By Evan
A smiling Xu Bin stands next to his fourth-generation gyroplane, by Andy
I first became acquainted with the legend of the LBX who built his own flying machine about two years ago when a friend sent me a link to this viral video on Youku. I was blown away at the time but hadn’t given any thought to the feat — or any of the other LBX-built flying jalopies popping up on the internet — until Andy and I got a chance tip from our Free More News interviewer, Lu Junting. Responding to my personal interest in aviation, she told us she had followed for a story — and more importantly knew how to contact — the nongcun Leonardo of web fame: Xu Bin (徐斌). Armed with his general location, Quzhou city in southwestern Zhejiang province, and his cell phone number, we made plans to stop in on our way west to Jiangxi.
A few days before arrival in Quzhou, I called and arranged a meeting. Xu sounded understandably confused on the phone — “You’re three foreigners… riding bikes… around China… and you want to talk to me…?” — but in the end all was arranged. Once our injured teammate/photographer Andy had bused into town to rejoin us, we set our meeting on the night of Christmas Eve.
As promised, he was waiting for us in the new economic zone way outside the city center, looking even more confused than he had sounded on the phone to see three scraggly bearded foreigners piling out of a cab to see him. All the same, he transferred us into his little Toyota sedan parked in the courtyard of his family’s hotel next door and drove us to a fish restaurant he knew around the corner. Once in, the 35 year old Bin, about 5’4″ and weighing maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, finally asked what we were up to. He betrayed a glimmer of disappointment upon learning that we were not in fact foreign aviation experts, the same disappointment he expressed later to find out that we Americans haven’t quite achieved Jetson’s-like frequency of personal aircraft ownership. (more…)
