You've seen the headlines: "This is the world's first real-life hoveboard".

Yeah, sure. There have been many hoverboard products teased in recent years, but most of them didn't live up to the hype. Lexus made a hoverboard, for instance, and it ended up being a public relations stunt that only worked on a special surface. US-based Arca Space Corporation, however, swears it has developed an actual hoverboard in 2015.

And you can place a pre-order for the hoverboard right now, with shipping slated to begin in April. It's called ArcaBoard, and it basically looks like a flat version of the game Whack-a-Mole - only it's a mattress-like vehicle equipped with 36 ducted fans spinning at 45,000rpm. It has 272 horsepower and can hover 30cm (1ft) off the ground.

arcaboard is a real flying hoverboard you can buy right now image 2
Arca

Although you can expect to travel 12 miles per hour on this unsightly box, you won't be able to hover around all day. ArcaBoard, which features pricey Li-Po batteries, comes in two versions: one for a rider up to 80kg (176lbs), and one for a rider up to 110kg (242lbs). The former can hover for about 6 minutes, while the latter only goes for 3 minutes.

That means the smaller rider could probably manage to travel 1.2 miles on a single charge, and then he or she would have to take six hours to recharge the ArcaBoard's batteries using the included charger. If you buy a special dock station for a mere £3,000 ($4,500) however, you can turbo-charge those batteries in under 35 minutes. Yep.

This thing isn't cheap. The ArcaBoard itself costs £13,500 ($19,900), and buying a new Li-Po battery pack after the 1-year warranty will set you back around £4,600 ($6,840). But you can replace any part of the ArcaBoard yourself without losing the warranty, according to Arca's FAQ page. Now, let's talk about that promo video for a minute.

The first half pretty much spotlights Dumitru Popescu, the founder of Arca Space Corporation, and his wild imagination. He initially founded his company as a non-governmental organisation in Romania about 17 years ago and has contracts with the Romanian government and the European Space Agency for stratospheric rockets and balloons, etc.

The second-half finally shows the ArcaBoard and indicates it'll hover over any terrain. There's a lot of powerful music in the video, so you don't get a good sense of how those 36 ducted fans sound. We're assuming they're very loud.

Guess we'll know more come April.