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Rob Harrison Interview
(Aerobatic Pilot)
Rob Harrison received his pilot’s license in 1972 and then bought his first plane for $350!!
You’d think being an aerobatic pilot would be enough for a man, but, not if your name is Rob Harrison
Rob Harrison would go on to earn a Law Degree. And that’s not all of his accomplishments.
It would not be an exaggeration to say Rob Harrison is the Renaissance man of Aerobatic Flying
Q - What an impressive biography you have!
A - You know what Gary? I’ve been around way too long, but, I don’t know, I have three great kids. I have a beautiful, supportive, wonderful wife. I am a number of things mostly I’m an airshow pilot, but, in order to be a world-famous airshow pilot you got to make a living so I work as an engineer, an aerospace engineer. I’m also an ordained minister part-time. I don’t have a congregation of course. I’m a lay minister and I only admit to good friends I’m also an attorney.
Q - You’ve touched on just about everything in your life haven’t you?
A - Well, no. I don’t dance.
Q - Do you sing?
A - I used to sing.
Q - Do you play an instrument?
A - I used to play an instrument. I picked up my saxophone a couple of years ago after having let it sit there may be 50 years and I can’t even make a sound out of it anymore. So, if you want to buy a sax I’ll make you a hell of a deal! It was my dad’s saxophone. He was an excellent musician. He was also a World War II blimp pilot
Q - I think the next stop for you is to make an appearance on “Pawn Stars”.
A - Gary, that’s another thing I don’t do is television. We live in a beautiful, big house in Lake Arrowhead which costs more money then I want to admit to be spending and we have five large-screen televisions in the house and none of them have been turned on. Neither Suzy (Rob Harrison’s wife) or I ever watch TV. We do have a theater in the house and we will occasionally watch a movie. I think the last one I watched was “Planes” with my nephew.
Q - Are you still active in the airshow circuit or are you retired?
A - Negative. I’m not flying as much as I used to. I used to fly 18 to 20 shows a year I’m down to about four or five right now because, for a couple of reasons one is I’m quite busy with my consulting practice and the second is frankly the long travel has gotten to be a little too tiresome. Flying across the country in a single plane aerobatic plane it’s just gotten to be more than what I want to do. I’m still very much enjoy flying airshows. I got I think four scheduled for 2019 or five. I can’t really remember. I don’t plan to retire anytime soon. I’d like to fly for at least a couple more years even though I’m older than the oldest dirt on the planet.
Q - Where are you performing with your airshows?
A - I try to stay on the West Coast. I try to stay in California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada in the Southwest.
Q - You bought your first plane in 1972 for $350.
A - How did you know that? I must have told you that.
Q - No. It was in your bio. That sounds pretty cheap for a plane.
A - Well it was a 1939 Aeronca chief and it was completely apart it needed to be re-covered and a lot of other work. I was at the time at Mount St. Antonio College getting my A and P mechanics license. I used restoring that plane as the work I needed to do to get my A and P license. Just as a side, I bought that airplane the day I passed my commercial check ride.
Q - How did you have time to fly around doing airshows if you were practicing attorney?
A - I was working a full-time job, but, I was doing attorney work part time. I was working at the US Forest Service Technology and Development Center. Being a fairly senior bureaucrat you taxpayers give us a lot of time off and as such I was able to take annual leave to fly all around.
Q - You say there is always something new to be learned in aviation. Are you talking about the stunts you can do in the air or how far you push the plane to do the stunts?
A - Well, that’s an interesting question, but, we don’t like to call them stunts. A stunt pilot is a guy who flies in movies or for TV. I’ve done some stunt pilot work, but an airshow pilot performs aerobatics. We don’t like to call them stunts. There is always something to learn absolutely both from a technical point of view about the airplane, exploring the envelope to do new maneuvers. For instance, almost all unlimited pilots have their own version of the Lomcovak. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of exploration, a lot of trying things that fail in order to get your own unique Lomcovak. In the airplane I’m flying now it won’t do a Lomcovak, but, I am currently restoring this Lin 50 which is a wonderful airplane for tumbling maneuvers and I expect to be back into service tumbles in a few months when I get the airplane finished
Q - Should something go wrong in this plane your flying do you have a way out?
A - Absolutely. As a matter of fact, every maneuver I do I practice pulling the power at each stage of the maneuver so that if the engine quits while I’m doing a loop or a roll or a Lomcovak or a tumble of any kind, a snap roll, if the engine should quit I know how the airplane is going to react and I’ve developed and internalized a recovery method to get upright and headed back towards the ground at the best angle of glide. Should the airplane have a structural failure, all the aerobatic planes are equipped with the canopy you can jettison and a quick release harness and out you go. We always fly with the parachute when we’re flying aerobatics.
Q - I don’t know if you can address this question, but, I’ll try. Back in October 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd was traveling the US in a plane that band members felt was unsafe. How does an unsafe airplane be allowed to fly?
A - Well, how in unsafe plane can get in the air is painful to admit. Every plane has to have a certain number of pressurized inspections. For a smaller airplane like mine, it’s once a year. And the guy who holds what’s called the inspection authorization has to inspect the airplane and determine that it’s airworthy. Well, there are probably some guys with inspection authorization, they’re called IA’s which I am one of by the way, who really aren’t as conscientious as they should be big airplane like that (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane) needs a lot of maintenance and it’s very expensive. Rock ‘n Roll people have kind of bad history with general aviation airplanes, the Big Bopper (Buddy Holly and Richie Vallance) in a Beech Bonanza which is a perfectly good airplane. I’ve gotten several hundred hours in them. Weather is what took them down.
