SURFL'S UP & AWAY OVER THE CHANNEL
Inventor’s France-to-UK flight on hoverboard
This guy is the ultimatemate channchannel surfer. A French inventor on Sunday flew across the English ChaChannel on a jet-powered hoverboard that would make Marty McFly from “Back to the Future” envious. Using theth board he designed, Franky Zapata surfed on air over the Strait of Dover after tataking off frfrom Sangagatte in northern France.Fr Flanked by ththree helicopterters, Zapata, 40, made a stop on a boat halfway through the 22-mile flight to refuel before landing in Britain’s St. Margarets Bay.
The fantastic voyage took just over 20 minutes.
“I feel tired. I need a vacation,” Zapata joked to local station BFM-TV afterward.
“For the last five to six kilometers, I just really enjoyed it,” he added, saying he tried to “take pleasure in not thinking about the pain” even though his “thighs were burning.”
“Whether this is a historic event or not, I’m not the one to decide that, time will tell.”
Zapata, a former French military reservist and former Jet Ski racing champion, started working on the machine three years ago and received a $1.4 million grant from the French army in late 2018 to help finance the project.
In a failed attempt last month, Zapata was knocked off balance while attempting to land on a boat to refuel and fell about six miles short of completing the trip.
This time, he used a bigger boat and landing platform.
During France’s Bastille Day celebration on July 14, Zapata zoomed over a military parade in Paris armed with a rifle, drawing comparisons to Spider-Man’s nemesis, the Green Goblin.
Zapata said his hoverboard would be tough for the average person to navigate, adding he was not yet sure what the machine could be used for.
“It’s not a machine for trip down to the bakery on a Sunday morning,” he told BFM-TV.
The inventor said he’s already working on his next project: a flying car.