9 ms·

Franky Zapata: Flyboarding Frenchman crosses English Channel

175 points by bauc 7y ago

bestouff 7y ago
I wonder how much money he would have got if he was in the US ? Edit: if he was american and built it in the US
- JasonFruit 7y ago
  Not comparable. That's a much longer flight.
  - theworld572 7y ago
    lmao, I'm pretty sure the commenter said "if he had built this in the US", rather than "if he had flown across the atlantic"
    - bestouff 7y ago
      Exactely !
- rjsw 7y ago
  Where would an American demonstrate their machine ? The ~20 mile distance provided by the Channel is just about right for stunts like this.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    I imagine you could find lots of 20 mile shore to shore routes in the great lakes. And an easy way to scale up once that's not long enough.
  - jcoffland 7y ago
    A loop around Manhattan is about 30 miles.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - vadym909 7y ago
    lake michigan, san francisco bay, niagara falls, grand canyon
twic 7y ago
So we've got Franky Zapata, and we've got Richard Browning building something comparable in the UK, and David Mayman in Australia. Is there anyone else? Why is this all happening now? They can't all have made revolutionary breakthroughs of their own simultaneously. Is there some underlying technology that has quietly improved to the point where personal aerial dickery has become feasible?
- rwmj 7y ago
  I assume these boards must be self stabilising, so the breakthrough would be the kind of miniaturised gyroscopes, accelerometers and associated processing power found in smartphones.
  - wereHamster 7y ago
    Those chips are already very small. Modern toy drones have a PCB 16x16mm with all the electronics you need to control the drone: CPU, accelerometer, gyroscope, video signal processor, …
  - jackvalentine 7y ago
    I'm not sure that's 100% true, I saw an interview with the french guy who said it took tens of hours to learn how to balance before he could fly it.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    Adam savage used arm mounted jets to power his iron man suit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1wEO-pHizQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1wEO-pHizQ I'm guessing the person flying this controls this using their legs and center of gravity.
- daveoflynn 7y ago
  The primary things that's changed has been the availability of small powerful gas-turbine engines. That's what's made the folks you've mentioned, plus the Jetman project, possible. To the best of my knowledge, this class of engines were originally developed for model aircraft.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Zenst 7y ago
Mentioned in the article how the French military has shown a fiscal backed interest for using this as an observation or assault platform. Whilst platform is viable with gyro's or computer aided flying if you wish. How much kickback can it handle - could you actually fire a gun from this? But certainly does negate many of the aspect people have against armed drones as this is in effect a human drone. But it is pretty neat, as many recall the facination with jetpacks and the dreams that we would all have them in the 60's/70's (along with flying cars), so this kinda ticks many box's of past dreams. As for distance/flight time - kerosene is pretty dense energy wise, and I can't think of anything else that would be as flexible and offer greater energy density. But still, if you compare this to jetpacks - very impressive. For me one use case for something like this may well be firefighting or certainly a way to escape a tall building that is on fire from your flat balcony.
- davesmith1983 7y ago
  The french military parade with Macron had me laughing my head off when I saw the clip. If anyone wanted to defend against this type of aerial soldier other than them sticking out like a sore thumb to shoot people would could put up some thin cabling between tall building.
  - rwmj 7y ago
    Do they even need to do that? He's got a tank full of kerosene on his back, a single rifle shot from someone with a good aim will be enough.
    - Zenst 7y ago
      Self sealing fuel tanks have been around for a while, fascinating simple and clever design back during WW2 that saved many a life (and plane). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank
      - squarefoot 7y ago
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
I can see this as the "penthouse to penthouse" service of choice - and I for one would love to tour manhattan on one. Likelihood of licensing some moron with a tank full of jet fuel to buzz above thousands of pedestrians- about zero % :-(
- amelius 7y ago
  > Likelihood of licensing some moron with a tank full of jet fuel to buzz above thousands of pedestrians- about zero % Well, in the US there are plenty of morons with licensed fire arms, so why would jetpacks be an obstacle?
  - jklinger410 7y ago
    >with licensed fire arms Even more with unlicensed fire arms.
  - weddpros 7y ago
    cars are a better proxy than firearms in this case: accidents are not the same as violence, intention counts...
- maxander 7y ago
  It's for the better- even ignoring the risk of physical harm, these motors are loud. Cities would be orders of magnitude more obnoxious if you had the upper class constantly buzzing overhead in vehicles that made a Harley-Davidson sound like a soft purr.
amelius 7y ago
I suspect not a very eco-friendly solution. Also, wouldn't this be way more efficient if he just added some small delta wings?
- KaiserPro 7y ago
  It would be difficult, for them to work they must have the correct angle of attack. The way the device is controlled is by constantly changing the angle of the jets, so the wings need to be angled precisely otherwise it'll counteract the control input. I suspect body position would make a much bigger impact. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ski-jumpers-fly-in-a-v-shape-2014-1?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ski-jumpers-fly-in-a-v-s... Obviously there are no skis.
mitchtbaum 7y ago
You gotta give it to those cops playing with the protesters in the second video... Judging by the difference in weapons, those young guys got away with more than a fun experience to look back, retell, relive... Reminds me of NYC occupy protesters busting into McDonalds' buildings to take milk. Play safe, everyone. ~·¤·~ Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sVt1Dy_LblQ&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sVt1Dy_LblQ&feature=share
ed_blackburn 7y ago
I'm game for a laugh and achievement. But such ventures if proposed as commercially viable are surely a non-starter owing to environmental impact?
vadym909 7y ago
I think most of the comments here are incredibly short sighted. I see this as a huge development. Nobody cares about fuel consumption when inventing a new mode of transportation that says goodbye to roads, airports, boats. This is just insane and could change the world.
- schoen 7y ago
  This is a really cool invention, and I think it would be a lot of fun to use. But it's not the first personal flying device, and fuel considerations have been an obstacle to many of those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack "their uses are much more limited than their fictional counterparts because of the challenges of Earth's atmosphere, gravity, low energy density of available fuels, and the human body not being suited to fly, and they are principally used for stunts" The "low energy density of available fuels" is a concern for this device too: note that the prototype required refueling in order to cross the English Channel. Having to carry your own fuel is a big limitation for flying machines.
PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
And no video of it. Brilliant.

