines and sub headings. That's a mighty odd description that has nothing to do with the incident. I found that rather derisive and left a bitter aftertaste. Education does not neccesarily prevent accidents. Even spacecraft, built by the best engineers in the world, with the best materials, tested for years, routinely fail and sometimes get people killed after spending 100s of millions of dollars.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Perhaps it was not meant derisively but as an acknowledgement of his dedication and persistence to his goal? It's a popular meme - the school / college dropout that builds something in his garage ....
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  I would not read too much into it. For some reason, popular media loves to refer particularly to inventors or entrepreneurs in this way. Among the first things we learn from the media about people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is that they dropped out of college, and Albert Einstein did badly at school -- doesn't even matter if it's true or not! I don't know where this silliness comes from, but it's not usually intended to be derogatory or have any real relationship to the story being reported at all. And you're right, you don't need to have graduated highschool to know this was stupid and dangerous.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  > That's a mighty odd description that has nothing to do with the incident Being a high school drop-out is the reason he was killed. If he had been to a 4 year course in Mechanical engineering, he would be exposed to a lot of knowledge about the complexities of building machines
  - capableweb 5y ago
    What a weird way of looking at things. With that frame of mind, I could explain all the issues I've had ever. "Oh, I hit that wall on the way out from the parking? Too bad I didn't have a racing education, then it would have been prevented" and blame it on lack of education. The reason he was killed was because the main rotor hit his head. It did so because it wasn't following safety precautions. None of that has anything to do with his formal education.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
While not a helicopter, a Paramotor is surprisingly easy to build. Homemade Electric Paramotor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf60TTqDsfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf60TTqDsfM
bronlund 5y ago
I makes you wonder what other amazing inventions never came to be because the prototype had - eh - safety issues :)
livinginfear 5y ago
It's a shame that someone so dedicated to their passions had to die young. Did he spend any time modeling the physics of a helicopter control system? It would have to be of the most complex control systems to model. You don't just build a helicopter. Maybe he should have begun by building a scaled-down version instead. Maybe he did all of this due diligence, and just overlooked some unfortunate minor detail. Some of the comments here are blaming materials failure.
- system2 5y ago
  He made the helicopter from sheet metal. I don't think he really understood the high speed rotation's effects on them. A few grams of imbalance can totally destroy the rotors. Which probably what happened in this video.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 5y ago
Helicopters are very expensive to operate, because they rely heavily on parts that cannot be allowed to fail. Hence those parts and the maintenance on them is very expensive. A helicopter is an inherently unstable machine that wants to crash. Back in the 70's people would design and build radio controlled helicopters. They'd wreck them constantly while trying to learn to fly them. Being able to hover one was quite an accomplishment.
laichzeit0 5y ago
> His friends said that the helicopter had lifted two or three feet above the ground but soon the blade tore off and struck him Slightly inaccurate. If you watch the video you clearly see the blade tore off before it lifted at all.
juniperplant 5y ago
Video of the accident: https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-needed https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-need...
jwsteigerwalt 5y ago
I really take offense with some of the descriptions in the article. He did’t learn aerospace engineering from watching YouTube. As one of my professors (who had multiple degrees from India’s finest engineering schools) put it on the first day of class “helicopters are generally a bad idea…”
baybal2 5y ago
Scary thing to know. I tried to make a motoglider in my teen years, and could've been doing first test flights if not for my family sending me abroad few months before I can finish it.
TomAbel 5y ago
What type of rotor system did it have? Youtuber Peter Sripol has a video where he designed a rubber band powered helicopter with a working tail rotor to show the mechanics of how a helicopter works. In the video he shows and explains why a stability mechanism is important and at 2:56 in the video he says that you see all these people on YouTube making their own helicopters that don't know anything about helicopters building rigid rotors system and that he is glad the helicopters are underpowered because they would just end up killing the people around them. Here is the video its worth a watch from the start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFMMTsmsUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFMMTsmsUE
- balsam 5y ago
  Heres a video of the accident: https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-needed https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-need...
JabavuAdams 5y ago
Sad
rowland66 5y ago
Why is this guy being called an inventor? The helicopter was invented over 100 year ago (1907). He was a tinkerer or hobbyist.
RickJWagner 5y ago
Rest in Peace, Ismael. Who knows what the world has lost. Obviously a very accomplished inventor, he may have brought us great things.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mastrsushi 5y ago
Yeah this 3rd world trend of home made vehicles needs to stop. Or else prepare for a world of AFV styled compilation videos.
known 5y ago
http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ != https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism)

