Tuesday 21st August 2018

Flying Reliant Robin? Time for Tea

We've no love of car crash videos. But homemade almost-helicopters? Yesh

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Cap doffed to the wags at Top Gear for drawing our lunchtime attention to this one. Normally, of course, we'd rise above such crash-bait nonsense, but the drawn-out sight of watching a Reliant Robin lumber into the air - and then come abruptly back down again - is unavoidably on our list-of-acceptable-things-to-watch-while-eating-sandwich.

Why precisely is this happening? Well, aside from generating clicks on YouTube, who knows. And frankly, who cares - adding a rudimentary rotor to the roof of a three-wheeler is not something that requires reasoned explanation. Just because, that's why.

A more pertinent question might be directed at the man (we assume it is one) who agreed to be strapped in behind the stick. Because not quite flying a homemade helicopter off the actual ground while being towed along by your mates requires a degree of bottle that might accurately be called foolhardiness. Still, the return-to-earth bump doesn't look fatal. And it does make for very watchable video. Kudos, sir.

 

[gizard]

It doesn't appear to be a helicopter - more an autogyro....

[unsprung]

10 / 10

some fine lad engineering and adventuring

[rb_89]

Brilliant! Ask not why, but why not?

[aeropilot]

gizard said:

It doesn't appear to be a helicopter - more an autogyro....

Quite......


However, that minor point aside, top marks for fun and stupidity

[SimonTheSailor]

Brilliant - for no reason !!

[Mr-B]

That was excellent!

I know it (probably) was nothing to do with him but i couldn't help but think Colin Furze ha ha! The kind of thing he would love to have a crack at.

[Snubs]

gizard said:

more an autogyro....

Thank you! I was watching that thinking 'there's a correct name for what that is'.

Full mucking about marks to those guys

[Usget]

Absolutely superb in every way, amazing.

I'd definitely be volunteering to hold the camera rather than sit in it...

Does he have any control or it is just "sit there and hang on for dear life"?

[upsidedownmark]

Hillarious. That might have worked better if the rudder wasn't hidden behind the boot.

[ZOLLAR]

Brilliant

Part of the reason women live longer than men I assume

[tgx]

I don't think Health and Safety signed off on it.

[Sixpackpert]

My brother in law flys with a bloke that has a Reliant Robin Paramotor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HApt2pQjF0

[anonymous-user]

PIO anyone?? ;-) still, without any form of tailplane, that craft was probably unstable all three axis.......



(wonder if it would have been such a viral hit if it had ended with the main rotor coming off in the crash and decapitating the pilot???)

[Hairymonster]

Max_Torque said:

(wonder if it would have been such a viral hit if it had ended with the main rotor coming off in the crash and decapitating the pilot???)

That would definitely have been a worthy Darwin award!

Perhaps they should have fitted an ejector seat.

[TRIUMPHBULLET]

Absolutely fking mad.
absolutely fking superb.
Sir I salute you.

[secretagentbloke]

If the flying ability of that contraption equalled the pilots testicular fortitude, he'd be over the North Sea in that, telling Russian bomber pilots to p**s off back home. Brilliant.

[Buzz84]

Love the way that when viewed from the tow vehicle all you can hear is "keep it going, keep it going..." over and over

Cut to the internal view of the autogyro, and he's crying out "stop, stop, stop!"

[Murph7355]

Sixpackpert said:

My brother in law flys with a bloke that has a Reliant Robin Paramotor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HApt2pQjF0

Cheating. Looks more like a Rialto, which was an obviously better airframe.

[Nerdherder]

I much prefer this to seeing an apple fall from a tree.

[Nerdherder]

ZOLLAR said:

Brilliant

Part of the reason women live longer than men I assume

This is mostly because they are witches I believe.