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Cycling a twin-tilting-rotor helium airship across the English Channel is the latest of a long line of zany crossings which is being attempted this summer by a Frenchman, Stephane Rousson.

His craft, Zeppy, is a helium-filled balloon airship that's just heavier than air. The pilot pedal-powers two propellers that operate on a tilting axis.

It's the first pedal-powered airship of its kind, complete with very delicate aerodynamics that mean Rousson will need a dead calm day.

The English Channel just 21 miles wide, has for centuries inspired ingenious and often ill-fated inventors to try their luck at crossing in a variety of contraptions, usually more for glory than practicality.

The first air crossing was more than 300 years ago, as balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard floated from Dover to Calais. 90 years later, in 1875, Matthew Webb became the first swimmer to make it from one side to the other. The first aircraft heavier than air to cross the channel made it over in 1909, and the first hovercraft in 1959.

The first purely human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross, crossed the channel in 1979, its pilot Bryan Allen pedalling the feather-light winged plane across in two hours to collect the UKP100,000 Kremer prize, and it was this attempt that caught the imagination of French cyclist Stephane Rousson.