Homemade Multicopter Manned Flight

Mankind have been enthralled by flying since like forever and now that flying is over a century old, mankind has yet again in the quest and this time with the dream of making flying an everyday thing, as a form of urban mobility, and thanks to the technology available to us today, it prompted adventurous and brave souls to create their very own flying contraptions that are just about as impressive as they are dangerous. The video you see is one such creations and it has been going for quite a while now, with tweaks and improvements made along the way.

Homemade Multicopter Manned Flight
The pilot’s point-of-view clearly close the rotors are to him

This particular homemade flying rig took on an eight-rotor, pilot-above-the-rotors configuration and if the short history of homemade multi-rotor aircraft has taught us anything, it would be rotor(s) overhead offers a more stable flight. That said, we do not know the rationale behind’s the setup of this DIY flying machine, but it works anyway, albeit a little twitchy as expected from a rig like this. Each rotor is powered by a pistol engine, which explains the ding this multicopter makes when powered up and like most RC multi-rotor aircrafts of sort, it has to be started one rotor at a time.

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It has no cabin; it has just a futuristic seat where the pilot sits and still has enough room to stretch out his legs, and control is executed through a modified remote controller. In any case, it was a job well done (though by no means the safest) cos’ it is not an easy task to build one and get it to function as intended. Check out the test flight in the embedded video below. For those who has no patience for the history and stories, you may want to jump straight to 1:38 for the action bits.

Images: screengrab from YouTube video.