Bastille Day is a French national holiday in July with fireworks and parades. This year it was also celebrated in Paris by a “dazzling” test of the Flyboard Air – a jet-powered hoverboard. Its inventor, Franky Zapata, hoped to become the first to cross the English Channel on such a vehicle.

So hopes were riding high a week later when Monsieur Zapata – on the 110th anniversary of France’s first successful plane crossing – took off from Sangatte, France. Unfortunately his flight lasted only fifteen minutes, crashing at about the halfway point in an attempt to refuel.

“We should have done a takeoff and landing test,” the unharmed pilot told reporters.

Keeping things airborne is also much on the minds of private debt investors. As we highlighted last week, much of the global world is beset with negative rates. Even in the US, Libor’s contraction since the Fed began easing rates last December has, for the first time in years, put floating rate assets in the crosshairs.