Amateur pilot demolishes homebrew plane, dubs attempt "partly successful"
By Darren Murph 
posted Apr 13th 2007 5:06AM
posted Apr 13th 2007 5:06AM
C'mon folks, it shouldn't take an aeronautical engineer to figure out that flying an aircraft isn't exactly a cakewalk, and as we've seen time and time again, "amateur pilots" just aren't likely to land in a safe fashion. China's Li Xianfeng has become the latest daredevil to risk life and limb to satisfy his "lifelong dream" of flying, but he wasn't fortunate enough to complete "perfect landing" addendum. His self-built aluminum-framed plane was demolished after he spent a whopping 120-seconds "hovering about 50-feet above the ground," as his pilot instruction manuals clearly didn't provide the kind of in-depth training one would expect at, say, flight school. Amazingly, Li somehow felt that his hospitalizing crash was "partly successful," and he even spoke of his desire to try it once more when his current wounds healed. We'd respectfully advise a virtual flight next time, Mr. Xianfeng.[Via Fark]
I guess his attempt to make it out of China was unsuccessful. He should have trained more on World of Warcraft's mounts before the attempt. Oh well, gotta get back on the horse right?
C'mon give the guy some street cred, he BUILT his own plane and flew it for 2 minute straight, not exactly a Wright brothers moment but damn it flew!
Actually didn't the wright brothers fly for 15 seconds on their first attempt?
"C'mon give the guy some street cred, he BUILT his own plane and flew it for 2 minute straight, not exactly a Wright brothers moment but damn it flew!"
- Exactly my thoughts :-)
As a pilot I can actually that was a good flight, a great one is when you can use the aircraft again.
More likely Mr. Li
I know this is totally splitting hairs here, but you should say, "We'd respectfully advise a virtual flight next time, Mr. Li." The Chinese use their surnames first. Bruce Lee, is actually "Li Shao Long." Li is one of the most common (if the THE most common) surnames in China.
Again, totally inconsequential, but I'm in an inconsequential-type mood.
The one Chinese guy I know is named Chao Li. Coincidence? I think not.
Ah, I see somebody beat me to that.
It would be cool if we could actually see what that plane looks like.....
Actually, if you read it closely you'll realize that he built a helicopter, not an airplane. Airplanes don't hover (generally speaking), helicopters do. I heard about this guy some weeks back. He's the first person in China to be allowed to build and fly a helicopter. I heard that he was building a Roterway which is a homebuilt helicopter. The parts and design are available here: http://www.rotorway.com .
Learning to fly a helicopter is nothing like learning to fly a plane. It's ten times more difficult and should not be taken lightly. There are tons of idiots here that think they can learn to fly a helicopter on their own. They build their own and then attempt to fly it without a flight instructor. Each time they do it they usually destroy a perfectly good helicopter and usually kill themselves in the process. Darwin at work.
No, he's really talking about a plane. Helicopters aren't 6.5 metres long with a 9.2 metre wingspan. Or repeatedly referred to as a "plane."
tiuk ... erf... Do I know you???
That depends, do you go to UofW?
Nope, guess we don't know each other... odd you have a friend with the exact same name as I do. =p Oh well.
Heh, small world.