Last week on Friday Harare residents who come up Samora Machel West into town for work were greeted by an interesting site- a helicopter-like vehicle parked by the side of the road. At first site it seemed as if it had landed there but on closer inspection many realised that this machine had been towed by- and was still hitched to- a minibus parked a few metres in front of it. The helicopter was version 2 of Daniel Chingoma’s famous Zimcopter. “This one is ready to fly,” he said with a big grin on his face.
Daniel Chingoma first came to the public eye in 2003 when he launched his home made helicopter, named the Zimcopter. He built it from scrap metal, a car engine and other odds and ends.
^ Zimcopter II, parked in Samora Machel Avenue, outside the Harare Showgrounds.
Though he claims it flew, it seems no one ever saw it leave the ground. Neither does there seem to be any media documentation of this ever having taken place.
Chingoma acquired instant fame and infamity at the same time. He gained admiration from those who saw him as a national hero with the potential of steering Zimbabwe’s aviation industry in a new direction, an adventurer and a daring man who deserved all the support he could get from the state.
He was received negatively by those who saw him as a danger to society, who wondered how a man who had never studied anything close to aviation, let alone engineering or motor mechanics, could build a craft that could fly- and who saw him as someone out to make money from his ramshackle invention (Chingoma charged people a fee to see his first copter).
Daniel Chingoma was undeterred. After Zimcopter I was condemned as not flight-worthy, he started building a better version. That was in 2005.
^ Inside the Zimcopter
That version is the one parked out in Samora Machel right now as I write this. “It’s ready to fly,” he says.
Chingoma was born in 1968. He did his Primary Schooling in Rusape at Zunze Primary and then did his Secondary Schooling at St Mary’s Mission. He told The Zimbo Jam that he has never worked in the aviation industry- he makes hand water pumps for boreholes at local engineering firm, Taisek Engineering. Asked how he came to be building helicopters his response was, “I am just a natural engineer.”
He went on to say that he had learnt all he knew about aeroplanes out of a passion for aerodynamics. He started making maize stalk planes as a kid and his interest grew from there.
Will the current helicopter ever be allowed to fly? Chingoma says he is waiting for clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) who he says have assisted with his project. “They sent some people to give me tips while I was building it,” he revealed. “They have put it under their Research and Development projects and will help me conduct tests on it before it takes off.” Chingoma went on to explain that there were a number of tests that could be done while the machine was on the ground to see if it would actually take off. “The craft shouldn’t be more than 1 000kg,” he explained, “we have designed it so that it can handle that weight easily.”
The project was self-funded, although Chingoma says he got some help from his employers.
And how did he get the idea to bring it out onto Samora Machel Avenue for display? He didn’t. Apparently, Chingoma had taken to living inside the Harare Showgrounds illegally and was evicted on Thursday evening (19 March 2009). That is how the man and his invention come to be out in the public eye one more time. This time, perhaps we will actually see them both take to the sky…
Fungai James Tichawangana
