A Homemade Helicopter from Somaliland

[Note: Somaliland is different than Somalia.]

These are the kinds of stories and projects that you just can’t make up. We’ve written about Nigerian Mubarak Abdullahi’s home made helicopter a couple years ago from old car parts. It appears that 3 Somaliland men built a helicopter too, using scrap metal and an old van engine.

Much like the Nigerian one, there is no video footage of this one flying. It’s not easy to build a machine that looks and acts like a helicopter, but it’s a lot easier than making one that flies. It does take a lot of drive, thinking and skill to build even these models, but I won’t be truly impressed until I see a video of one taking off and landing.

“The trio, Mohamed Abdi Barkadle, Saed Abdi Jide and Abdi Farah Lidan said the purpose of their helicopter was to be used to fight fire in the city and surrounding area. They receive no major sponsors, financial nor material support from any one including the government, it is a three men vision and ingenuity.”

Now, the question is… Could we get the three (and the helicopter) to Maker Faire Africa in Nairobi this August?

Author: Erik Hersman

Erik is the owner of White African, a blog about technology and Africa. He is the co-founder of Zangu, a new web and mobile phone application that he hopes will change communication in Africa. AfriGadget is another web project of his, not that he doesn't have enough of those already...

14 thoughts on “A Homemade Helicopter from Somaliland”

  1. Note: Somaliland is still like Somalia but Somalia is not like Somaliland

    Also unless they get a better engine I don’t thinks its gonna fly. you need to rotate fast and you can have an engine die on you in mid air.

  2. Even though i did not see the chopper taking off. This is very encouraging. Somaliland had been peaceful and they even have mechanism in place and working institution like university and the port. This is unlike the Somalia Mogadishu where guns have achieved anything that gun can achieve on this universe. Unfortunately, the breakaway somaliland state is not recognized by the UN, making it very hard for them to have access to funding and other international well being that goes with a recognized state. I wish that UN will wake up one day from slumber and realize that recognizing Somaliland is a pillar to peace process for the whole Somalia. Keep up guys

  3. Folks,
    This is great! I love to see it. Please don’t understimate the technical-know-how and the expertise of the Somaliland Engineers. You will hear some mericals down the road…. keep up the good work guys, I am proud of you.

  4. Man, this just Makmendeyyy.

    Apart from the motor and weight, the blades also seem to be too short + the vibrations… but else it’s a very fine approach. Given that it costs some money to come up with something like that, it’ll be interesting to see where they’ll take it to from this point.

  5. You can tell this helicopter has never taken off because its tail rotor does not work. The moment the main motor is strong enough and pulls the helicopter’s body from the ground, the body will begin to spin uncontrollably in the opposite direction of the main rotor. You need the tail rotor to counteract that.

  6. I been to Hargeisa (the capital of Somaliland un-recognised state) and seen those 3. They said it was not finished but were checking the blades. But I highly doubt that this is air worthy but nevertheless most home-made helicopters from the developed world are not air-worthy too so I have too clap to that!

  7. What a nice idea, my admirations! I fullfilled a couple of years ago my own flying project, and I was also very happy! I designed a little airplaine for my free time. It was a great moment in my life.

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