http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nniTcqo_PI
In what is the most bizarre yet innovative piece of taxidermy we’ve ever heard of, a Dutch artist has transformed his dead cat into an electronically controlled helicopter.
We don’t know what the Dutch artist in question – a man known as Bart Jensen – was smoking when he came up with the rather strange idea to honour his dead cat Orville by turning him into a flying helicopter after he was run over by a car and killed, losing the last of his nine lives in the process.
Obviously very close to Orville, who was named after aviator Orville Wright, Jensen took the unusual step of stuffing his deceased pet and subsequently enlisted the help of radio control helicopter flyer Arjen Beltman, who built a specially-designed flying mechanism to attach to the cat.
The result is a very scary looking but indisputably unique creation known as the Orvillecopter, which is now on display at the Kunstrai art festival in Amsterdam.
Describing the Orvillecopter as “half cat, half machine”, Jansen insisted that it was a fitting tribute to Orville and that he hopes to soon iron out a few kinks in his flying pattern, cats obviously not being renowned for their aviation skills.
“After a period of mourning he received his propellers posthumously,” Jensen said.
“He will receive more powerful engines and larger props for his birthday. So this hopping will soon change into steady flight.”
Have a look at the Orvillecopter in flight in the video above – where he misses out on colliding with a few petrified cows by a whisker – and see what you make of it yourself.
The flight itself looks a bit shaky, but we’re sure that like all good felines, Orville always lands on his feet.
