Michael Goulian, pilot, performer and athlete with Goulian Aerosports, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the airshow.
The NAS Key West Southernmost Air Spectacular will be held March 29 and 30 and Goulian will be in the air.
Goulian said, “Starting off in March, there’s still cold weather in the northern part of the country. So for the air show community to go to Key West in such a major way, and the Navy puts on such amazing events around the country, but Key West is one of those places, especially for me, I’m from Massachusetts, so to start the season off in such an iconic location and also the town that has so much naval history there, and the Blue Angels will be there, and it’s just a great, great way to start off the season. The people that are going to attend the air show will see one of the best air shows in the country in a smaller venue, which is really actually quite special.”
Goulian is one of North America’s most decorated aerobatic pilots and recognized aviation professionals.
He said, “I fly an airplane called an extra 330sc. If anybody is a Netflix Drive to Survive fan, it’s sort of an aviation version of a Formula One car. It’s a single seat high performance airplane, single engine. It weighs about 1,200 pounds. It has about 350 horsepower. So the maneuvers that you see this airplane do, it’s really in what we call an unlimited aerobatic airplane, which really means it’s up to the pilots imagination. The airplane is five times stronger than any airliner you would get on. We will be pulling 10 and 11 g’s and the airplane will be tumbling end over end and backwards. Rob Holland is another one of the aerobatic pilots that will be there, along with me. We both have been national championship winners in the United States. So the type of flying we’ll do is what we hope the audience will see is like, I can’t believe what I just saw, this rock and roll performance in the sky and never thought I could see an airplane do that in person. That’s kind of what we’re what we’re all about.”
Goulian has been flying for 30 years.
He said, “I started very young. My dad was a pilot and aviator. We own a flight school up in Boston, so for any kid from New England, it’s either hockey skates or something else. I did both. I was a hockey player as a kid, and then my dad brought me to the airport, and I never looked back. So I’ve had an amazing journey along, flying air shows and also in the Red Bull Air Race. I’ve just been doing about 20 events per year, and have been lucky enough to do this full time as a profession. The amazing thing is, no two days are ever alike, and it never gets old. Right now I’m in Tennessee, practicing hard, getting coaching and training and being ready for the for the first show of the season. I’ll actually be flying my Cirrus to the event, which is our amazing five seat airplane that we use to transport around. But the airplane, the extra that I’ll be flying in the air show, also has a professional pilot that his job is just to fly the airplane from location to location. An aerobatic airplane, not always so fun to fly from location to location. It’s really meant to fly aerobatics and air shows. So Ryan will fly the airplane down to Key West, and I can do it almost non stop from Tennessee, but he has to make a couple of stops along the way.”
Flying with this kind of G force requires a lot of training.
Goulian said, “When you look at a pilot flying an aerobatic performance, whether it’s in an airplane like mine, or if you going to watch the Navy demos or the Blue Angels, you don’t realize how hard the pilots are actually working in there and that is because of the G forces that we’re experiencing. Every time you pull the airplane off of a level flight and it’s doing 200, 300, 400 miles an hour, gravity is trying to pull you out of the airplane, and you’re having to combat that. So if you looked at, for instance, a heart rate monitor on me, it’s around 175 beats a minute while we’re flying for that 12 minutes. So it it’s quite exhausting in there. We’re doing two things we’re training, what we call G tolerance training, which is really something only you can get by flying. You have to do it every day, two or three times a day. I’m here in Tennessee, as I said, so I’ll be flying three times a day, but you can only do it at 15 minute intervals, because it’s just so taxing. Then you’ll be in the gym working on your muscular fitness, stretching, cardiovascular and all of those things combined make a pilot capable and current and able to perform in an environment like we’re going to do next weekend.”
Goulian was one of the youngest pilots to ever win the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Championship at the age of 27.
He said, “Where I am at a level of my proficiency and training and skills and so forth, the maneuvering of the airplane itself is not, if you will, a challenge, but trying to make it do things that you’ve not done before, or trying to make interesting combinations of, if you will, tumbles and flips, for lack of a better term, is something that you work with either your friends like Rob Holland and I, another one of the performers that will be in Key West, we work together to try to change the show and make it interesting so it’s more appealing to the crowd, and we’re always trying to figure out different ways to make the airplane maneuver in ways that maybe the aerobatic world or the audience hasn’t seen before, and it really is, if you will, trial and error in a very controlled, thoughtful process. We do that high in the sky. We’re 3,500 feet in the air and then once you start to put something together and you get confidence in it, you bring it a little bit lower and bring a little bit lower. Then after you’ve done this literally hundreds of times, then you introduce it to an air show and bring it down to an air show level. So everything that you do starts high and works its way down and finally, if it’s if it’s very predictable and a great looking maneuver to the audience, then it makes its way into the show.”
Do the pilots get to watch the video after they’ve finished and kind of critique the performance?
Goulian said, “Absolutely. So we do it a couple of ways. We have video that we take. Also have a coach on the ground. Also we have electronics in the airplane, where when we’re done flying, we take a SD card out and stick it into our computer and it downloads. There’s actually a program where we can watch the airplane up close, so we can see any sort of deviations and wing rolls and things like that, mistakes that we might have made in a very technical manner, the box is recording 50 parameters per second, so we can watch that in really high time. So we’re using modern technology and the old way, old fashioned way of the human eyeball and video, and we put all of those together to make what we want to see in the sky.”
What’s it like in the plane?
Goulian said, “There’s really no air conditioning. There’s a little bit of air that comes in, but you’re wearing a fireproof flight suit and the helmet and gloves and everything, and it’s warm. It’s about 110 115 degrees in there, but you’re only in there for about 15 minutes, so you can handle it.”
What were the Red Bull Air Race World Championships like?
Goulian said, “I flew in the Red Bull Air Race from 2006 to 2019, quite a long time. Very much like slalom skiing, we flew through and around pylons, usually on the water, one at a time and the fastest time won. That was an amazing team sport. Red Bull has done so much for really, in adrenaline sports around the world and aviation is a huge benefactor of Red Bull as well, so it was really, really fun to do that for quite a long time.”
Has it gotten easier over the years, each time a pilot climbs into that cockpit?
Goulian said, “Funny enough, no. Every time you get into the airplane, you have some butterflies in your stomach, but it’s good, right? Every pilot should feel just a little bit of butterflies as they get in for a few reasons. You want to do a great, great performance for the fans that came out to watch you, so you have a little bit, if you will, stage butterflies. Then what you’re doing is a really serious business, and you need to make sure that you have looked at all of things from a safety standpoint, the crew chief looking at the airplane. You looking at your fitness and your nutrition, and your sleep and all of those things, and you put that all together. So you usually will see the pilots with a fairly stern look as they get in the airplane, and a big smile when they get out, because they’ve just put their heart and soul into this thing. I think that’s what’s amazing about an air show, is that there’s very little technology involved. It’s all the human spirit flying their best, their hardest to make a beautiful impression and a painting in the sky for the fans to enjoy. So that’s the that’s the neat thing about it, is you’re really creating something every time you take to the sky that people can appreciate and that’s what we’re there to do. I can’t wait. I haven’t been to Key West Air Show since 2016. It’s been a long time, and I’m just thrilled and honored that I’ve been invited to come back. As I said, what a way to start off our year. It’s going to be fantastic. Can’t wait to be in Key West. I’ll be there next Thursday.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keywestairshow.com/