If You've Ever Wanted To Fly, The World's First Hoverboard Is Now Up For Sale

Greg and Jill Henderson, founders of Hendo, have developed a real hoverboard. Yes, the flying skateboard that millions of moviegoers have wished were real since Back to the Future Part II premiered back in 1989 may become the must-have Christmas gift for 2015. Using “hover engines” that create frictionless magnetic fields, the hoverboard only appears to hover an inch or two off a metallic floor. It’s not exactly ready for, or usable on, concrete but everything has to start somewhere.

It uses a strong magnetic field to repulse a ground-based material and float in the same way maglev trains operate. That means that Hendo will only float over floors made of non-ferrous metals such as copper or aluminium; this is no skateboard for flying down to the local supermarket, or around the town square hoiked to the back of a pickup truck.

theguardian.com

Yes, the batteries drain after a few minutes: the current state of the art requires 40W per kilogram. And yes, it only floats above non-ferrous, highly conductive surfaces like copper or aluminum, since it works by rapidly electro-magnetizing the surfaces beneath it to actually lift off the ground. You won't be able to take this on the pavement, or really anywhere outside of its testing grounds.

gizmodo.com

Hendo looks on track to meet their Kickstarter goal of $250,000 sometime Wednesday afternoon, just one day after their launch. Unfortunately, the package that would give you a hoverboard of your own has already sold out, so put that $10,000 away—yes, that’s what it cost—but less expensive packages are still available until December 15. Hey, if we can’t have cold-fusion-powered flying time machines at our disposal, this is the next best thing, isn’t it?