Chinese man creates a rudimentary working aircraft from salvaged motorcycle engines

There are some practical conceptions that tediously fuel our everyday life process. And there are some innovative conceptions that altogether seem to transcend the realm of possibility, while standing (or in this case flying!) as a testament to the very adventurous will of human spirit. Certainly belonging to the second category, is a wondrously novel flying craft concocted by one Chinese farmer/automobile mechanic. Without any formal education to aid him in his ambitious DIY endeavor, Shu Mansheng has fascinatingly managed to create what one might call a real 'flying saucer', powered by several motorcycle engines.

Flying Saucer

Following the principle of vertical take-off

The extraordinary design features a circular open cockpit like space (in the middle) surrounded by a set of four circular rings. At the base is a large spoke like structure that supports the whole monstrosity along with the rings. Now, coming to the drive-train, the designer has salvaged eight conventional motorcycle engines for powering the flying contraption. These engines (mounted vertically) individually power eight different fixed-pitch wooden propellers. Four of the propellers are contained within the rings, while the other four of them are kept free along the main spoke. The overall symmetrically arrayed setup provides that sense of balance on all sides of the craft.

Now, coming to maneuvering, the aircraft will obviously follow the vertical take-off principle. For that to happen, each and every one of the wooden propellers needs to have an exact (and steady) magnitude of rotations. This will provide a greater degree of total rotational motion that gets converted to an uniform upward thrust. From what we see (in the video), Mansheng has still some scope for improvement in this flight section. Though, according to sources he did manage to fly the craft 7m above the ground for a distance of 30m, before a crash.

Driven by wooden propellers

The ingenious project in itself was actually started by the designer back in October 2010. The inadequacy of the drive-train failed the first flight to be. A second version was designed in April 2011, but again this contraption proved to be too much heavy. Finally, a lighter third version was conceived, which did manage to stay off the ground for some brief yet proud moments for the creator.

So at the end of the day, it might be called a success, though one can't be too sure about the inherent safety features. In any case, we give our heartfelt salute to Mansheng, and hope to see a more developed (and safe!) iteration of his very own ultra-light flying saucer.

Via: AVWeb