Hero Builds a Helicopter in His Backyard to Fly Over Terrible Traffic

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Jujun Junaedi is 42 years old and lives with his family (wife and kids) in Sukabumi, about 110 km south of Jakarta. He is a mechanic who runs an auto parts shop, so no, he’s not entirely ignorant of what it takes to put an iron bird in the air.

For the last 18 months, he’s been working on his own, personal helicopter, building it from scratch using spare parts and junk, and know-how from online tutorials. He says that he’s frustrated with heavy traffic and gridlocks, so he started dreaming about finding another way to travel. Like every other dreamer in history, he looked to the skies.

South China Morning Posts notes that, in the 18 months he’s been working on the chopper, Junaedi has already spent the equivalent of $2,100 and he’s not even close to the finish line. He has help from 2 unofficial assistants, his son and a neighbor, both just as passionate about technology as he is.

For the time being, their goal is to get the bird into the air and to have it hover, since they don’t have a flying permit yet. Specs read 3,600 rpm and 700 cc engine capacity, and Junaedi reckons that the engine should be capable of lifting about 1.7 tons.

He doesn’t know if it will actually fly, but he says he’ll be “satisfied” if it takes off. His wife would rather he didn’t invest as much in it.

“When he needs money for the engine or blades, for example, it costs a lot of money,” she says in the video available below. “If everything is spent on this helicopter we'd have nothing left to buy food.”

Always trust a woman to bring practical sense into every dreamer’s plans.