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Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

thenationalnews.com

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Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#121

Post by tyingq »

SapporoChris wrote: post #3

>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 strengt…

There are an insane number of bad examples to follow on YouTube around chemistry, explosives, radioactive materials, electricity, mechanical devices, high powered lasers, etc.

YouTube does occasionally take some of it down, but typically not until it's popular enough that it gets flagged by somebody that cares.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#122

Post by mLuby »

kumarvvr wrote: post #65
wincy wrote: post #15

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…

Was he smart? I give credit to him that he is intelligent, dedicated, hard working, etc. But smart? If he was smart, he would know that a helicopter is one of the most complex flying machines ever designed. Everything is so critical, from design of the mechanical system, right down to quality of welds and quality of material used. I have seen pics and video of the copter. Its a frame, and some blades, welded in some…

The same could be said for nearly every pioneer of the sky (and sea) and for most explorers in general. Many died, and we celebrate the successes for de-risking that frontier for the rest of us.

> his efforts could have been used somewhere else.

I take your sentiment to be heartfelt, but putting one's competitive advantage to the collective above one's dreams sounds rather joyless. Anyway, the Market provides ample incentive to abandon dreams and chase one's maximum value; perhaps it just wasn't offering enough in this man's case.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#123

Post by Aeolun »

wolfretcrap wrote: post #34
wincy wrote: post #15

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…

I am also a farmer and inventor based in India. Problem is that we do not have many tools, indian made tools cost 3-4x of Chinese tools and have 2x worse quality on average 80% things which exist in West (made in China) does not exist in India on top India doesn't make many things. Plus we suffer from too many middlemen problem, where the end product is inflated away beyond the affordability of masses. Not everything…

He was able to procure helicopter parts, presumably he was able to procure a rope to tie himself down.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#124

Post by throwaway0a5e »

fho wrote: post #103
toomanybeersies wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met enough old blokes missing fingers from workplace accidents to know that's not the case.

Yep ... most commonly accidents with table saws ... easily preventable by just not putting your fingers in the way of the blade.

Just keep fingers away from moving things in general.

There's a lot of edge cases where you can get away with it but it's a bad habit to get into.

That said, the people who complain that literally every bit of content with a power tool doesn't start with the introductory lecture about safety need to go stick their hand in a wood chipper. That's like asking for every math class to start by reiterating basic arithmetic. It's an unnecessary drag on everyone for nothing. The people who need to be told to wear safety glasses aren't watching a youtube video on how to build a race car cage, they're not at that level, and the people who are watching it don't need to be told.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#125

Post by exDM69 »

Natsu wrote: post #35
wincy wrote: post #15

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…

Back in college, one of my advisors was a control systems engineer. He showed me the matrix of PDEs for the helicopter & the control system. There was also a simulator where the height of the helicopter was fixed and you could just tilt the main rotor forward or back to move and you could try this with or without a control system. The helicopter was completely uncontrollable without the control system. In the simulat…

There still are helicopters that are controlled purely mechanically with no assistance from electronics etc. There are lots of small helicopters, not unlike the craft in the article, flying every day.

Flying helicopters is pretty difficult (I've only done it in sims, and I'm moderately good at it after a lot of hours), but most of them are not like unstable jet fighters that can't fly without computer control.

That said, autopilots and gyro stabilization are pretty common in modern helicopters.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#126

Post by throwaway0a5e »

q-rews wrote: post #11
brutus1213 wrote: post #2

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…

It's kind of a problem when people don't like to RTFM which contains all the warnings necessary. Which reminds me I used to play with my father’s power tools on my own when I was 8-10 years old. Good times.

In the modern era TFM includes so many warnings and disclaimers as to be nonsensical.

When nothing had warnings unless it needed it you took the warnings seriously. When a screwdriver comes with a warning and internet commenters get whipped into a frenzy because some youtuber didn't preface an advanced topic with an introductory safety lecture you don't know what to take seriously and you are effectively on your own. It's the same old information overload problem we've seen in other areas.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#127

Post by TomAbel »

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

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#128

Post by [deleted] »

bruce343434 wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, m…

How much power did it generate?

[deleted]

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#129

Post by tyingq »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #59
brutus1213 wrote: post #2

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…

Safety is pretty easy, just envision what would happen if you fucked up. Then take precautions so that when you do, you won't lose a limb or an eye. > I'm also curious how one builds up strong manufacturing skills safely? A lot of technical colleges/polytechnics offer short courses for skills like welding or cabinetmaking, often during the evening.

>Safety is pretty easy, just envision what would happen if you fucked up

I do see what you mean, but you can still get hurt even if you do everything "right". Angle grinders, for example, can shatter even if you don't break any safety rules. Hopefully your safety equipment works, but really hard shards flying around at 10,000 rpm are unpredictable.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#130

Post by fho »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #124
fho wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep ... most commonly accidents with table saws ... easily preventable by just not putting your fingers in the way of the blade.

Just keep fingers away from moving things in general. There's a lot of edge cases where you can get away with it but it's a bad habit to get into. That said, the people who complain that literally every bit of content with a power tool doesn't start with the introductory lecture about safety need to go stick their hand in a wood chipper. That's like asking for every math class to start by reiterating basic arithmetic…

I've been involved in two open workspaces / hackerspaces ... one had a very open "use at your own risk" attitude towards powertools and you just signed a waiver that they are not responsible, the other had a "you are not allowed to use our powertools" policy for insurance reasons.

Not surprisingly the second workshop was not used at all, which is somewhat of an antithesis to being an open workshop in the first place ...

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