Mental or genius?

As an aviation engineering student in Prague, Mr Zdarsky was designing airplane propellers and frustrated with the government that wouldn't allow him to start his own business or voice his opinion.


Having being denied an exit visa, Mr Zdarsky decided to take matters into his own hands and built his own plane; a hang glider with an engine from a car.

On August 1984, he set off at 3am and made good his escape to Vienna where he requested political asylum.
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tbh pretty ****ing genius
 
Van Hellseek said:
Would have cost over a mil all in all. The article fails to say how it was all funded.
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no it says he owns a company that produces propellers of his own design. and how did you get 1 million?
$99,000. land
$500,000 to build
$100,000 to set up water and electricity,
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he's probably spent more money trying to make tilt rotor planes

article2123200126740600.jpg


Like that one of his own design.



from some terribly designed site with a bio of him

Ivo (he prefers to be known by just his first name) modestly, tells how he began making propellers in his country. After being shuttled around Austria for six weeks to hide from the Czech version of the KGB, he was flown to California to begin new life. Since he had started with a trike that he built secretly in Prague and had taught himself to fly, he began to build another in the U.S. by first making a propeller. He sold the prop at an airshow for enough profit to build two. Those provided enough money to make four and so on. Now almost 3000 Ivoprops are built per year. They are widely used in Europe and have been certified in England by the C.A.A. One is even on its way to Mars as the first interplanetary Ivoprop - it will be used to propel an airborne exploration vehicle in the harsh Martian atmosphere.
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http://www.ultralightnews.ca/Ivoprop/howImetIVo.htm
 
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Yes, 600'000 for the basics, and I'm willing to bet over 400'000 for tools, fuel, home luxuries, furniture, clothes, cost of imports to a desert, random plane building 'stuff' etc etc etc.

May sound like petty expenses, but I would imagine it all easily adds up to over $400k
 
Van Hellseek said:
Yes, 600'000 for the basics, and I'm willing to bet over 400'000 for tools, fuel, home luxuries, furniture, clothes, cost of imports to a desert, random plane building 'stuff' etc etc etc.

May sound like petty expenses, but I would imagine it all easily adds up to over $400k
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yeah but not really included in the cost of a house...

But who gives a **** the guys a millionaire.



quote about his flight to escape

"... I wanted to leave (Czechoslovakia) at 3 a.m. because that is when people were least active. So I ended up flying over Vienna for two hours like a tourist then went looking for the international airport. I circled the tower twice but there was nobody in the tower! Ha ha! It was still dark then - this is the fun part - I saw a 747 being towed along a taxiway. There was a little bit of light there, so I landed beneath the wing of this Boeing. Enough room for two trikes! Besides, mine didn't have a pole or wires on top but was strut-braced.. something from having to keep a low profile when flying below electric lines. Anyway, a mechanic came running out, yelling. I raised my hands with an expired Czech passport and asked for political asylum. Then they were really nice to me .... "
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