Dutch artist Bart Jansen has found an unusual way to pay his last respects to his pet cat Orville, who died after being hit by a car. He turned the feline into a helicopter, or a quadrocopter to be precise, with four rotors, each fitted to one outstretched paw. Now the dead tabby is flying around with a startled look on his face, provoking amusement and shock in equal measure. 
 
 "The Orvillecopter, half cat, half machine," Jansen wrote on his website. "Named after the famous aviator Orville Wright. He was killed by a car. After a period of mourning he received his propellers posthumously." 
 
 Jansen adds, rather defensively: "For the cat lovers: it's a tanned hide, just like the shoes you're wearing." 
 
 Jansen got help from model airplane pilot Arjen Beltman to mount the rotor blades in a way that ensures maximum flight stability on what surely must be the world's first feline helicopter. A plastic undercarriage allows dignified landings. 
 
 A video on Jansen's website shows Orville's first, rather unsteady test flight in March, during which he hovered a few inches from the ground to the sound of cheers and laughter from an unseen crown of onlookers. Since then, his flying has improved and he travels at considerable speed, emitting a loud buzz and steering with a fin attached to his tail. 
 
 "Soon to be flying with the birds. Oh, how he loved the birds," wrote Jansen, whose art project has become a Youtube hit. 
 
 The reaction has been predictably mixed, though. One viewer called JoergDD2DX commented: "Bart, you're just perverted, but no artist!" Hamdan370 writes: "This is sick. Lay the poor cat to rest." But Devilchris86 writes: "HAHAHA, I can't stop laughing! That's hilarious!" 
 
 Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told msnbc.com: "It's a macabre way to honor a beloved family member." 
 
 Orville is currently being exhibited at an Amsterdam gallery as part of the KunstRAI art festival. Jansen plans to fit more powerful motors to his paws at a later stage. 
 
 Jansen's other works include the "Ku Klux Klock," which has a little hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan that pops out on the hour instead of a cuckoo bird. 

 We've seen a lot of strange things on the Internet, but this dead cat turned into a remote-control flying helicopter may be the strangest yet. 
 
 The cat helicopter was conceived by Dutch artist Bart Jansen, and debuted for the public at the KunstRai ArtFair in Amsterdam that ended Sunday. Jansen calls his creation the Orvillecopter and describes it as "half-cat, half-machine." 
 
 The Orvillecopter is exactly what it looks like: A taxidermied cat with a plastic propeller attached to each paw. No animals were harmed for this project. The cat, who was conveniently named Orville, belonged to Jansen and died after he was hit by a car. 
 
 "After that he received his wings posthumously," the artist writes in a description of a YouTube video showing the Orvillecopter's first flight. 
 
 The artist says he did observe a period of mourning before turning his dead cat into a flying machine, but he clearly thinks he's done Orville a favor by giving him flight after death. 
 
 "Now he is flying with the birds," he writes. "The greatest goal a cat could ever reach!" 
 
 According to an artist's statement, Jansen's work is mostly about what happens when the race for technological progress meets human error. 
 
 "When Bart creates installations, they are mostly inventions, new machines, devices that fufill meaningless functions," the statement reads. "One condition goes: They must work." 
 
 It did take Jansen a while to get his Orvillecopter to work, as a series of YouTube videos shows. But after a few engine updates and a new speed controller, the Orvillecopter was in good flying form, as you can see from the video below. 
 
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– Me-ouch. Animal lovers are spitting mad about a Dutch artist's project turning his dead cat into a flying machine. Bart Jansen is presenting his pet, Orville—stuffed and morphed into a helicopter—at the ongoing KunstRai art fair in Amsterdam, reports CBS. The Orville-copter actually flies with the help of a propeller on each stiffened outstretched paw, which Orville "received posthumously," explains the artist. The tabby died about six months ago when he was hit by a car. "We were very sad, and we mourned for a couple of days," says Jansen. "But then I thought we'd make a tribute to his name, and honor him by making him fly." The "work" consists of "taxidermied catskin, polyesther casing, and quadcopter." The cat zooms through the sky via remote control to "fly with the birds; oh how he loved the birds," writes Jansen on his web site. Not chortling is the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "It's a macabre way to honor a beloved family member," a spokesman tells MSNBC. Notes one YouTube viewer: "This is sick. Lay the poor cat to rest." Jansen's response? He plans to attach more powerful propellers to Orville's paws.