The 1989 movie “Back to the
Future Part II” can be considered one of the most influential forces in the
conceptualization of how future gadgets might work in the 21st Century,
especially the year 2015 in which it partly takes place. One featured device
that has fired the popular imagination is the hoverboard. Numerous attempts
have been made to replicate the tech needed to make a functioning replica, with
one being the Flyboard Air, a bulky gas turbine-powered hoverboard with
backpack fuel supply invented by watercraft-rider Franky Zapata of France. Having
proved the vehicle’s concept via a lake crossing and long-distance coast ride,
Zapata made an ambitious attempt to cross the English Channel this Thursday.
As The Verge tells it, that momentous occasion when Franky Zapata
would take his Flyboard Air from France to the UK over the English Channel on
July 25 ended in disappointment. Zapata’s cross-Channel trip, which he
estimated would take 20 minutes including a single refueling stop in the middle
of the route, would be terminated halfway when the French inventor failed to
land the Flyboard Air on the arranged refueling platform and fell into the
water. He managed to come out of the Channel unhurt.
The failure of Zapata’s attempt
to fly over the English Channel on his massive hoverboard rig only highlights
the real physical obstacles that are faced by the development of the hovering
tech, and the vehicle itself. The Flyboard Air’s five turbo engines need
kerosene for fuel which must be carried, as stated, on a backpack fuel tank.
Even balancing on a midair hoverboard is not as simple as “Back to the Future
Part II” makes it look, with Zapata remarking that he needed 50 to 100 hours of
practice before he could confidently stand on the Flyboard Air in action.
Franky Zapata takes off in his bid to cross from France to England on his flyboard. The Frenchman's attempt failed a short time later when he missed a landing platform to refuel.— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 25, 2019
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Another limitation of Franky
Zapata’s hoverboard invention was the limited fuel capacity, which necessitated
his refueling the Flyboard Air on a platform in the middle of the English
Channel. His idea of multiple refueling stops was dashed by the French maritime
authorities due to ship traffic in the area, and the one refueling platform
they set up was buffeted by waves, causing Zapata to misjudge his landing and
fall in the water according to one of his support team members.
Zapata’s first public debut of
the Flyboard Air was in early 2016 with the lake crossing, and not long afterwards
he set a hoverboard distance record of 2,252 meters along the southern French
coastline. It was during his 2019 Bastille Day parade appearance that the
inventor announced his bid for the English Channel crossing. His Flyboard Air
development has investment from the French military, which is interested in the
hoverboard tech as a special-ops platform.
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