After decades of working to build a helicopter in Sierra Leone with limited resources, inventor Francis A.S. Tucker may finally be closer to completing the aircraft that he has been building for the last 19 years after the renowned Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya gifted him the amount of cash he reportedly needs to finish the homemade helicopter.
Tucker, commonly known in Sierra Leone as “the helicopter man”, is behind the Sierra Eagle, a locally designed single-seat helicopter assembled largely from materials and components he has been able to source in Sierra Leone.
His project has attracted attention at different points over the years, but repeated funding shortages have kept the aircraft on the ground. His latest boost has come from Ghanaian YouTuber and content creator Wode Maya, who visited Tucker and donated the approximately $700 the inventor said he needed to complete the latest stage of the project.
The contribution from Wode Maya may appear modest compared with conventional aviation development costs, but Tucker’s project has operated on a radically different scale. He has spent years fabricating and adapting components locally rather than working with the financial resources, specialist equipment and engineering facilities available to established aircraft manufacturers.
Reports on exactly how long Tucker has pursued the project vary. Recent accounts say he has spent more than three decades researching and experimenting with the idea, while construction of the current Sierra Eagle project dates to around 2007. In 2025, Tucker said he needed approximately $600 to purchase remaining equipment and complete the aircraft. Earlier reporting shows that he had previously sought much larger sums as the design evolved.
Tucker traces his interest in building an aircraft back to his childhood. By 1991, according to an interview published by Sierra Leone’s AYV Media in 2020, he had become convinced that he could develop a helicopter himself. The project was later designed at the Congo Cross campus of the Milton Margai College of Education and Technology as a single-seater aircraft. Much of the Sierra Eagle has been built from locally sourced or adapted components.
Tucker has consistently presented that approach as part of the project’s purpose, arguing that Sierra Leone should be able to develop technical skills and eventually manufacture more sophisticated machinery domestically rather than depend entirely on imported technology. The aircraft has also been presented through the Freetown Innovation Lab, which describes Tucker as a self-taught innovator working with materials collected from scrapyards. The organisation has linked his work to a wider argument for supporting locally developed engineering and technical talent in Sierra Leone.
Funding, however, has followed Tucker throughout the project. In 2020, he appealed for $5,000 to finish the helicopter, having earlier estimated that he would require about $15,000. By August 2025, local reports said the remaining requirement had fallen to roughly $600, mainly for instruments including an altimeter and tachometer.
The intervention by Wode Maya therefore addresses the immediate financial hurdle Tucker had publicly identified. It does not, however, mean the Sierra Eagle is ready for operational flight. A homemade aircraft would still require rigorous engineering assessment and aviation safety oversight before any attempt at flight could be considered safe. Key questions include structural integrity, rotor and control systems, engine reliability, weight and balance, and compliance with Sierra Leone’s civil aviation requirements.
Public reporting reviewed by Africa Global News does not establish that the Sierra Eagle has undergone independent airworthiness certification or completed a controlled flight test. That distinction matters because Tucker’s achievement at this stage is the persistence and engineering experimentation involved in developing the prototype, rather than a proven flight-capable aircraft. His experience also points to a wider problem facing grassroots innovators across Africa.
Promising prototypes frequently emerge outside universities, established companies and well-funded research centres, but moving from a working concept to a certified commercial product requires engineering expertise, laboratories, intellectual-property support, testing facilities and sustained investment.
For Tucker, the next chapter of the Sierra Eagle will therefore be decided by more than the final components that Wode Maya’s donation can help purchase. After years spent getting the aircraft this far, the bigger test is whether Sierra Leone’s engineering and aviation institutions can now help determine what the prototype is technically capable of and what would be required to take it safely beyond the workshop.