175 points by bauc 7y ago

bestouff 7y ago

I wonder how much money he would have got if he was in the US ? Edit: if he was american and built it in the US

JasonFruit 7y ago
Not comparable. That's a much longer flight.
- theworld572 7y ago
  lmao, I'm pretty sure the commenter said "if he had built this in the US", rather than "if he had flown across the atlantic"
  - bestouff 7y ago
    Exactely !
rjsw 7y ago
Where would an American demonstrate their machine ? The ~20 mile distance provided by the Channel is just about right for stunts like this.
- tyingq 7y ago
  I imagine you could find lots of 20 mile shore to shore routes in the great lakes. And an easy way to scale up once that's not long enough.
- jcoffland 7y ago
  A loop around Manhattan is about 30 miles.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vadym909 7y ago
  lake michigan, san francisco bay, niagara falls, grand canyon

twic 7y ago

So we've got Franky Zapata, and we've got Richard Browning building something comparable in the UK, and David Mayman in Australia. Is there anyone else? Why is this all happening now? They can't all have made revolutionary breakthroughs of their own simultaneously. Is there some underlying technology that has quietly improved to the point where personal aerial dickery has become feasible?

rwmj 7y ago
I assume these boards must be self stabilising, so the breakthrough would be the kind of miniaturised gyroscopes, accelerometers and associated processing power found in smartphones.
- wereHamster 7y ago
  Those chips are already very small. Modern toy drones have a PCB 16x16mm with all the electronics you need to control the drone: CPU, accelerometer, gyroscope, video signal processor, …
- jackvalentine 7y ago
  I'm not sure that's 100% true, I saw an interview with the french guy who said it took tens of hours to learn how to balance before he could fly it.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Adam savage used arm mounted jets to power his iron man suit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1wEO-pHizQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1wEO-pHizQ I'm guessing the person flying this controls this using their legs and center of gravity.
daveoflynn 7y ago
The primary things that's changed has been the availability of small powerful gas-turbine engines. That's what's made the folks you've mentioned, plus the Jetman project, possible. To the best of my knowledge, this class of engines were originally developed for model aircraft.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Zenst 7y ago

