A fan would never be practical . First of all , it would have to be huge , as in , about as tall as you . Second of all , even then you probably won ' t move at all . Water boats work because the boat has very little friction , snowboards however are semistuck to snow like a glue at least , until they start moving . Finally , even if the physics of it made sense , and they don ' t , there would be no place to put the battery to run it all . It would take up so much space and weight . Then as a business problem , it ' s going to cost a fortune , look ridiculous , he hard to mass manufacture , and then have a tiny market because most people have absolutely no need or interest in fan powered snowboard . Sure you could put tiny little tread wheels barely contacting on the back of the board or something but even then . why ? Who needs that