‘Aviation Start’ Episode 3 Goes Inside the Business of Airshow Flying

The third episode of Aviation Start, FLYING’s career-focused video podcast hosted by Jamail Larkins, pulls back the curtain on one of aviation’s most visible and least understood careers: professional airshow flying.

“Without sponsors and partners, the airshow business is a hobby,” said guest Michael Goulian, a national aerobatic champion, Red Bull Air Race pilot, and one of the most recognized airshow performers in the world.

Goulian grew up working at his family’s flight school and soloed on his 16th birthday. A 1980 film about aerobatic competition, Cloud Dancer, set him on the path to aerobatics, and he never stopped.

Today his operation runs like a small race team, with a season stretching from late March to mid-November, roughly 15 shows a year, and a staff of about eight handling the airplane, logistics, social media, merchandise, and sponsorships. Goulian compared it to a miniature NASCAR team.

“We are a marketing company,” Goulian said. “We just happen to use an airplane to do it.”

His long-term partners, including Whelen Aerospace Technologies, AeroShell, Bose Aviation, Cirrus, Hartzell, and Lycoming, reflect a philosophy he returned to throughout the episode: sponsorship is earned through years of proven work, not landed with a pitch or a viral video.

“I hear a lot of people say, ‘I want to get a sponsor and fly airshows,’” Goulian said. “You have it backwards. How about you learn to fly, be really good, get a reputation, build a brand, then get a sponsor.”

The 10-Year Runway

For aspiring performers, Goulian laid out a clear starting point: the International Aerobatic Club, a division of EAA that runs competitions around the country across skill categories from primary through unlimited.

About 10 hours of aerobatic instruction is enough to know whether the discipline is a fit, he said, and the stick-and-rudder skills and situational awareness carry over to every other kind of flying, even for pilots who stop there.

Goulian’s own climb followed that ladder. He became the youngest national advanced aerobatic champion at age 22 while working two jobs to cover the airplane and insurance, flew local shows for little more than travel expenses, and earned his first bookings outside his region in Manteo, North Carolina, and Traverse City, Michigan. His estimate for a pilot starting today who wants to perform at Oshkosh: roughly a 10-year, full-time process.

With about 300 airshows held in the U.S. each year, Larkins and Goulian pointed to volunteering as the practical first step, whether with a local airshow organizing committee or on a performer’s crew, where relationships and mentorship open doors that a highlight reel cannot.

“There’s 11 minutes of really fun flying in the sky,” Goulian said, “but you don’t see 25 years behind it.”

Episode 3 of Aviation Start is available now on FLYING’s YouTube channel and all major podcast platforms. Aspiring aviation professionals can get matched with eligible scholarships from a database of more than $20 million at aviationstart.org.