Chinese villager with no engineering expertise stopped from flying helicopter made with boat engine

Chen Ruihua says he learnt to make the helicopter using information online

(Representative) A man flying his home made helicopter in east China's Zhejiang province flying in 2013 (AFP via Getty Images)

A villager in China’s Jiangsu province was stopped by the police for attempting to test-fly his home-made helicopter, local reports said.

A press release by the local police said that Chen Ruihua, 59, was stopped from testing his aircraft after he was caught with it by the roadside.

“We saw him standing there with his helicopter and asked him what he was doing, and we found out that he had been test-flying the aircraft before we spotted him and had done so several times,” a policeman, surnamed Wang, was quoted as saying to the South China Morning Post.

Police asked Mr Chen to not fly the aircraft and visited his house several times to check on whether he was attempting to test it again.

Home-made aircraft can be operated in China only with a license.

Mr Chen said he learnt how to build the aircraft from the internet and made the current aircraft using a boat engine and parts purchased online and from hardware stores.

The aircraft is modelled on a Russian rotorcraft and can fly hundreds of metres according to Mr Chen and has a folding fuselage.

“I worked on this helicopter for about a year; so far I’ve spent about 200,000 yuan (US$31,250) on the hobby,” he said.

According to the police release, Mr Chen said that that he has no engineering experience but had so far built three helicopters.

This was the third helicopter he built, while the previous two attempts had failed.

He said that he was meaning to use the helicopter not merely for flying but to help with his farming activities.

“For example, it may be converted into a drone and utilised as an agricultural machine to spray pesticides on farmlands, or used to assist in firefighting,” he said.