“Le Pilote de l’illusion” presents his breathtaking show, Mirageon Saturday November 23rd at La Seine Musicale before a tour of the Zéniths in January 2025.
Gaël Brinet has two loves: magic and fighter planes. He has managed to combine the two by creating Mirageon November 23 at La Seine Musicale. The finale of Europe’s first show inspired by the world of aeronautics, this “ illusion pilot “ will reveal, in three seconds, an authentic Alpha Jet weighing three tons, measuring 11.85 meters long and 4.20 meters high.
The realization of this number is the result of a five-year battle to recover one of the 512 examples of this aircraft used for training or ground attack, now used by the Patrouille de France. He began by sending particularly detailed files to the official authorities, starting with the Air and Space Force General Staff. “The people around me thought I was crazy, convinced it was mission impossible”.he recounts. Yet their spokesman, Colonel Yann Malard, was quick to contact him to find out more.
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Gaël Brinet explained that, in the early 2000s, he had discovered a magician in Las Vegas, Brett Daniels, performing this trick of which he was the inventor. Many of his fellow magicians had unsuccessfully offered him sometimes colossal sums to buy the secret. Seduced by the young Frenchman’s enthusiasm and passion, Brett Daniels agreed to reveal it to him for a mere ten thousand dollars. “In other words, I had everything but the plane. he pleaded in front of Colonel Yann Malard, clearly won over by the strength of his interlocutor’s conviction. Without the slightest certainty of the outcome, but convinced that it would be positive, Gaël Brinet had a 600 m2 hangar built near Blois, to house the aircraft when the day came. He didn’t regret it, since after a series of meetings, he was considered to be a “real winner”. “a vehicle for communication and commitment”. and was given a light by the Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace, as well as Dassault and the Patrouille de France. Recognizing the young man as one of their peers, the pilots offered him a baptism of the air, culminating in a series of particularly powerful aerial demonstrations. “I took on up to six times my weight in positive load factor and felt like the Little Prince, but of illusion”. he recounts.
A device, released from its military data and considered as a “unfit for flightwas delivered to him on March 10, 2022, with a contract of availability until 2029. Entering the building was not easy: the wings had to be dismantled and then reassembled. For his first tour of six Zeniths in early 2025, Gaël also invested in six 19-ton semi-trailers, essential for transporting not only the plane, but also the equipment needed for the show’s other tours. These include a disappearance on stage several meters off the ground before reappearing in the middle of the audience, a giant snack in a space shuttle, the levitation of a female spectator and a passage through a running aircraft turbine.
A native of Blois, like Rober Houdin, Gaël Brinet began flying countless paper airplanes in his very early years. At the age of 12, he discovered in a newsagent’s the boxed set “I love magic by Sylvain Mirouf. Breaking open his modest piggy bank, he invested 49 francs in the first issue’s booklet, and learned how to make a key disappear, with a rubber band hidden up his sleeve. From that day on, he never stopped practicing, immersing himself in books and watching countless videos. He took part in numerous competitions, regularly winning prizes in France and throughout Europe. Now a professional, he began performing in cultural centers and modestly sized halls.
Each time, he reinvested a large part of his fees in the purchase of technical equipment, to improve sound and lighting in particular. In 2010, he represented France at the World Magic Championships. Finally, in 2015, he made one of his dreams come true: to attend the David Copperfield show in Las Vegas. “He then gave me an hour-long interview over the phone, which is completely crazy because he hardly ever talks to any magician in the world.”. After hanging up, he decided to follow in his master’s footsteps, with a show inspired by his dreams and career. “I’ve always had Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s phrase in mind: make your life a dream, and a dream a reality. And one day I discovered that he had also been a magician..