Russian man, 88, dies after homemade helicopter falls apart on takeoff
An 88-year-old Russian man, who gained local fame for building his own aircraft, has died after attempting to take off in a homemade helicopter.
The man, a resident of the Omutninsky district of western Russia’s Kirov Region, attempted the flight in the self-built aircraft on Thursday, the Volga Region Transport Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release Friday.
However, the helicopter self-destructed during take-off, it added.
The aircraft failed to lift off and, instead, “during engine startup, while still on the ground and as the engine power was building, the main rotor blades detached. This caused injuries to the pilot, born in 1937,” the district emergency services told Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti on Friday.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/01/europe/russian-man-dies-homemade-helicopter-intl-scliOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
20 replies
considering how people that age usually die, a homemade helicopter accident sounds rather preferable to most of the alternatives.
I knew a guy who built little one person helicopters as a hobby. He bought kits for that, though
Fun fact: sometimes he would take his pet skunk up into the sky with him
Living his best life. A man worth emulating.
An absolute Renaissance man.
more of us should be like that man
There was an old guy, former aerospace engineer, that came to our shop to get his plane blueprints reproduced for sale. LOL, he made bank after his story hit an aviation mag.
He's still at it!
https://www.thatchercx4.com/
Surprised he's only 75. Looked older than that 12-years ago. Weird. Not sure he hasn't died and still has his name on the company.
Well fuck me, no one ever told me there was gore when you read between the lines
Amateur mistake, everyone knows you always let someone else (preferably a dumb friend) test your products first.
All of his dumb friends, surely died years ago.
or went to ukraine, and got liberated by drones
Dude. What a fucking mad man. And I love it. That's how I want to go out. (building an unbelievably complex piece of machinery in my back yard. I'm thinking my own personal tower of doom?!)
That looks like a gyrocopter, not a helicopter. Which is something a hobbyist could plausibly build by themselves.
Likes look a bare minimum helicopter. https://tinkersource.com/helicopters/mini-1-ultralight-homebuilt-helicopter-plans/
Guess you're right. That thing looks like a veritable death trap.
I think you just need a rotor part and a metal part. And a toolbox
At that age, why not?
There are way worse ways to go I guess
better than getting droned trying to invade your former ally I guess.
Death by misadventure. That's what I hope gets carved on my tombstone, too. But I would have built an autogyro.
One of the better ways to die at that age, especially in a country where the average male life expectancy is 68 years