Mentioned in the article how the French military has shown a fiscal backed interest for using this as an observation or assault platform. Whilst platform is viable with gyro's or computer aided flying if you wish. How much kickback can it handle - could you actually fire a gun from this? But certainly does negate many of the aspect people have against armed drones as this is in effect a human drone. But it is pretty neat, as many recall the facination with jetpacks and the dreams that we would all have them in the 60's/70's (along with flying cars), so this kinda ticks many box's of past dreams. As for distance/flight time - kerosene is pretty dense energy wise, and I can't think of anything else that would be as flexible and offer greater energy density. But still, if you compare this to jetpacks - very impressive. For me one use case for something like this may well be firefighting or certainly a way to escape a tall building that is on fire from your flat balcony.

davesmith1983 7y ago
The french military parade with Macron had me laughing my head off when I saw the clip. If anyone wanted to defend against this type of aerial soldier other than them sticking out like a sore thumb to shoot people would could put up some thin cabling between tall building.
- rwmj 7y ago
  Do they even need to do that? He's got a tank full of kerosene on his back, a single rifle shot from someone with a good aim will be enough.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Self sealing fuel tanks have been around for a while, fascinating simple and clever design back during WW2 that saved many a life (and plane). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank
    - squarefoot 7y ago

lifeisstillgood 7y ago

I can see this as the "penthouse to penthouse" service of choice - and I for one would love to tour manhattan on one. Likelihood of licensing some moron with a tank full of jet fuel to buzz above thousands of pedestrians- about zero % :-(

amelius 7y ago
> Likelihood of licensing some moron with a tank full of jet fuel to buzz above thousands of pedestrians- about zero % Well, in the US there are plenty of morons with licensed fire arms, so why would jetpacks be an obstacle?
- jklinger410 7y ago
  >with licensed fire arms Even more with unlicensed fire arms.
- weddpros 7y ago
  cars are a better proxy than firearms in this case: accidents are not the same as violence, intention counts...
maxander 7y ago
It's for the better- even ignoring the risk of physical harm, these motors are loud. Cities would be orders of magnitude more obnoxious if you had the upper class constantly buzzing overhead in vehicles that made a Harley-Davidson sound like a soft purr.

amelius 7y ago

I suspect not a very eco-friendly solution. Also, wouldn't this be way more efficient if he just added some small delta wings?

KaiserPro 7y ago
It would be difficult, for them to work they must have the correct angle of attack. The way the device is controlled is by constantly changing the angle of the jets, so the wings need to be angled precisely otherwise it'll counteract the control input. I suspect body position would make a much bigger impact. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ski-jumpers-fly-in-a-v-shape-2014-1?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ski-jumpers-fly-in-a-v-s... Obviously there are no skis.

mitchtbaum 7y ago

You gotta give it to those cops playing with the protesters in the second video... Judging by the difference in weapons, those young guys got away with more than a fun experience to look back, retell, relive... Reminds me of NYC occupy protesters busting into McDonalds' buildings to take milk. Play safe, everyone. ~·¤·~ Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sVt1Dy_LblQ&feature=share https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sVt1Dy_LblQ&feature=share

ed_blackburn 7y ago

I'm game for a laugh and achievement. But such ventures if proposed as commercially viable are surely a non-starter owing to environmental impact?

vadym909 7y ago

I think most of the comments here are incredibly short sighted. I see this as a huge development. Nobody cares about fuel consumption when inventing a new mode of transportation that says goodbye to roads, airports, boats. This is just insane and could change the world.

schoen 7y ago
This is a really cool invention, and I think it would be a lot of fun to use. But it's not the first personal flying device, and fuel considerations have been an obstacle to many of those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack "their uses are much more limited than their fictional counterparts because of the challenges of Earth's atmosphere, gravity, low energy density of available fuels, and the human body not being suited to fly, and they are principally used for stunts" The "low energy density of available fuels" is a concern for this device too: note that the prototype required refueling in order to cross the English Channel. Having to carry your own fuel is a big limitation for flying machines.

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago

And no video of it. Brilliant.