179 points by skbohra123 5y ago

Creating an almost-working helicopter with this level of resources is a huge achievement — it’s like a 5 foot guy making a slam dunk. To a seven footer it’s “just a helicopter” but honestly the world has lost a great talent.

Natsu 5y ago
One problem with helicopters is that even if you get it working mechanically, you have to actually fly it in a controlled manner. Having tried to fly a simulated helicopter with no control system, my conclusion is that I would've died in seconds from flipping over while trying to move forward. So I have lot of respect for the people who worked out the math on that.
zo1 5y ago
Tend to agree. We'll never know what other cool but smaller and safer things he would have worked on. Especially in a "Third world" country like India that still has a lot of room for low tech solutions, surrounded by a very high tech world that neglects that market.
bserge 5y ago
Personal achievement, definitely. For the rest of the world, it's nothing. It's like building an E-Bike, drone, car, boat, anything else - people will say "that's nice, but you can just buy a better one cheaper". And if your design has some good ideas, a big factory will just copy them.

brutus1213 5y ago

I was watching the Stuff Made Here Youtube channel (amazing channel btw) and was getting tempted by Shane's (guy running said channel) shop tour ([1]). Surely I could get tool X and operate it safely? But yeah .. I'd likely get myself maimed or worse. YouTube makes this sort of stuff seem so accessible, this is a reminder of the obvious .. power tools and moving parts can kill. As software people, we sometimes don't realize this. Stay safe y'all! I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? I thought high school shop class no longer exists. Makerspaces sometimes have kind souls willing to help but I have seen people do dangerous things happen. [1] just to be clear, the channel's author does talk about the importance of safety and doesn't promote recklessness. It is just me getting tempted to replicate.

vicda 5y ago
> I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? While getting mentored at jobs that takes OSHA violations seriously? Most youtube maker channels are full of comments complaining about how lacking the hosts are in their safety.
- rowanG077 5y ago
  I wouldn't put much stock in those comments. Every cat video also contains comments that the cat is either about to die or the owner is abusing the cat.
m4x 5y ago
> I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? Doing a trade apprenticeship is the common way to do it, but not an option for people looking to get in as a hobby. But even as a hobbyist, an "apprenticeship" is helpful if you can make friends who already have the experience you're after and are willing to hang out and build things with you. You can learn a lot on your own, but you will miss some important safety and productivity tips that just aren't obvious except through experience. And slightly off topic, but power tools are honestly not what frighten me - it's dust and chemical exposure that keeps me awake at night.
sezna 5y ago
> I thought high school shop class no longer exists. anecdata: I graduated high school in 2015 and had woodshop, auto shop, and metal shop classes. Also welding, and, for what it is worth, cosmetology. This was at a public school in Houston. We had wood and metal shop in middle school, as well. These classes are still offered at my school according to my relative who still works there.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Very common in rural areas too - I wonder if it's mainly being able to find someone to teach it.

