The Da Vinci inspired road-going helicopter; Project Arnold.

In 1485, polymath Leonardo da Vinci designed something called an Ornithopter, an early design for a man-powered flying machine. Roughly half a millennium later, moonlighting Cop and friend of MotorPunk, Jeff Bloch, sets out to complete da Vinci’s work. Considering the challenge of man-powered flight alone perhaps a little too easy, Jeff also aims to take his machine racing at the 24 Hours of Lemons.

Da Vinci’s drawing (above) appears to show a delicate, willowy frame, bound with cord and relying on the muscular flapping of some renaissance era athlete to achieve flight. Jeff, ever resourceful, uses the decrepit remains of a Bell attack helicopter, the arse-end of an MX-5 and quite a lot of Toyota.

Some might consider the 220bhp Audi V6 cheating, but this is provided only for propulsion on the road. The machine is 20 feet long, 8 feet high and is a featherweight 1.3 tons. Here are some pictures to prove we’re not making all this up;

Flight will (and Jeff is quite confident about this) be achieved by the co-pilot rotating the blades by hand by means of a steering wheel fitted in the cabin. For reasons I don’t fully understand (I am no polymath) the machine is christened ‘Project Arnold’ and to be crewed by Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalikes.

Those looking at the mugshots above and doubting Project Arnold’s engineering integrity, should be assured that da Vinci is sitting on his heavenly cloud, nodding in sage approval and pondering not how it will achieve flight, but how Jeff, like Ikarus, will avoid flying to close to the sun. Sneak preview video below;

We shall publish further details of the success of Project Arnold in due course. Did we mention the twist? It has a twist. I’m not saying anything because the twist is too silly for (even my) words.

Pics; Speedycop and Leonardo da Vinci.