Inventor Flies Across the English Channel on His Jet-Powered Hoverboard (cnn.com) 80
PolygamousRanchKid quotes CNN: French inventor Franky Zapata has successfully crossed the Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard for the first time, after a failed attempt last month. Zapata took off from Sangatte, northern France early on Sunday morning and landed in St. Margarets Bay, near Dover in England. The journey took just over 20 minutes, according to Reuters news agency...
In an interview after he completed his journey across the Channel, Zapata said that for his next challenge he was working on a flying car and had signed contracts, but for now he "was tired" and "wants a vacation," he told BFMTV. The inventor captured the world's imagination when he took to the skies above Paris at Bastille Day parade in July with the board that can reach an altitude of nearly 500 feet — with the potential to go much higher -- and a speed of 87mph.
Zapata has worked with the US and French militaries, with the French investing $1.4 million to pay for tests of the board. French special forces are interested in the flying board for several uses, including as a possible assault device, said Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
In an interview after he completed his journey across the Channel, Zapata said that for his next challenge he was working on a flying car and had signed contracts, but for now he "was tired" and "wants a vacation," he told BFMTV. The inventor captured the world's imagination when he took to the skies above Paris at Bastille Day parade in July with the board that can reach an altitude of nearly 500 feet — with the potential to go much higher -- and a speed of 87mph.
Zapata has worked with the US and French militaries, with the French investing $1.4 million to pay for tests of the board. French special forces are interested in the flying board for several uses, including as a possible assault device, said Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
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Yep. 20 minutes to cross the channel is impressive indeed.
I bet the drug smugglers of the world are looking into this tech very closely.
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Why would they be looking into it?
It's expensive, had to stop and refuel in the middle of the channel, and can't carry more than a few kilos of payload. A small $10,000 RC airplane can carry a better payload for a fraction of the cost.
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Well, this is a helluva lot more duration/range than they ever achieved before...it would be interesting to see how he managed that.
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This is a bit different. The jetpacks have the motor on the back and the exhaust left the bottom of the motor unit. The user was strapped into the jetpack. See the movie The Rocketeer for an example.
This appears to be a platform he's standing on that has the thrust coming out the bottom. I don't know if the backpack is for the fuel or for extra control hardware or for other gear altogether. I'm guessing fuel so that you don't have a tank preventing airflow. It must be difficult enough to get the thrust requ
Let's wait for folks to scream "our patents..." (Score:2)
...has successfully crossed the Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard for the first time, after a failed attempt last month...
It's been a while as Europe has been asleep for too long. That's one good thing from across the pond in a long time...
Re: Let's wait for folks to scream "our patents... (Score:2)
Well I guess that whole (Score:5, Insightful)
border wall thing needs re-thinking.
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A motorized paraglider is cheaper and simpler. Typical recreational outfits cost about ten grand have a range of about a hundred miles -- enough to cross the channel about 3x -- and a service ceiling of 18,000 feet. It's probably the cheapest way to get into powered flight.
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A motorized paraglider is cheaper and simpler. Typical recreational outfits cost about ten grand have a range of about a hundred miles -- enough to cross the channel about 3x -- and a service ceiling of 18,000 feet. It's probably the cheapest way to get into powered flight.
Compared to a motorized paraglider, the hoverboard is at lot more simple to set up, take off and land. The flight is *much* faster.
I can totally see a two-person version used to just jump the wall or - alternatively - penetrate much deeper and faster. They will be very difficult to counter unless the border patrol starts to use SAMs.
They are not ready consumers for now, but 10 years down the road that "see-through wall" will look downright anachronistic. Well, at least Mexico - and not the US taxpayers - wi
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I thought that these Mexican were poor and just trying to make a better life for themselves? Now you're saying they can easily afford to build hoverboards to fly their families over a border wall. So which is it?
Economics. There's a lot of money to be made from smuggling drugs and people. If someone is willing to pay for drugs or people to be smuggled across the border, someone else will be willing to provide that service. When this technology becomes sufficiently cheap, entrepreneurs will invest in hoverboards and provide services.
