THE Jet Suit Display Team will not perform as part of tonight’s Night air display, it has been announced.

Earlier today during their display, pilot Richard Browning was forced to ditch into the water.

It came after a similar incident during last night’s Night Air performance involving fellow pilot Dr Angelo Grubisic.

Tonight’s display was due to be their fourth and final display at this year’s Air Festival.

Richard Browning, founder and chief test pilot, said: “In pursuit of these new challenges and goals, we unintentionally put two Jet Suits in the water and as a result means we are rather short on equipment for tonight’s display and unfortunately are unable to fly."


However, Dr Angelo Grubisic has managed to break their jet suit speed record by flying at 74 kmph following the Guinness World Record set in November 2017 of 51.3 kmph.

Mr Browning was also able to fly the longest distance of 1.4km – which is further than the team has ever flown before.

He added: “It’s been the most fantastic week, pushing boundaries – and further demonstrating that innovation is about not being afraid to learn from failure.

“We very much look forward to coming back to display at Bournemouth Air Festival and potentially grow a part of our international race series across the waterfront.”

Festival Director, Jon Weaver, said: “Richard, Angelo and the team from Gravity Industries have wowed, inspired and entertained tens of thousands of festival goers and we wish them every success in the future. We do hope that we’ll be able to welcome them back to the festival.”


Speaking after this afternoon's display, Dr Grubisic told the Daily Echo: "It is part of the historic approach of innovation in aviation, to accept and learn from failures.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of, it is part and parcel of what we do.

"The only thing you can do wrong is not learn from it. We learn and test in every single flight.

"There is no single flight where we are not doing something for the first time. This one for example was a completely new suit. I learnt to fly it within about three seconds and it is a completely different configuration. That is how quickly we train to pick things up.

"I got the stability, hammered it over to the landing area and set it down. For us it was a successful flight. Richard got a little bit wet, where as I did yesterday, but everything is taken care of from a risk point of view."

Founder Mr Browning was met on the shore by lifeguards after landing in shallow water.

He told the Daily Echo he started to pick up a vibration in one of the engines. He thought it was a momentary issue, turned out to sea, before he lost power in one of the engines.

"That is why we fly over the water," he said.

"We didn't quite intend to have two failures in a row, but that is what it is about.

"It is no risk, but it is disappointing from the amount of work it takes to get the equipment back together, especially when I was in about knee-deep water.

"I was so close to landing on the beach and saving it, but I didn't.

"It was brilliant while I was in the air and it was effortless. It was quite fun. Angelo launched and I followed after him. I flew alongside him and tracked him.

"To show the mobility I tracked sideways. These things are immensely capable, but if you get a technical failure there's no wings where you can glide, hence why over water it is great.

"That is what we are building to, with a big race series over water.

"Part of the reason for doing this event was to test out and see what it would be like. One of the exciting things about racing, as long as people don't get hurt, is the crashes.

"Overall it has gone well, but it is frustrating that one single engine failure caused a lot of damage.

"This is the 57th event in 18 countries that I have done. Until this event, I had never had a failure or a crash."