We knew Franky Zapata world and European jet-ski champion (11 gold medals), we discover him a major entrepreneur. The flying man from the parade on July 14, 2019, dubbed by President Macron for the invention and development of his Flyboard Air, was the first man to cross the English Channel with his jetpack the following month.
At VivaTech, the exhibition of technological innovations held at the Porte de Versailles, it inaugurates this Wednesday, June 14 a new flying machine: the AirScooter. A one-person, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, the only one of its kind on the market.
The AirScooter can fly at a speed of 100 km/h, at 3,000 to 4,000 meters above sea level with a range of two hours. A technological feat that takes the competition from behind. After the commercial success of his first machine, the water-powered FlyBoard (a jetpack connected to a hose that allows you to “fly” over water by water propulsion), the media success of the aerial version, the FlyBoard Air, came to confirm Franky Zapata’s dream. That of “inventing a flying machine accessible to all, which allows you to taste the joys of flight, and perhaps one day to become a mobility tool”, announces the sportsman who has become an inventor, now at the head of a company. of thirty people. Zapata has learned from his previous inventions and is correcting the situation.
But above all, it was necessary to find a balance between technological development and ecology. The AirScooter’s hybrid propulsion combines four thermal and eight electric motors, which allows unprecedented flight autonomy. “100% electric only allows flights of five to seven minutes followed by hours of charging,” says Zapata.
“The carbon footprint was the number one goal and we tried to bring together the best of both worlds, with almost seventy times less fuel consumption than with our previous engines, and at equal thrust. We are now approaching what the best automobile of the moment would consume for an equal journey in a straight line, “he continues.
However, weight gain is a major issue. On two counts. The weight, as we have said, allows to optimize the flight time (the weight of the passenger of the AirScooter is in fact limited), and matters to enter the framework of the American legislation. This authorizes the piloting without a license of machines weighing less than 115 kilos, and exempts from a certain number of certification criteria. Conversely, European EASA regulations still ignore the recreational ultralight category. Thus, in Europe, for a VTOL as for an Airbus or Boeing type airliner, it is necessary to prove that the engines are resistant to volatiles. “Which means we’d have to throw chickens at our turbojets…which aren’t even the size of chicken.” While, with its featherweight (110 kg), the AirScooter is exempt from poultry in the United States…
It is therefore across the Atlantic that, from 2024, the first commercial “recreational” flights of the AirScooter will be operated. Production will be in France (in the factory in Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, not far from Marseille, where Franky Zapata is from), with up to 1,000 units per year, but it’s in Lake Havasu City, in Arizona (where Zapata has made friendships through championships), which will inaugurate the first “flight center”. Which is only a first step. To this inaugural site of recreational flights, Zapata intends to add others, in order to make the company profitable in the medium term.
In the longer term, the strategy is to “multiply flight hours and be ready when European legislation changes, rather than waiting idly for permission to fly over Paris in… 2030!” » quips this Icarus. “The long-term goal is to have humans fly between their home and workplace, for example, and have a minimal carbon footprint. The problem is that it’s an obstacle course that could take between ten and a hundred years. »
While waiting for the dream of aerial urban mobility to take legislative flight, Franky Zapata is placing his pawns on the ground. In September, he will board an AirScooter to fly over the legendary Route 66.