ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- For Hugh Holloway, Robins Aero Club assistant chief flight instructor, flying is more than a career, it’s his passion.
“Aviation is a passion,” he said. “You either love it, or you do not stay in it very long. It is both exciting and challenging. It is rare that the conditions of any flight are the same as the one before it. It takes constant efforts to maintain your skills, but the efforts are very rewarding to be able to master the equipment and the ever-changing environment.”
Holloway first experienced flying in 1963 with the U. S. Navy as a 24-year-old crew member on the Douglas A3D Sky Warrior operating off aircraft carriers.
“It was a heavy attack bomber and still holds the record of the largest aircraft ever operated off an aircraft carrier,” he said.
The future flight instructor earned his private pilot certificate at a small airport in Douglas, Georgia, flying vintage fabric covered aircraft such as Piper Cubs and Aeronca Champions.
Holloway continued his aviation career in Middle Georgia.
Before the Robins Aero Club was established, Holloway attended a civilian flight school operating out of the Macon Municipal airport, then called the Lewis B. Wilson Airport.
There Holloway used the Vietnam Era G.I. Bill to earn his Federal Aviation Administration Commercial and Instructor pilot ratings, and then flew as an instructor pilot there.
When the Robins Aero Club was established in November 1968, Holloway was hired under contract to work as a flight instructor at the aero club.
“I enjoy working at the aero club because of the high quality of people we get there that are going through training and the complex flying environment and airspace we are able to train students in,” he said. “From the very start, they are exposed to complex airport operations, heavy large aircraft traffic and controlled airspace and ground operations at a large complicated airport. It is rare that student pilots get that exposure elsewhere.”
Holloway said he gets great joy from seeing those he has trained succeed.
“My greatest satisfaction is the pride I have of the many pilots I have trained who are now flying for the military, the airlines, corporate pilots, agricultural pilots, foreign pilots who were training to fly for careers in their home countries and all the recreational pilots who discovered the joys of aviation,” he said.
While Holloway takes great pride in the accomplishments of those he has trained, his own record is impressive in itself.
The Federal Aviation Administration recently presented Holloway with its Federal Aviation Administration Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. The award is presented to persons who have a minimum of fifty years of accident-free flying as a licensed pilot.
“Being nominated for and chosen to be presented with the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award by the FAA is not due to my long standing as a certificated pilot and Flight Instructor, but is more because of the teamwork efforts and solid discipline exercised by my associates and peers from the past and present while pursuing their aviation goals,” Holloway said.
“Initial pilot training is primal learning, which will determine if the person receiving that training is good, bad or indifferent,” he said. “My first flight instructors taught not only skills in how to control an aircraft, but also taught situational awareness, crew resource management and aeronautical decision making as an integrated part of the package, and I have always tried to follow that culture of safety. The fact that I have been recognized with this award must actually be shared with and contributed to the teamwork and professional efforts and interactions of the peers and associates from my past throughout the current day who fly by my side.”