Former Jet ski racer Frank Zapata’s Zapata Racing has come a long way. Since opening its doors for business with the water-powered Flyboard and subsequently the water-powered hoverboard, it has never stopped innovating. The French outfit’s latest creation, Flyboard Air, a product of 4 years of gruelling research and development, is a testimony to the firm’s dedication to pursuing jet-pack style flight. Not only did it created a vehicle that allows a man with a jetpack and a board to achieve autonomous flight of up to 10,000 feet and a top speed of 93.2 mph (150 km/h), it also swiped Alexandru Duru’s “Farthest Flight by Hoverboard” Guinness World Record, set in 2014, clean off with an astounding 2,252.4 meters (about 1.4 miles).
The record-in-making, which was set at Sausset-les-Pins in France on April 20, 2016, was witnessed by Guinness World Records’ Sofia Greenacre, who announced the new record, saying it “phenomena sight to see and I can confirmed that he (Frank Zapata) got a total of 2,252.4 meters… so he beat the record by some margin.” Man, “some margin” was a huge understatement. Last checked, the last record holder, Duru, makes an already incredible 275.9 meters (0.17 miles), which means Zapata’s nearly 1.4 miles clearly knock Duru’s numbers by miles, like you know, literally. And did we mention that Frank Zapata did it on a prototype Flyboard Air? Yup. He did.
Having said that, don’t go pulling out your credit card just yet, cos’ Flyboard Air is still in the prototype phase and won’t be in the market yet (but it will be out this year). Continue reading to catch the glorious record-making in action.
Screengrab via Zapata Racing.