Flying car? Sigh... Not again (Score:3, Interesting)
Zapata said that for his next challenge he was working on a flying car and had signed contracts
"Flying car"? Calling bullshit right now. That sounds like a straight up scam in the making.
Until there is some massive Nobel Prize winning breakthrough in power generation/storage (think Tony Stark's fictional arc reactor), flying cars aren't going to be a thing in any practical sense. Yes we can make a "car" that can fly or a plane that can drive but nothing you'd actually want to use for both because physics is kind of a bitch that way. To make it light enough to fly you have to make huge compromises on the features that make it a good car. And all the stuff that allows it to drive merely adds weight when it gets in the air making it a shitty plane too. With a power supply of sufficient density you could get around this but there is nothing we are even in the slightest danger of making within my lifetime even in theory. (and if it is that powerful heat is going to be a BIG issue)
Then there is the chicken and egg problem of infrastructure. Let's say for the sake of argument that someone does develop a practical flying car. Great. Problem is that there is NO infrastructure in place to support such a beast. Where would you land it from the air? Your only options right now are airports and helipads and if you are landing there then there is literally no economic advantage to a flying car. You certainly won't be able to land in a typical parking lot. And then how do you plan to fly and navigate? Very few people are trained pilots and our automation systems are still a long way off from being able to fly grandma to/from the local megamart with confidence and safety. Not to say all this couldn't be eventually developed but unless there is actually a practical flying car nobody is going to bother developing the (very very expensive) infrastructure and ripping up the systems we already.
My company for a while make parts for a company that made a jet ski that had retractable wheels to become an ATV. It was even featured on Top Gear (with a positive reaction from Jeremy Clarkson) and it was a pretty cool piece of tech that actually worked. If flopped and the company that made it went tits up. Why? Because it was cheaper to just buy an jetski and an ATV - a LOT cheaper. Hardly anyone actually needed or wanted a machine that could do both but they might have been able to sell it if it cost less than the devices it replaced. Even if they solve the technical problems with a flying car (unlikely) the economics of it still are likely to kill it dead. Sometimes it's just better to have a device that does one thing well than a machine that does multiple things inefficiently.
Re:Flying car? Sigh... Not again (Score:4, Informative)
We already have 3 or 4 flying cars. You are pretty badly out of the loop.
The issue with flying cars is: in Europe you are bound to air ports to lift off and land. Which completely spoils the benefit of a flying car. The second thing is costs and the third thing is licenses.
For air traffic control they are a night mare.
So bottom line you are right: they never will lift off. Not even as self flying autonomous vehicles.
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Lift of was a playing with words, as in: "gaining traction".
And Illium is not producing flying cars, but electric powered planes.
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the tech is here and the military will use it and fund it.
So, you have no valid arguments
Awesome (Score:3)
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Agreed, amazing, and not getting the credit the guy deserves. This could end up being a game changing mode of transportation. Needs refinement of course as I suspect only he and a few others are capable of piloting the thing. But whoa, can you imagine this instead of scooters!
I can imagine what it's like to have the ability to fly like superman, but without the invincibility, anyone having an accident will likely need a squeegee instead of an ambulance.
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but refinement
Ah, so like the 70's who reckoned we'd refine our way to casual space travel
Physics and chemistry constrain you, there are bounds on energy density and demand for the given scenario, especially if you want it to be safe and not take out a city block during a discharge incident.
Find a magic arc reactor with dilithium crystals and sure, we can pour the 1.21 jiggawatts of pocket flight.
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Project Skeet (Score:5, Interesting)
must be the military code name.
Note also he had to land on a boat part way and refuel... if a swimmer crossing the channel decided to stop on a boat part way would you still consider that swimming across the channel?
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There are separate categories for flights around the world and nonstop flights around the world.
20 minutes? (Score:2)
Do you WANT the Green Goblin??? (Score:1)