Franky Zapata successfully crossed the English Channel on his Flyboard

Photo: From Internet

French inventor Franky Zapata successfully crossed the English Channel on his Flyboard Air, a jet-powered hoverboard.

Zapata departed from Sangatte, France and arrived in Dover, England 22 minutes later, reaching speeds of up to 106 miles per hour during the 22-mile trip.

'We made a machine three years ago' he said after landing, 'and now, we’ve crossed the Channel, it’s crazy'

The Guardian reports that the trip wasn’t a continuous one: because he only carried a 10-minute supply of fuel on his back, he had to make a pit stop at the halfway mark to refuel.

This was Zapata’s second attempt to cross the Channel: his first attempt at the end of July ended in failure when he fell into the water while trying to land on the refueling platform. He and his team chalked up the crash to the size of the waves during the landing attempt, forcing him to miss the edge of the platform by centimeters. After the crash, he said that they would make the attempt once again, this time using a slightly different route and a larger refueling platform.

Photo: From Internet

Zapata invented the Flyboard in 2011, a device that uses a water jet to propel the rider through the air behind a boat. He later invented the Flyboard Air, a board powered by four turbo jet engines that allows a rider to fly through the air untethered, using a computer to keep it stabilized. In 2016, Zapata set a world record for the farthest hoverboard flight after he flew the Flyboard Air along the south coast of France for 2,252 meters (About 1.4 miles).

Source: theverge.com