Remembering Rob Holland
A personal tribute my friend and aviation legend.
Shakespeare wrote that “when sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions." The loss of aerobatic legend Rob Holland is a single, tragic sorrow that marches on us like a battalion. Amidst a flurry of aviation incidents and accidents comes a tragedy that no one saw coming. Racing fans know the peculiar kind of sorrow that attended the tragic losses of Formula One greats Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna. It’s a combination of crushing pain, along with a creeping disquiet that comes over any dangerous sport when it loses its standard bearer. Rob had that rare, generational talent that made the dangers of aerobatic flying seem to evaporate, at least for him if no one else. Rob seemed invulnerable, even if we knew he wasn’t.
Not that such thoughts ever touched Rob. Having already survived a truly terrifying incident some years before that cost him his first, beloved MXS-RH aircraft – but thankfully not his life – Rob was as sober about the dangers of flying in general and aerobatics in particular as any pilot alive. He hated it when people lamented a colleagues’ death by eulogizing that they “died doing what they loved.”
“No one loves dying in a plane crash,” he’d mutter.
It’s as if he felt that phrase trivialized the danger he and all pilots face when they fly. Rob lived to fly and he flew to live. Without any knowledge of why Rob’s plane crashed, all I can be sure of is that he did everything he could to prevent it. The press may use a phrase like “stunt pilot” because they either lack the proper aviation lexicon or because they wish to use terms familiar to readers, but Rob was emphatically and definitively not a “stunt pilot.” Aerobatics produces excitement for an audience precisely because it appears unhinged and dangerous, but to make a career doing such flying is to perfect each maneuver such that it becomes as routine as a trip down to the corner shop for a gallon of milk. Rob was, if anything, more risk averse than most people I’ve met. Rob didn’t take risks, calculated or otherwise. Any one of his fans was in more danger driving to watch Rob fly than Rob ever was flying the show. The dangers associated with flying are real and ever-present, but Rob controlled everything that was in his power to do so.
And that is what makes this so damned hard. We all knew Rob was mortal. We didn’t need proof.
Being in the presence of someone possessed of such larger-than-life talents, it becomes hard not to resort to hero worship. Rob would have none of it, however. We’d first met on a glorious late spring day in May 2009. We spent the day hanging out, Rob playing my white Stratocaster guitar, telling airshow stories, and talking about plans for his show music. Over a pizza before he flew home, I said I hoped I wasn’t acting like some insufferable airshow fan.
Rob quipped back, “I don’t know – am I acting like a prima donna airshow pilot?”
“Not at all,” I replied.
“OK, then, I think we’re good.”
And so we became friends. And make no mistake – Rob could have been that guy; the one who manipulates his image to maximum effect. The guy who basks in the adulation of fans and forgets where he came from. We all know guys like that. Not Rob. From that first day I met him until my last texts with him only weeks ago, he was always just a humble, down-to-earth guy. He was always the same guy he was that day when he jumped from his old black and lime green MX2 wearing a battered old Van Halen tour shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
It’s funny how the more grounded and humble a person is, the more it makes their skills and talents seem even greater by comparison. When he landed that black MXS at an airport, with that skull and crossbones on the underside of the engine cowling, he had the stage presence of an enigmatic rock star. His unassuming demeanor and dressed-down appearance only deepened that mystique. People were drawn to him. Anyone who found themselves within his orbit felt the magnetic pull of Rob’s personality; that despite his being taciturn and even a bit reclusive at times. No one was more ill-at-ease with his heroic image than Rob.
Cut to a hanger in Geneseo in upstate New York. Two young fans sheepishly walk up to Rob and ask him to sign their programs. Rob obliges, of course, and the two young fans meander away with huge smiles. But my wife was unsatisfied.
“Oh come on Rob…you have to do better than that!” she mocked.
“What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?’” he said, quoting from the classic film “Airplane!”
At which point my wife collapsed in laughter.
“I guess we found the level of the room,” Rob said with a smirk.
That’s how Rob saw himself: sitting in a hanger with friends, quoting movies, talking guitar tone, playing pranks. He had heroes, but he wasn’t one – not in his mind.
But, well…of course he was. At Oshkosh one year, a young fan brought a lovingly hand-made model of Rob’s MXS-RH all the way from Germany to have Rob sign it. When he won the last of his unprecedented six World Aerobatic Freestyle Golds, the vaunted French team genuflected before his plane as Rob taxied back in. The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds came to Rob for advice. After a briefing at Langley AFB before a practice show I heard a group of F-22 Raptor pilots gushing over Rob’s demonstration flight. Pilots – especially fighter jocks and super especially Raptor pilots – don’t gush over anything. They did about Rob. If Rob wasn’t a hero, then such a thing does not exist.
Amongst his more heroic qualities was his commitment to seeing airshows performed with style and flair, but above all, performed safely. And, unsurprisingly, his opinion on airshow performance was considered definitive by everyone I ever met. He was a consummate professional. Of course he wanted to put on a great show for the audience, but never at the expense of safety. He knew that exact line between exciting and dangerous. The margin was all to Rob. He was not a thrill seeker. He wanted to deliver thrills to an airshow audience; he had no interest in experiencing them in the cockpit. Rob’s thrills came from having flown well, period. I only ever witnessed Rob encroach the margin on a maneuver once, finishing slightly low on an inside tumble. His first words when the canopy went up were “that’s why we have margins.”
To so many, Rob was the aerobatic hero we all celebrated. But there was so much more to the man than what he displayed in front of millions every summer weekend. Rob was a phenomenal musician. I don’t throw that compliment around lightly. He was a fearsome guitar player, but more than that, he had an ear for music that was as finely tuned as his eye for aerobatics. He downplayed those abilities – his humility was always apparent – but he had no reason to. That’s part of why his show was so well-choreographed; he knew how to work pacing and use music to build and release tension. He tried to come off like a simple, humble pilot, but he was vastly more capable in so many other areas than he let on. It’s hard to imagine Rob being anything other than a pilot, but his talent for music alone could have filled his life had he wanted it to.
I’ve so many memories I will hold dear until my final days, but none will fill the hole his loss left in my heart when he was taken from us. It is easy to say that Rob was larger-than-life, but the truth is that Rob as a person was defiantly life-sized – he insisted on that. He never wanted to cast a shadow any larger than he actually was and yet the void he’s left feels so vast as to be unfillable. And yet it is up to us to fill it. Rob would have wanted us to.
Rob always said his main goal was to inspire others and he did that, probably more than almost anyone I’ve ever met. His ability to inspire was a gift I do not intend on wasting. Rob cared deeply about the things that truly mattered to him and not at all about the things that didn’t. He lived his live fully and with intention. I can’t think of a better way to live than that.
Blue skies my friend. I will miss you terribly.
The first time I ever saw Rob fly. May 2009, Perkiomen Valley Airport (N10), Pennsylvania.
