This video shows a British pilot demonstrating how to operate an autogyro
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 31, 2020 at 09:35
- 2 min read
- By AFP Hong Kong
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The video was published here on Twitter on December 21, 2020. It has been viewed more than 61,000 times.
The video shows an elderly man flying an aircraft.
The post’s simplified Chinese-language caption translates to English as: “Peter, a 102-year-old former American Boeing engineer, spent four months making a helicopter himself. This is the first successful test flight in person. People should forget about their age and do the things they want. Some people might reflect on their meaning of life, whether to live its fullest or not.”
The video was also published here, here and here on Twitter; here, here and here on Facebook; here and here on Weibo; here and here on YouTube; and here and here on Sina alongside a similar claim.
The claim is false.
A reverse image search on Google found the same video published here on YouTube on February 7, 2013. The video is titled: “Ken Wallis”.
The video’s description explains the video shows Ken Wallis, the designer of the autogyro.
An autogyro is a rotary wing aircraft that is not powered by an engine.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (L) and the YouTube video (R):
The video, filmed from another angle, was also published here on YouTube on August 24, 2011. It's titled: “Ken Wallis showing us how to fly”.
Wallis was a British bomber pilot in the Second World War. He died in September 2013 at the age of 97, as reported here by New York Times.
The misleading post was also debunked here by a Taiwanese fact-checker, Mygopen.
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