Zapata Racing Flyboard | From €4,900.00 | www.zapata-racing.com
Before Tony Stark’s fictional powered exoskeleton suit becomes a reality, you probably can get a firsthand experience of what it will feel like to fly like Iron Man, minus the electronic gadgetry and the exoskeleton, of course. The Zapata Racing’s Flyboard, created by French jet ski champion Franky Zapata, is the gear that you will need for your “fly like Iron Man experience”.
The Zapata Racing Flyboard is a jetpack-like device that directs the powerful jet water from a jet ski and output them through a pair of jet boots and hand-held stabilizers. There’s no space wizardry here; a jet ski is necessary to push jets of water to the Flyboard and let it soar up to 9 meters (~30 feet) into the air. A chunky 9-meter hose connects the Flyboard to the jet ski’s main jet exit. Throttle control is through the jet ski operator in tow, but if you want control in your hands (or if you don’t trust anyone other than yourself), Zapata has an option to add trigger control accessible by your hands.
The latter addition makes more sense for a more thrilling flying experience, so to speak. Needless to say, such an experience won’t come cheap, and we would oblige to think that you will need to be filthy rich like Stark to fork out €4,900 for such a thrill and an additional €900 for the optional hand trigger control. Nothing speaks better than a video, so head past the jump for a short clip of the Flyboard in action.
Zapata Racing via Gizmag
