In fact his device has the exact same problem that doomed the VZ-1. Hovering burns up a ton of fuel and there isn’t enough weight margin in the device to allow it to put enough fuel onboard to operate for more than 10-15 minutes at a time.
He might have made it across the channel in one tank of fuel if he had a wingsuit and was willing to transition to a more airplane-like flight profile for the crossing.
One stop. His rig has a 10 minute fuel supply.
wearing a backpack full of kerosene to get from Dover to Calais without getting wet
welllll he didn’t get wet because he landed safely (this time) on the refueling boat at the half-way point. Somehow the little detail that he had to land at an intermediate “from Dover to Calais” is getting lost in the reporting of his still impressive feat. (midway refueling adventures detailed here) …fuel-weight ratios dontchaknow (unladen swallow optional)
Might be useful for boarding or similar police/peacekeeping action, rather than outright combat.
Other way round, apparently.
I’m looking forward to dazzle-paint body suits.
But after boarding, there would be combat. The operator would have to carry weapons and at least a basic load, probably other specialized equipment like tools to break doors, handcuffs, medical kits, etc. Add that weight to the package and the fuel range goes down to almost nothing. Plus the noise would make stealth operations impossible. For sneakiness, parachuting would be almost infinitely preferrable. For non-sneaky operations, boats and cars to deliver the boarding/breaching team don’t require months of expensive specialist training.
He has power.
A fictional (for now) short film by researchers to warn about the potential of autonomous weaponized minidrones.
However…
I agree with all of your reasons.
But I believe that this device shares those problems and many more, which I think will limit the use of this device significantly.
However, as a recreational device or for other uses I think it has a lot of promise… Putting pilots on boats in a harbor, urban medical care first responder, fire fighting, courier, basically anything where getting one person plus a very small amount of gear or payload to a location quickly but non-stealthly is worth a lot of money and potential risk. (Or where this is lower risk than current practice…)
It took him 22 minutes.
How many stops?
Yes, because WE are not on a island…
Just think of all the World’s Firsts that you can now tack “on a flyboard” to!
How long before someone ascends Mount Everest on a flyboard? (After establishing all the refueling stations up the mountain.)
One two minute stop to refuel in the middle.
Probably not up Everest. I’m guessing the maximum ceiling on flyboards is considerably less than the peak of Everest.
That said, there are a ton of stunts he could pull, like flying from the torch on the Statue of Liberty to the top of the new World Trade Center. Or maybe going over Niagara falls in a bucket and jumping out halfway down to fly over to Prospect Point. Or maybe go literally island hopping and get the world record for setting foot on every Hawaiian island in the shortest amount of time.
Biggest Street Pizza on a flyboard!
Maybe world record for fastest Pizza delivery to an address 10 miles away?
Half-Mile High Club?