SapporoChris 5y ago

>The inventor taught himself the basics of aeronautical engineering using YouTube and over two years built a single-seater helicopter using a car engine and scrap metal. I am speaking without enough knowledge. But I have to wonder if this serves as a harsh criticism of Youtube. I do understand Youtube is a mixed bag of resources. More structured learning might have resulted in better understanding of material strengths, testing, and safety. Inspite of the failure, I admire his pursuit and find the article inspirational.

mgarfias 5y ago
It also could have been a fabrication problem. A stress riser in a highly stressed part is going to fail sooner rather than later.
q-rews 5y ago
> I have to wonder if this serves as a harsh criticism of Youtube That's not how I see it at all. The guy built a working helicopter from scratch watching YouTube; That's crazy (good). Even with structured learning he made the helicopter from scraps so it would have never been "safe" by modern standards. Plenty of other people died trying to fly their own device.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
Better not let the commoners learn too much. They might hurt themselves.
- PikachuEXE 5y ago
  I guess it's caused by not learning enough instead of learning too much?
  - ma2rten 5y ago
    Maybe either would have worked: learning less or learning more.
  - lmz 5y ago

redis_mlc 5y ago

Most of the original airplane inventors died testing their inventions, and even more helicopter and submarine - and half of the X-plane pilots. It sounds like he was using the "tie it to the ground with a rope" technique, which most of the pioneers used, so credit for that. I'd probably go further than just a rope (a telescoping ground mounting with pipes), but note that ground resonance can still destroy a helicopter and kill you. Building personal full-size airplane models is common across India and China, but this is the first time I heard of one with an engine and that was flyable. (In the US, most people can afford to be involved in aviation, but it's 10x outside the affordability of the average person in the developing world.) Hanna Reitsch, the famous woman Nazi test pilot, actually became famous for demoing the first production helicopter, the Fa 61, daily at a "fair" inside a building (!), so some people are just really talented at flying. Ironically, after being captured by the British, she was released because although she was a great test pilot at manipulating the controls, she knew nothing about aeronautical engineering beyond subjective descriptions like, "the controls were too heavy", etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch

diskzero 5y ago

It is sad his passion to build and create ended with this accident. I have built and flown my own aircraft and even with excellent supervision and safety procedures in place, I still wonder if an improperly deburred rivet hole or a bad batch of resin will end up being the cause of my demise.

rolleiflex 5y ago
That sounds very interesting, have you written about it somewhere? I (and I’m sure many others here) would find it fascinating to read about.
- diskzero 5y ago
  I wish I had the drive and discipline to write about some of the things I have done; airplanes, software projects, etc. but I just get so caught up in the process itself, I don't have the energy to to write about the process. I love reading other peoples descriptions of their journeys and am envious they can do amazing things and also write about them during and after.
- coupdejarnac 5y ago
  Peter Sripol on youtube has made four airplanes from scratch.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

beprogrammed 5y ago

Dying buy your own creation is just the final tier of fun in inventing. Stand back, I built this sh*t myself! RIP buddy.

agustif 5y ago
There was this dude who jumped off the eiffel tower with his own -invention- flying jacket, didn't fly shit.

wincy 5y ago

He didn't have a helmet or so much as a seatbelt in the helicopter. The tail rotor flew off, hit the main rotor at a high speed, which knocked him sideways, out of the fuselage. It was at this point his head came into contact with the spinning main rotor, likely killing him instantly. A seatbelt seems like it would have saved his life. It was recorded, which is how I know this, I honestly wouldn't suggest looking for it as it's pretty horrific. It's sad that such a smart person didn't apply the most basic of safety protocol though.

zapdrive 5y ago
Safety comes last in India. Everywhere from construction to road, safety is usually the last thing people spend money on. I'm saying this as an Indian living in India.
- wolfretcrap 5y ago
  Safety costs money. All those masks, gloves, helmets are not cheap in India. Saddest thing is even if it's being made in India the raw material for making this comes from China and taxed by Indian customs. If you've choice between buying yourself protective gears vs a new welder to weld the rotor which one do you think will be take him one step closer to his dream? Sure protective gear can give him more time but most have choices to make, if he could fly this helicopter off the ground, highly likely he also knew about the protective gears yet he choose to not have any maybe because he didn't have much money.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Another factor is that safety gears (atleast what is available in India) is not developed keeping the weather condition in mind. On construction sites, I have observed that in hot and humid weather, the workers hate wearing safety gears as it makes them very uncomfortable. Some even fear that it'll give them a heat stroke in such conditions, and thus avoid it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
5y ago

elromulous 5y ago

Relevant (and terribly interesting) wiki page[1]. I was impressed it was already updated with this accident. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_...

