“Flying machine” needs to come back in style. The catch-all term, which conjures up Jules Verne as much as anything else, is the term we need in an age where everything from maglev boards to motorized scooters are hoverboards. “Flying machine” instead captures the simple beauty of a device like Zapata Racing’s Flyboard, an aerial maneuvering platform with a human on top.
The Flyboard isn’t the first board-shaped flying machine we’ve seen, though it seems more in company with self-styled jetpacks than hoverboards.
In a test flight, it flew for almost four minutes, and reached a top speed of 34 mph. Watch that flight below, complete with unnecessary soundtrack and computer voice:
