Aerobatic performer returning to Bethpage Air Show after 10 years

The Memorial Day weekend air show at Jones Beach State Park will differ from previous shows for multiple reasons — though at least one aerobatic performer, Mike Goulian, returning after about a decade away, hopes to both inspire and thrill.

"We want, especially the young people in the audience, to understand that through hard work and dedication and passion a person can excel in their lives and do anything they want," Goulian, 52, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, said by telephone on Friday.

Like most artists, whether painting or dancing or flying high-performance airplanes, the connection with the audience and the emotions they may share are crucial.

"We start off with very fast, hard-hitting music," Goulian said.

"And then with sort of a jubilant finish, … we want people to have a little bit of a tear in their eye, standing up and applauding and saying … I was able to feel their emotion from the ground."

His category of performers at the Bethpage Federal Credit Union air show gets the closest to the audience, though no lower than 500 feet, and like all the pilots must stay 1,500 feet offshore. Military jets -- this year’s show features the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds -- must stay at least 1,500 aloft.

The roster this year includes the U.S. Army Golden Knights, aerobatic pilot David Windmiller of Melville, a U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue demonstration team, the U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II, the American Air Power Museum Warbirds, the Bay Port Aerodrome Society, the Geico Skytypers, and Farmingdale State College Aviation. The A-10, of course, is the Warthog. Once built on Long Island, it defied critics of its stubby appearance to become prized for its ability to swoop down, aiding troops and destroying enemy tanks.

The annual show, canceled last year due to the pandemic, will be much smaller — only 50,000 parking tickets were offered for the performances, which begins Friday, May 28 with a practice session. Antivirus precautions will keep the audience on the beach.

The weekend show will be livestreamed, on https://abc7ny.com, on WABC-TV's Connected TV Apps on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, and Roku.

Three long-term aerobatic stars will not appear for different reasons: Sean D. Tucker, Matt Chapman and John Klatt. "We will miss them greatly," said George Gorman, Long Island regional director, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. "They were more than performers, they were friends of the air show who guided us from the very beginning," he said.

"Their advice, all three of them, as the air show developed and became more experienced and mature, was invaluable," Gorman said.

Air show performers, Goulian said, know each other well from the circuit, and cooperate informally but intensely to ensure they all stay safe despite the obvious dangers." It's a high adrenaline sport, you're driving or flying an unbelievable machine, it's a Ferrari in the sky, and the world is your stage, and so if you’re not very disciplined, you may very well hurt yourself," he said

Pilots who fail to develop self-mastery get weeded out. "If you're kind of a bad apple, they'll let you know it, and those people don't stick around long," Goulian said.

Unlike other air shows, held at airports, where the pilots feel the crowd's energy right from the start, they must fly a few miles from the airport to Jones Beach. "So the challenge is to get yourself psyched up and ready and mentally prepared to fly at the airport, where business jets are coming and going, and everything else, and you are just part of the traffic," he said.

Then, 'you get to starting altitude, you look down and there are thousands and thousands of people on a beach; then it hits you," Goulian said. "I've been given a gift to fly in this beautiful environment in the shadow of New York City." He added: "I hope that this weekend is a celebration of really all the things we love in America."