Canadian Hoverboard Takes a Bow

Alexandru Duru has performed for the cameras on his hoverboard.
Alexandru Duru has performed for the cameras on his hoverboard.

A Montreal inventor has allowed a close-up look at his hoverboard prototype and shown off the growing enterprise that investor funding appears to be creating in an industrial area of the city.

Alexandru Duru has been working on the multi-copter design for years and has been flying it for almost two years but it wasn’t until the Guinness Book of World Records released video of a 2014 test hop that it became well known.

That video was shot from a distance and while it showed the device clearly enough, it didn’t satisfy some skeptics.

Duru took CBC along for a demonstration of the device in front of a small crowd of onlookers on a Quebec beach last week.

The resulting video showed Duru controlling it well, although the footage does show why all the flights have been over water. At one point a loose wire causes the rotors on one side of the device to fail and Duru tips into the river.

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