Page 13 - World Airshow News Autumn 2024

building flight time flying everything
Left: Rob Holland flies a custom-built MXS-RH high from banner towplanes to business jets.
performance monoplane. It is powered by a 380 During that time, he was also developing
horsepower Lycoming engine, can withstand 16 his aerobatic skills – skills sufficient to
positive and negative Gs, and rolls at 500 degrees per land him a job teaching aerobatics at
second (photo by Steve Serdikoff). airshow legend Michael Goulian’s flight
school. While instructing there, Rob was
Bottom left: Aerobatic champion Rob Holland (photo exposed to his first aerobatic competition.
by Bradley Wentzel). “They would take students to local
competitions, so that was my first
Below: Rob pushes into an inverted climb during his introduction to competitive aerobatics,”
airshow routine (photo by Jim Froneberger). recalls Rob. “Up to that point, I didn’t
know much about competition; I just
wanted to be an airshow pilot. After
that first competition, I fell in love with
prescribed maneuver. In “classical” it and was now on two parallel paths,
aerobatic competition, no emphasis is competition and airshows.”
placed on the novel or the spectacular. It might seem that airshow and
For superstar airshow pilot and competition flying are basically the same.
aerobatic champion Rob Holland, Sure, one is flown for entertainment and
his early passion for airshows would the other for the critical eyes of judges,
eventually lead him to the more austere, but a loop is a loop, right? That may be
challenging world of competitive true, but at the Unlimited level where
aerobatics. It would be a world in which Rob competes, no one is just doing a
he would also excel, becoming one of the simple barnstormers’ loop. The maneuver
world’s best competition aerobatic pilots. sequences are highly complex and
physically demanding, but there is no
pARALLEL pAtHS smoke used, and the maneuvers are not
Ever since seeing a Pitts Special flying flown down to within feet of the ground.
inverted at an airshow, Rob Holland Classical competition aerobatics also
has devoted himself to becoming a does not allow for gyroscopic tumbling
consummate airshow pilot. In the years maneuvers common at airshows.
that followed his first airshow, he began Competition aerobatics is all about

World Airshow News 13 Quarter 4, 2024