7 days ago
Daredevil's attempt to cross Channel by ‘AirScooter' ends in the sea
The Frenchman who made history when he crossed the Channel on a hoverboard failed to repeat the feat in his new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft, falling into the sea on Friday afternoon.
Franky Zapata, 46, was rescued after his AirScooter was hit by an engine problem in mid-Channel. He was uninjured, members of his team said.
He left Sangatte, near Calais, heading for Kent with French news channels covering the flight live, but turned back after 17 minutes. Nine minutes later, his craft descended slowly into the sea.
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Team members said the fall had been braked by an 'electric parachute', which commentators said probably referred to an electric engine system designed to prevent freefall. Efforts were underway to recover the AirScooter.
The failure was a setback to Zapata's plans to market the AirScooter as a craft so simple that almost anyone will be able to use it.
Commentators in Paris said the Channel landing suggested that he needed to go back to the drawing board.
Zapata said novices would be able to fly the AirScooter after a training session on a simulator and having undergone security checks. The semi-autonomous piloting system enables a controller on the ground to take over the flight at any time and return the craft to base.
He hopes to market the single-seat craft in the United States, where regulations governing ultralight aircraft are less stringent than in France and the UK. His aim is to sell them for leisure operators to hire out for recreational flights, just as personal watercraft are rented out for fun on the sea.
Zapata said customers might include wealthy out-of-town homeowners 'who want to fly to the neighbours' for a barbecue on a Sunday'. But, he conceded, 'they won't be able to use them over towns'.
With a hybrid engine, the craft weighs only 115 kilos, ensuring its ultralight classification in the US. It is said to be able to fly for a maximum of two hours and reach a speed of up to 100kph. It will cost about $200,000 (£149,000).
Zapata plans to open a flight centre in Las Vegas in 2028, giving members of the public the chance to try the AirScooter. He also plans to develop a two-seat version that could be used as an air taxi.
• Cross the Channel on a hoverboard? I can barely stay upright on it
Various VTOL firms are working on air taxi projects around the world, mostly with electric engines, unlike Zapata's AirScooter. In the UK, Virgin has teamed up with Joby Aviation, an American air taxi business.
In practice, however, the projects are struggling to get off the ground, at least in commercial terms. Germany's Volocopter teamed up with ADP, the French airports operator, to trial its electric air taxis at the Paris Olympics but it failed to get authorisation in time. Archer Aviation, which is based in California, hopes to do better with its own air taxis at the 2028 LA Olympics.
Speaking before the flight, Zapata had said the AirScooter was 'a million times easier' to fly than the Flyboard Air hoverboard that took him across the Channel in 2019.
He added that he was still not '100 per cent sure' of reaching Dover.
'We've been rehearsing the flight for months and months,' he said. 'It's relatively good but it's still new. Sometimes everything goes well and sometimes not so well.'
His 2019 hoverboard crossing was viewed as an act of daring that earned him widespread recognition which was underlined when he was asked to fly over the Champs Elysées during the Bastille Day parade a year later.
