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posted by martyb on Monday July 15 2019, @11:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the Down-came-the-Goblin-and-took-the-spider-out dept.

Franky Zapata flew his invention, a turbine engine powered flyboard, above the Champs-Elysees showing off to President Emmanual Macon, Angela Merkel and other EU leaders to steal the show at the Bastille Day military parade in central Paris.

Zapata, who first developed his device flying above water, says that the flyboard has the power to take off and reach speeds up to 190 kilometres an hour (118 mph) and run for 10 minutes.

The flyboard is closer to the 'Goblin Glider' from Spider Man than Marty McFly's hoverboard in both appearance and performance.

Videos of the flight

Zapata who was awarded €1.3 million in 2018 to develop an 'aeronautical micro-jet engine' that could be used by the military pointedly held a rifle during the flight, highlighting the potential military uses of the technology.

He is currently eyeing making a crossing of the English channel, although this will require refuelling in flight. The target date is July 25, 110 years to the day after Louis Bleriot historically made the same flight for the first time in an airplane.

Previous Hoverboard Related Coverage


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  • (Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @11:15PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @11:15PM (#867359)

    Macron has a military parade: How nice.
    Trump has a military parade: Reeee!

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @11:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @11:59PM (#867373)

      Macron has a military parade: How nice.

      France's traditional Bastille Day celebrates their liberation.

      Trump has a military parade: Reeee!

      Trump's impotent "Tanks on trailers and plywood" sideshow was an attempt to celebrate himself and serve as a government funded backdrop for a campaign ad.

      BTW, Macron's Bastille Day demonstration made Trump's "Trump Day" look like the amateur hack job it was.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:20PM

        by edIII (791) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:20PM (#867688)

        Thank you. It's tradition in some other countries, whereas in America we're not set up for that. It's not a tradition that we have.

        It has been transparent from the beginning that Trump, as a sociopathic narcissistic strong-man, would want to celebrate himself with military weapons representing *his* strength. Probably compensating for the "little mushroom" in his pants.

        While that may be opinion, Trump took the July 4th celebration to serve his own needs in a strongly partisan fashion. He lied about the expenses for one, and then set aside huge sections for wealthy donors, campaign contributors above X, military members (who support Trump), and ass kissers *only*. They didn't have as many people as they could've had because they ran out of time giving away tickets to Trump supporters. In other words, guaranteeing to load the deck for his speech with people that would only express what Trump considers "good" speech deserving of constitutional protection.

        That piece of shit took a day where everybody is brought together to celebrate our common values of Freedom, and turned into something partisan and divisive. Again. Just like everything he does.

        We don't need a military celebration to show strength, when our near constant wars and drone strikes remind the rest of the world just how strong our military is. July 4th should've been a date that could've and should've brought some healing, but nah, fuck that. Free campaign resources paid for by the taxpayer.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:10AM (#867375)

      Macron doesn't have a military parade.
      France has a military parade. Every year.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:37AM (#867396)

      Trump has a military parade: Reeee!

      What's that in English, please?

      Are you pretending to drag metal on metal, maybe overdone-foley sharpening a blade? Peeing yourself in excitement over some racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, petty asshole's "look at me, I'm so fabulous" party? Something else?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:48PM (#867654)

        Reee is a meme that's supposed to represent excitedness and overreaction. In this case it appears that the poster thought that people were overreacting to the military parade.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Monday July 15 2019, @11:16PM

    by Hartree (195) on Monday July 15 2019, @11:16PM (#867361)

    Interviewed in his hospital bed afterwards, the inventor resolved that next time he'd let the leaders' security details know what he was doing beforehand.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by jimtheowl on Monday July 15 2019, @11:52PM

    by jimtheowl (5929) on Monday July 15 2019, @11:52PM (#867370)
    Watching that video, you can see that this guy has full confidence and control over that board.

    As one who has tried and failed to build flying electric rigs in another life, I dare to say that this board packs an impressively scary amount of energy and good feedback loops to behave that way.

    Given the state of technology, I am not surprised that it can be done, but it is still a pleasure to watch it being done, and done well.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 15 2019, @11:58PM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday July 15 2019, @11:58PM (#867372)

    Franky Zapata? I loved his album "Apostrophe" and the Mothers of Invention were a pretty good backing band too.

    Nice to see he has a new career.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:17AM (7 children)

    by legont (4179) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:17AM (#867376)

    is way more cool and practical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDyXBml4Ryw [youtube.com]

    And if you are thinking they will let you flyboard cities, you are wrong; not going to happen.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:09AM (4 children)

      by Nerdfest (80) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:09AM (#867407)

      I don't know man, he's armed and controls the airspace. Cops are definitely going to want these.

      • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:23AM (2 children)

        by legont (4179) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:23AM (#867419)

        Any current drone could be armed easily and provide similar capability while being way safer for the cop. Check this out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zN33m3Dq6Y [youtube.com]

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
        • (Score: 2) by loic on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:01AM

          by loic (5844) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:01AM (#867437)

          I do totally agree that it sucks for war, any drone with computer-enhanced controls could perform better. But for state-police and crowd control stuff, it does makes sense if it is secure enough ; it is far more human-friendly. I do totally imagine french gendarmerie nationale (equivalent of US Marshall) or CRS (a division specialized crowd control) using such a device.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @09:34AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @09:34AM (#867474)

          You don't get it: This is a mobile individual infantry transportation unit, not an airborne weapons platform, although IMHO it should have a secondary purpose as an unmanned one.

          So, basically, it is not for controlling an area with fire, it is about *seizing* it.

          It will be used on tactical level to force obstacles, such as minefields, edges, thick vegetation, water, ... and may as well spur a greatest change in infantry tactics since introduction of of MGs. The only thing on the path to success is amount of skill needed to control it: this inventor is very experienced in balancing, but some average GI won't have as much training time. So, I guess a controlling computer will have to make things easier for them.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:42AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:42AM (#867442)

        Pig-eon shooting!

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:27PM (1 child)

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:27PM (#867692)

      I don't give a shit if it's legal :) If you're going to give me the opportunity to fly on something akin the Silver Surfer's board, or the Green Goblins' hovercraft, I'm going to fly that thing through the city at least once.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:53AM (#867387)

    Same guy sells tethered flyboards, the tether is a hose with high pressure water pumped up to the board, you connect to a jet ski jet pump (which stays floating on the water):
        https://zapata.com/flyboard [zapata.com]
    So he got his flight training relatively cheaply, before transitioning to the real jet engine version that is not tethered?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:15AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:15AM (#867408)

    What are we going to name those ones with wheels that were miss named hoverboards?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:00AM (#867429)

      Only marketers and dickheads called those two wheel things hoverboards.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:58PM (#867529)

    Do not want. Feels like the whole world is going that unfortunate way.

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:07PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:07PM (#867578) Journal

    The fail mode of this seems to be, pretty disastrous. Unlike, an airplane, where you have a chance to bail out, you're ranging from reasonably safe fall / minor bruises to paraplegic/death pretty quickly. Really cool, but there's a reason there was one guy. Who would in all likelihood be best described as a daredevil.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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