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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.
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
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @11:15PM (5 children)
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)
France's traditional Bastille Day celebrates their liberation.
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
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
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)
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
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.