These brave souls back home in different parts of Africa are to
commended. Unfortunately, they are mostly groping in the dark, using
trial and error techniques when modern design principles have been
used to great effect by other Africans in the diaspora for years. It's
not even like James Watt (a blacksmith) inventing the steam engine in
Scotland back in the 18th century when there was no steam engine.
Also, James Watt (the blacksmith) collaborated with James Clerk
Maxwell (a Professor, who went on to invent a new branch of
engineering--automatic control theory--based on Watt's idea of
"governors" for speed control). Our university professors are not
generally in a position to collaborate with creative "blacksmiths."
And where would they publish the result? The Royal Society published
Maxwell's analysis of Watt's governor ["On Goverors," Proc. R. Soc.
Lond., 16(100): 270-283 (1868)].
But of course, all this is re-inventing the wheel. Did you know that
Gabriel Oyibo (yes, the same Prof. Gabriel Oyibo that almost everyone
now calls "mad") built an airplane in his garage in upstate New York
back in late 1980s or early 1990s? Unlike these brothers not versed in
engineering principles, Gabriel used Joukowski transform and hodograph
methods to design his wing sections, carried out elaborate
calculations in aerodynamics, and did stability analyses. I saw his
design folder. (That was the first time I met him; we were present at
a specialists' meeting on a US government facility in Ohio at that
time). If I remember correctly, he said he was going to have the plane
flown to Arizona for FAA certification the following month and, after
that, he was going to take it to Nigeria for mass production. I think
the whole thing died when he took it to Nigeria (for implementation by
the Nigerian Air Force).
On a small but important note: you confused me with your title "Civil
engineering in Africa ... ." The title used in the original article in
the (London and Manchester) Guardian is "Civilian engineering in
Africa ... ."
Helicopters, airplanes, rockets, etc., are normally part of "aero and
astro" (short for aeronautics and astronautics) in engineering. Of
course, civil engineering covers transportation systems but the
structures, dynamics and control aspects are normally in the domain of
aero and astro.
Have a nice day.
Dare Afolabi.
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