Q - In the case of Skynyrd flames were shooting out of one of the engines.
A - That doesn’t necessarily mean the airplane is unsafe. That airplane sounds like a C 46 RC 47 to me. If it was a C 46 they have got what’s called radio engines, round engines, like in your car, the Pistons go forward and aft or sideways depending on what kind of car. In a Volkswagen it looks like an airplane engine or a little airplane engine looks like a Volkswagen with Pistons that go sideways. But, on these larger, older transport category aircraft the Pistons are arranged in a circle pointing out and the exhaust pipes are very short. Flames coming out of the exhaust is normal in those motors. So, that could indicate an unsafe condition but it doesn’t necessarily indicate an unsafe condition.
Q - Pilots of the Skynyrd plane were seen passing a bottle of whiskey between them in the cockpit. Couldn’t they have been reported to some authority?
A - The pilots drinking is absolutely unacceptable. If the FAA caught those guys they would lose their pilots license immediately. There would be an emergency revocation. You can’t go fly when you’re drunk. We have a rule, 24 hours from bottle to throttle! It doesn’t affect me because I don’t drink at all, ever. But, I know a lot of pilots do like their whiskey. The legal limit for alcohol for flying is very low. It’s like almost none. You absolutely can’t fly within eight hours of having any alcoholic beverage.
Q - And that’s a proper law too.
A - Oh yeah.
Q - That should be the case.
A - Absolutely.
Q – O.K. Rob, you say: “education is very important to anyone who wants to survive.” What then do you say to someone who doesn’t have your energy, your drive or desire to learn? Today’s schools seem to stress sports over academics.
A - Gary, you’re absolutely correct. You have about the same chance of becoming a professional athlete; I don’t care how good you are as you do of winning the lottery. However, you don’t even have to be terribly smart, you don’t have to have an astronomer’s IQ, I mean if you are just a normal person and you put your mind to it, I have seen this in a number of cases that kids that have wanted to fly who really didn’t have any particular gifts. I said all right, how you doing in English? Not too good, man. I don’t like the teacher. Already, you buckle down. You pay attention in English. You pay attention in math. You get your high school diploma. Then you go to the junior-college in you learn to be an airplane mechanic and I promise you’ll make a good living and everybody will respect you. And this has happened on a number of occasions. Let me tell you a quick story. I used to fly the cable airshow every year. They don’t have it anymore, cable airport in upland which is where I keep my airplanes. I flown that show for I don’t know, 25 years. This kid used to come every show and get an autograph card. We do a new autograph card for every year. People collect them. From the time he was about four until the time he was about 19 or maybe he was 6 to 19, he’d come and get a card from me. And then he didn’t come in he didn’t come and he didn’t come. I said, God, I wonder what happened to and I can’t even remember his name now. Four years later he came back and he was all grown up and he had real short hair and a little gristly mustache. I said, Sam, where the hell have you been? He said, Rob, I’ve been in Afghanistan flying F-16s. So, this kid because I inspired him to fly, he’s probably now at least a Lieut. Col. or perhaps a full bird Colonel if he still in the Air Force. That I consider to be my greatest success story. Of course my son who is a private aviator is also a tremendous success story. He’s just got promoted to Capt. 06 in the California Guard, Naval Battalion. He is the commanding officer of the California, I guess they call them Marine Battalion. They are the guys who are responsible for harbor security.
Q - A very responsible job.
A - Oh yeah. He’s a very good senior officer. He’s also an engineer and I am a good enough engineer to know he’s a very good engineer.
Q - You were also racing motorcycles at one point. Was that professionally?
A - Oh yeah, although I never made a lot of money. I was good enough to make the main event but never good enough to win it, although I did win a few main events, not any of the big race. The center of motorcycling in the 70s was Southern California. All the Japanese had located here. The Italians were starting to locate here. There was a race track called Ascot Park were all the national champions raced. You have to work through steps in professional motorcycle racing and I got to the highest step. I was an expert, but, there were a lot of guys who were faster than me. (Laughs).
Q - Rob, you are probably the most educated pilot I’ve ever interviewed.
A - Well, it’s not that I was a great student Gary, (laughs), believe me but I have had the opportunity. Because of the jobs I’ve had I’ve had to keep up my education. Probably the best investment a person can make is an education in a technical area. Let me tell you an old joke. It goes like this; the physics major asks why does it work? The engineering major asks how does it work? The accounting major asks how much can we sell it for to make a profit? And the liberal arts major asks would you like fries with that?
Q - I’ve got one for you; the little boy said to his mother, when I grow up I want to be a pilot. His mother said, son, you can’t do both.
A - (Laughs). That is certainly true. Let me tell you one more story; when I was in the third grade I had a very good teacher. I don’t remember very many of my teachers. I can remember about four of them from kindergarten three times through graduate school. But, I was sitting looking out the window and Mrs. Cousins said, Robin Harrison, you are never going to make a living sitting looking out the window. Well, that’s what I do as a pilot you sit and you look out the window and I made a pretty good living at it. (Laughs)
Official website: www.harrisonairshows.com
© Gary James All Rights Reserved
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