Homemade airplane

Gabriel Nderitu, a Kenyan I.T specialist with no background in aviation engineering, has built a plane from scratch, apparently using odds and ends of whatever he could find. How did he do it? Well, he researched the whole thing on the internet!

The aircraft has a Toyota engine, a wooden propeller, and aluminum siding for the wings. And it's even collapsible. It breaks down into smaller pieces for transport. Neat, huh? As the video shows, this is a guy with a dream and the gumption to try to make that dream come true.

There's an article in the Guardian which contains a few more details:

Using the engine of a Toyota Corolla, the wheels of a Mini, instructions downloaded from Wikipedia and a professed grasp of the lift equation, the 42-year-old IT engineer has built his own aircraft.

It stands in pieces in his tiny front yard on the outskirts of Nairobi – the bright yellow cockpit in the driveway, the red and blue tail on the grass among his kids' bicycles, a water tank, a washing line, spinach plants, welding machines, power drills and empty paint tins. Several mahogany propellers stand next to his front door, while the plane's aluminium wings, too long to fit in garden, lie beside to the road outside the front gate.

Earlier, in October, he tried a ground test run, in which the rear landing gear collapsed. But he seems to be undaunted, saying that it's easily fixed.