lazy_kangaroo 5y ago
weird read : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths
jacquesm 5y ago
On a technicality: this wasn't an invention, this was just poor execution. Same with the electric Tuk Tuk earlier, the line between re-implementation and invention is apparently blurring, personally I feel that the term 'invention' should be saved for things that were not done before.
- system2 5y ago
  These inventors are usually from very poor countries trying to replicate a known vehicle. I strongly believe most of them are doing it to get some sort of recognition or to get funded to achieve financial freedom (or to find a job?). Tuk Tuk didn't show anything extra other than having solar panels on the sides. Simply, slapping several panels to a solar charger for lithium battery pack to operate an ebike-ish drive is not an invention in my opinion.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There are quite a few professionally manufactured solar TukTuks.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

I saw the video. The rear propeller disintegrated during operation, seemingly from material failure. Two of the blades shot out to the ground and the third went into the main rotor a short while after, unbalancing it and causing the blades to hit the fuselage and the helicopter to jump, twist and throw the pilot out. Very sad accident indeed. It makes one think that maybe the ”hero inventor” stereotype does not lend itself well to our current level of technology: it’s too easy to fatally overlook something vitally important.

bombcar 5y ago
All those OSHA rules are "written in blood" as they say - and there are reasons for "stupid" rules like seatbelts and such - likely he would be alive had be been solidly strapped to the machine (thought of course he could have died other ways).
- jacquesm 5y ago
  If not on this flight then on one of the subsequent ones, experimental helicopters are not something for those not schooled in materials science. The good news is that nobody else got injured or killed, that could have easily happened. When I built that windmill I spent hours planning individual welds, ensuring no inclusions, grinding the mating surfaces to get a perfect fit before welding, annealing them properly, magnafluxing them afterwards to make sure that it wouldn't come apart due to some weld inclusion. It had a safety factor of four because there was a house within throwing range of the blades, and a variable pitch windmill is essentially a helicopter in a different plane. Design speed was 600 RPM, the hub was spun to double that with some weights attached and the plane of rotation angled such that even if it came apart the debris would not cause any damage. As soon as you start spinning large things fast you need to be really careful. A windgust managed to overspeed it (it is very impressive to see your homemade windmill break the sound barrier at the tips) and the machine survived without any damage at all. That was very briefly the most power that it ever made. When the storm died down we pulled it down and modified the governor to ensure that that would never happen again, better safe than sorry.
  - 5y ago

hungryhobo 5y ago

as unfortunate as the event is, inventor is probably not the right description.

OJFord 5y ago
He can be an inventor without everything he does begin an invention.

vagrantJin 5y ago

Saw the "English version" of Indian news articles keep refering to the guy as a high school dropout in the headlines and sub headings. That's a mighty odd description that has nothing to do with the incident. I found that rather derisive and left a bitter aftertaste. Education does not neccesarily prevent accidents. Even spacecraft, built by the best engineers in the world, with the best materials, tested for years, routinely fail and sometimes get people killed after spending 100s of millions of dollars.

