A Military Flyboard Doesn’t Make Any Sense
They’re not useful on the battlefield—even if France might think otherwise.
By Kyle Mizokami
Jul 17, 2019
France’s government undertook a weird publicity stunt this week with President Emmanuel Macron sharing a short video on social media of a soldier carrying a rifle while piloting a flyboard. Except the soldier wasn’t strictly speaking a French Army trooper, and he wasn’t operating a piece of Army kit.
President Macron shared a minute long video, taken during France’s annual Bastille Day, of Flyboard inventor Franky Zapata zipping over what appear to be French special operations troops. The troops are equipped with unmanned ground vehicles, a Hilux equipped with a UAV launcher, anti-drone rifles, and ATVs. Above them all Zapata, reportedly a French Army reservist himself, flew carrying a replica of a Heckler and Koch 416—France’s new assault rifle.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28413476/military-flyboard/
