Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#161

Post by wolfretcrap » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

amjd wrote: post #113

wolfretcrap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agree with this completely. Moreover, India as a country has a lax attitude towards safety. When you are fighting to get the basic stuff, the safety aspect does not even cross most people's minds. This can be observed pretty much everywhere. In most construction sites here we don't see the workers wearing hard hats, which are seen as a bare necessity in developed countries. As someone pointed out, in this case the ac…

>In most construction sites here we don't see the workers wearing hard hats

Well they do it mostly because laws are not strict in India even if they are its easy to bribe off the enforcer and this saves the contractor money while he maximize the profit.

It's not that average Indian is more greedy than average European it's just the enforcement system in India is easy to bribe away, so risk for not following proper safety guidelines is less in India and an open opportunity to save money on protective gears.

The true failure comes from average Indian not being able to demand better standards from those in power like Europeans have managed to.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#162

Post by chakkepolja » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

wolfretcrap wrote: post #157

mekkkkkk wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere about the postal network in India and how it suffered from a widespread lack of organized addresses. If it's still true, perhaps this is a contributing factor to why it might be hard to keep up and achieve scale for eBay clones?

No logistics is no longer the issue. Arrival of amazon and Flipkart fueled lots of logistics companies, now it's all sorted and amazon delivers to even the remotest villages in India.

Remote villager here and no, amazon doesn't deliver here (have to go to nearby town). But I agree with your broader point.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#163

Post by sombremesa » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

wolfretcrap wrote: post #160

sombremesa wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, less of a parts and more of a culture issue w.r.t. the lack of safety mechanisms, though the difficulty in sourcing quality parts certainly played its part in this incident. All the cars have seat belts, so it would’ve been pretty easy to obtain one compared to the rest of the parts involved here. None of the auto rickshaws have seat belts, for example, and lots of construction workers forgo helmets. No one care…

>Yep, less of a parts and more of a culture issue w.r.t. the lack of safety mechanisms, though the difficulty in sourcing quality parts certainly played its part in this incident Who doesn't want to live longer? I even know a local welder who went to local welding supply store and all they had was shade 11 lens, through which he couldn't see a damn thing and now he welds without any shade. That's the state of affair…

> Who doesn't want to live longer?

You answer your own question here:

> Lot of people don't wear helmet because it's hot and humid in India and its really hard to wear it in 38*C in bright sun on 70% RH.

and here:

> Most look for escapes and might not even be paying attention to things on road.

This culture is not amenable to valuing lives very highly.

I've noticed that a lot of comments here echo the sentiment above and you're the only person defending this attitude as being borne out of the lack of convenience (which no one is arguing with, however, that's no excuse in places where human life is actually valued).

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#164

Post by somedude895 » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

fy20 wrote: post #28

eurasiantiger wrote: post #18

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…

> It makes one think that maybe the ”hero inventor” stereotype does not lend itself well to our current level of technology I'm sure if you look at the history of inventors there are many people who were killed along the way. The Wright brothers were heavily inspired by Otto Lilienthal, who was killed in an accident flying one of his gliders. Of course this doesn't make this any less tragic, my prayers go out to this…

There's a list of inventors who were killed by their own inventions on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_...

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#165

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#166

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

zapdrive wrote: post #33

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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#167

Post by vjdingdong » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #69

vagrantJin wrote: post #48

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,…

> 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

True. His ignorance proved fatal.

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#168

Post by 45ure » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #78

Natsu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nowhere near the same level, but one of my proudest moments in gaming as a teenager was being able to complete a single mission in Search and Rescue 4. It took many, many hours of futzing with the game interface, and even more hours reading up on helicopter controls on the Internet. Without the latter, I couldn't really understand what's going on with the controls. I know it's just a videogame, but it gave me a deep…

>but it gave me a deep respect for helicopters

You should check out Felix Baumgartner and Fred North on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/therealfelixbaumgartner/

https://www.instagram.com/fred_north/

(login required, unfortunately, or you can get Barinsta from F-Droid)

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#169

Post by ncr100 » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

wolfretcrap wrote: post #160

sombremesa wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, less of a parts and more of a culture issue w.r.t. the lack of safety mechanisms, though the difficulty in sourcing quality parts certainly played its part in this incident. All the cars have seat belts, so it would’ve been pretty easy to obtain one compared to the rest of the parts involved here. None of the auto rickshaws have seat belts, for example, and lots of construction workers forgo helmets. No one care…

>Yep, less of a parts and more of a culture issue w.r.t. the lack of safety mechanisms, though the difficulty in sourcing quality parts certainly played its part in this incident Who doesn't want to live longer? I even know a local welder who went to local welding supply store and all they had was shade 11 lens, through which he couldn't see a damn thing and now he welds without any shade. That's the state of affair…

All very good examples of the increased difficulty of life for the group of people you are talking about, @wolfretcrap.

I wonder if this overall difficulty shapes a person's attitude to be more risk-tolerant?

Like, "I haven't died yet from XYZ, and I might die from ABC tomorrow, so therefore I am comfortable participating in risky behavior PQR today!"

?

Re: Indian inventor dies in homemade helicopter accident

#170

Post by datavirtue » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #67

wolfretcrap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agree so much. There is a huge gap in availability of quality components in India. Very difficult to get and even if we get, very costly. But I guess it is time for us to have stores like the ones in US, large hardware stores.

Where you can't find anything including anyone to help you?

I have to source various hardware for building projects and with five big box stores within a few minutes of my house it is always an absolute pain, if not impossible, to find what I need. I walked into Menards the other day and couldn't get 2" cabinetry screws...a commonly stocked basic fastener. Our big box hardware stores have turned into seasonal home goods stores.