Looking like a superhero, the French inventor of an airborne hoverboard glided part-way over the English Channel on his personal flying machine then crashed in the sea.
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Unharmed and undeterred, "Le Rocketman" Franky Zapata says he plans to try again. Perhaps within days.
The 40-year-old inventor collided with a refuelling boat several minutes into his flight on Thursday, destroying his transportation, a version of the Flyboard his company sells commercially.
After being rescued from the Channel's choppy waters, Zapata smiled and said, "We won't give up until we succeed."
Zapata took off to cross the Channel from the French coastal town of Sangatte.
He hoped to travel 36km to the Dover area in southeast England. Propelled by a power pack full of kerosene, he planned to refuel from a boat part-way across.
"I felt really great. It's just fantastic," Zapata told reporters later of the experience. "I was flying. It was like a dream."
Reaching speeds up to 177km/h, he travelled about 20km, more than halfway to the English shore, which is further than he had ever travelled on his air-board.
But as he descended for a refuelling stop on a boat, the platform he was meant to land on was moving too much from waves and he was not able to grab on to it, and he plunged into the sea.
Zapata winced as he described the "disaster". He said his helmet filled with water and he struggled for breath. But he came away from the rescue by French divers with just a scratch on his arm.
He scheduled Thursday's flight to coincide with the 110th anniversary of the first flight across the Channel, by French aviator Louis Bleriot on July 25, 1909 - who also left from Sangatte.
Australian Associated Press
