Colin Furze is no stranger to BangShift. He’s made some of the most creative vehicles on a whim, from a pulse-jet go kart to a Tuk-Tuk bristling with weaponry, and he attacks each and every project with an enthusiasm that cannot be replicated in most mortals without copious amounts of caffeine and/or other substances. He’s a one-man hurricane of ideas and inventions, but until recently most of his inventions were wheeled. Flight is a wholly different animal, but that’s were Ford comes in. Ford? Yes…as part of their “Unlearn” campaign, which encourages out-of-the-box thinking and creativity (and possibly, forgetting stereotypes about past Fords), they sponsored Furze’s build. His own take on the contraption is that it’s an “unhinged flying bike/human blender” but the results speak for themselves: it works.
According to his YouTube video post, Furze notes: “Considering the amount of time i’ve spent on this and the fact this is my first EVER attempt at making anything that leaves the ground this is well and truly a job well done, it’s easy to overlook the true scale of what takes to make something like this work at all.” And he isn’t joking, either. He might play up the “mad professor” act for the camera, but there is some serious engineering work that went into making the hover bike actually function. One wrong move here or there, and those unguarded propellors would have turned Colin’s legs into mincemeat. While there is still work to go with the creation (we are pretty sure a seat would be nice)), the hard part is over. Job well done, Mr. Furze!
If he’d been sponsored by Chevy this thing would have sliced and diced him before he ever sat on it. Carry on Colin – but for peace of mind fit a seat, footrests and some guards for those propellers…
no seat because it’s all about balance. when you sit, you cannot react fast enough to keep the thing airborne.
They used to sell directions to build these in the back pages of Boys Life magazine when I was a kid. Sorry Colin, someone beat you to this.