Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

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.

It also could have been a fabrication problem. A stress riser in a highly stressed part is going to fail sooner rather than later.

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

> 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.

> 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.