[spoonjim]

Creating an almost-working helicopter with this level of resources is a huge achievement — it’s like a 5 foot guy making a slam dunk. To a seven footer it’s “just a helicopter” but honestly the world has lost a great talent.

[Natsu]

One problem with helicopters is that even if you get it working mechanically, you have to actually fly it in a controlled manner. Having tried to fly a simulated helicopter with no control system, my conclusion is that I would've died in seconds from flipping over while trying to move forward.

So I have lot of respect for the people who worked out the math on that.

[bserge]

Personal achievement, definitely. For the rest of the world, it's nothing.

It's like building an E-Bike, drone, car, boat, anything else - people will say "that's nice, but you can just buy a better one cheaper". And if your design has some good ideas, a big factory will just copy them.

[zo1]

Tend to agree. We'll never know what other cool but smaller and safer things he would have worked on. Especially in a "Third world" country like India that still has a lot of room for low tech solutions, surrounded by a very high tech world that neglects that market.