webmobdev 5y ago
Perhaps it was not meant derisively but as an acknowledgement of his dedication and persistence to his goal? It's a popular meme - the school / college dropout that builds something in his garage ....
throwawaylinux 5y ago
I would not read too much into it. For some reason, popular media loves to refer particularly to inventors or entrepreneurs in this way. Among the first things we learn from the media about people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is that they dropped out of college, and Albert Einstein did badly at school -- doesn't even matter if it's true or not! I don't know where this silliness comes from, but it's not usually intended to be derogatory or have any real relationship to the story being reported at all. And you're right, you don't need to have graduated highschool to know this was stupid and dangerous.
kumarvvr 5y ago
> That's a mighty odd description that has nothing to do with the incident Being a high school drop-out is the reason he was killed. If he had been to a 4 year course in Mechanical engineering, he would be exposed to a lot of knowledge about the complexities of building machines
- capableweb 5y ago
  What a weird way of looking at things. With that frame of mind, I could explain all the issues I've had ever. "Oh, I hit that wall on the way out from the parking? Too bad I didn't have a racing education, then it would have been prevented" and blame it on lack of education. The reason he was killed was because the main rotor hit his head. It did so because it wasn't following safety precautions. None of that has anything to do with his formal education.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

While not a helicopter, a Paramotor is surprisingly easy to build. Homemade Electric Paramotor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf60TTqDsfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf60TTqDsfM

bronlund 5y ago

I makes you wonder what other amazing inventions never came to be because the prototype had - eh - safety issues :)

livinginfear 5y ago

It's a shame that someone so dedicated to their passions had to die young. Did he spend any time modeling the physics of a helicopter control system? It would have to be of the most complex control systems to model. You don't just build a helicopter. Maybe he should have begun by building a scaled-down version instead. Maybe he did all of this due diligence, and just overlooked some unfortunate minor detail. Some of the comments here are blaming materials failure.

system2 5y ago
He made the helicopter from sheet metal. I don't think he really understood the high speed rotation's effects on them. A few grams of imbalance can totally destroy the rotors. Which probably what happened in this video.

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WalterBright 5y ago

Helicopters are very expensive to operate, because they rely heavily on parts that cannot be allowed to fail. Hence those parts and the maintenance on them is very expensive. A helicopter is an inherently unstable machine that wants to crash. Back in the 70's people would design and build radio controlled helicopters. They'd wreck them constantly while trying to learn to fly them. Being able to hover one was quite an accomplishment.

laichzeit0 5y ago

> His friends said that the helicopter had lifted two or three feet above the ground but soon the blade tore off and struck him Slightly inaccurate. If you watch the video you clearly see the blade tore off before it lifted at all.

juniperplant 5y ago

Video of the accident: https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-needed https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-need...

jwsteigerwalt 5y ago

I really take offense with some of the descriptions in the article. He did’t learn aerospace engineering from watching YouTube. As one of my professors (who had multiple degrees from India’s finest engineering schools) put it on the first day of class “helicopters are generally a bad idea…”

baybal2 5y ago

Scary thing to know. I tried to make a motoglider in my teen years, and could've been doing first test flights if not for my family sending me abroad few months before I can finish it.

TomAbel 5y ago

What type of rotor system did it have? Youtuber Peter Sripol has a video where he designed a rubber band powered helicopter with a working tail rotor to show the mechanics of how a helicopter works. In the video he shows and explains why a stability mechanism is important and at 2:56 in the video he says that you see all these people on YouTube making their own helicopters that don't know anything about helicopters building rigid rotors system and that he is glad the helicopters are underpowered because they would just end up killing the people around them. Here is the video its worth a watch from the start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFMMTsmsUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFMMTsmsUE

balsam 5y ago
Heres a video of the accident: https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-needed https://leakreality.com/video/19400/a-new-test-dummy-is-need...

JabavuAdams 5y ago

Sad

rowland66 5y ago

Why is this guy being called an inventor? The helicopter was invented over 100 year ago (1907). He was a tinkerer or hobbyist.

RickJWagner 5y ago

Rest in Peace, Ismael. Who knows what the world has lost. Obviously a very accomplished inventor, he may have brought us great things.

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mastrsushi 5y ago

Yeah this 3rd world trend of home made vehicles needs to stop. Or else prepare for a world of AFV styled compilation videos.

known 5y ago

http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ != https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism)