Trần Quốc Hải

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Trần Quốc Hải (* 1960 in Long Thuận , Tây Ninh Province , Vietnam ) is a Vietnamese mechanic and artist who built two helicopters as an autodidact .

Hải grew up in a village in Tây Ninh Province, where his father ran a small workshop. As a child, during the Vietnam War , he watched the Bell UH-1 helicopters take off and land at a nearby US base .

Hải runs a small factory and repair shop for agricultural machinery. In 1997 he and Lê Văn Danh began building a helicopter in his workshop. They used American helicopters exhibited in war museums and information found on the Internet as models. Their first helicopter, powered by a used Russian truck engine, was completed in 2002 and reached an altitude of two meters in the first attempt at flight. During another test in February 2003, the helicopter was seized by the authorities, but returned a month later after increasing pressure from the Vietnamese press. In May, Hoi and Danh were recognized as Labor Heroes .

In May to November 2005, the two built their second helicopter. However, flight attempts were not approved by the authorities. At the intervention of the Prime Minister, Defense Ministry experts inspected Trần's workshop, but continued to prohibit test flights due to safety concerns.

The helicopter was exhibited together with the video installation The farmers and the helicopters by the Vietnamese-American artist Dinh Q. Lê at the Singapore Biennale 2008 and from June 2010 to January 2011 at the Museum of Modern Art .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Queensland Art Gallery: The farmers and the helicopters - Chronology (PDF; 4.7 MB)
  2. ↑ texyt.com: Farmers' homemade helicopter poised for take off , April 8, 2007
  3. ↑ Joselina Cruz: Dinh Q. Lê: The farmers and the helicopters , November 2008
  4. ↑ Cara Starke: A Different Kind of Helicopter: Projects 93: Dinh Q. Lê , October 18, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Trần Quốc Hải
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese mechanic and artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Long Thuận (Bến Cầu)