LOOK UP!

It’s more than something Matt Jolley says at the beginning of an airshow. It’s why he does this work. For Matt, every airshow begins with three responsibilities: safety, entertainment and inspiration.
 

Safety is the responsibility. Entertainment is the craft. Inspiration is the mission.

Whether he’s speaking to two million people along Huntington Beach or a family listening from a blanket at a hometown airshow, Matt approaches the microphone the same way: he’s having a conversation with just you.  The crowd may be enormous. The conversation is still personal.  He doesn’t lecture about aviation or talk at an audience.

He invites you into the experience—the story behind what you’re seeing, the people behind the machines, the humor and personality that make it fun, and enough room to simply hear the airplane when that’s all that needs to be said.

Because the goal isn’t to make you notice the announcer.

It’s to make you look up.

A Storyteller on the Flightline

Matt grew up around airshows, but he learned his craft in professional broadcasting.  After years working in television and radio, he brought those two worlds together on the flightline. A national Edward R. Murrow Award-winning feature reporter, Matt combines a journalist’s curiosity and a broadcaster’s timing with a lifetime spent around aviation.

He’s a rated pilot and vintage military aircraft owner, but Matt learned early that the best aviation stories usually aren’t about machines. They’re about people.

That’s what he looks for when he picks up the microphone.  Matt is a familiar voice at Pacific Airshow—the world’s premier airshow—in Southern California and Australia, and New York’s historic Jones Beach Air Show. For more than a decade, he has also been entrusted with the microphone at MCAS Miramar’s America’s Airshow, a relationship that reflects the trust military event teams place in his preparation, judgment and ability to communicate their mission.
 

Away from the flightline, Matt founded WarbirdRadio.com and co-created SHOW CENTER: The Airshow Podcast, winner of the International Council of Air Shows Platinum Pinnacle Award. He appeared throughout Netflix’s Air Force Elite – Thunderbirds and co-hosted the Pacific Airshow broadcast on Hulu, where the production became the platform’s #1 live-streamed event for two consecutive years—even outdrawing the Coachella music festival in live viewership.

He also hosts the U.S. Air Force Historical Foundation’s Know the Past – Shape the Future podcast, and many new pilots first encounter his voice through Sporty’s Learn to Fly courses.

More Than a Microphone

An airshow microphone is more than an entertainment tool. It’s part of the show’s safety and communications system.  Matt works as part of the larger show team alongside producers, air bosses, performers, military teams and audio crews. When weather changes, schedules shift or an audience needs important information, decades of live broadcasting experience matter. So does knowing how to communicate clearly and calmly when it matters most.

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His connection to military aviation is personal, too. Matt is married to a U.S. Air Force veteran and has served as both a Key Spouse and Key Spouse Mentor, supporting Air Force families at the Wing level. That experience gives him a genuine appreciation for the people and families behind the military mission he is often entrusted to communicate.

Inspiration Is the Mission

Matt knows what an airshow can do because he was one of those kids.

He grew up going to airshows with his parents. By ten, he was helping his dad and already knew he wanted to be part of this community. What began by looking up eventually became a career spent helping others do the same.  Today, that commitment extends beyond the professional flightline. Matt serves on the board of his local Experimental Aircraft Association chapter and spends a week each summer volunteering with its youth aviation camp.

 

Somewhere in every crowd is another kid seeing all of this for the first time. Maybe that kid sees a pilot and imagines being up there someday. Maybe someone discovers a career they never knew existed. Maybe an adult simply remembers what it feels like to be amazed.  Airshows aren’t only about what’s flying today. They can inspire the people who will design, build, maintain and fly whatever comes next.
 

Matt is also a longtime member of the International Council of Air Shows and a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics.  He often says aviation may be America’s coolest export—right up there with rock-and-roll.  After a career spent telling its stories, the mission remains remarkably simple:

Be safe. Be entertained. Be inspired.

And keep looking up.

Explore Matt’s Work

Podcasts, broadcasts, social media and other projects:

https://linktr.ee/mattjolley

Find an Airshow Near You

International Council of Air Shows calendar:

https://airshows.aero/Page/AirShowsCalendar