EAA Sport Aviation Halls of Fame Set to Induct 5 New Members

The EAA Sport Aviation Halls of Fame will be welcoming five more famous flyers to its ranks next week.

The Experimental Aircraft Association will induct the Class of 2025  into the prestigious group during a dinner ceremony on Wednesday, November 12, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

This year’s hall of fame inductees are:

• Vic Syracuse: Homebuilders
• Rob Holland (posthumous): International Aerobatic Club
• Darrel Berry (posthumous): Warbirds of America
• Mark Holliday: Vintage Aircraft Association
• Dave Cronk: Ultralights

According to EAA, all five of those selected have spent a lifetime proving themselves dedicated to their respective areas of aviation and represent the spirit of EAA.

About the Inductees

Vic Syracuse

Syracuse has built multiple aircraft, including a Prescott Pusher, Just Aircraft SuperSTOL,  Hummingbird helicopter, three Kitfoxes, and multiple RVs. He further shares his skill performing prebuy inspections for prospective buyers of homebuilt aircraft.

Syracuse is also a gifted writer. Look for his magazine work in KITPLANES and EAA Sport Aviation. He has also generated YouTube content and books on aircraft maintenance and prepurchase.

Syracuse also is an A&P/IA, designated airworthiness representative, EAA technical counselor, commercial pilot, and CFII with experience in more than 70 types of aircraft. He remains active in EAA’s Young Eagles program, having flown more than 350 youths.

Rob Holland

Holland became interested in flying after his parents took him to military airshows. He earned his certificates quickly and pursued any opportunity to fly, ultimately logging more than 15,000 hours in 180 different types of aircraft.

His career included working as a flight instructor, towing banners, and flying commercial and commuter aircraft as well as corporate and private jets. He also created his own flight academy, Aerial Advantage Aviation.

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In 2002 Holland joined the airshow circuit, pursuing aerobatics. In 2007 he acquired his signature one-of-a-kind MXS-RH aerobatic airplane and became a favorite competitor. He was named an honorary Canadian Snowbird and U.S. Navy Blue Angel, received the Art Scholl Showmanship Award, and was awarded more than 38 national and international medals.

Holland earned 13 consecutive U.S. national aerobatic championships (Unlimited), 14 U.S. national aerobatic freestyle titles, and six world freestyle crowns. In addition, he was the driving force in securing the 2026 FAI World Aerobatic Championships for Batavia, New York.

Holland, 50, was killed in a tragic landing accident at Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base in advance of the Hampton Roads Airshow in April.

Darrel Berry

Berry was a member of the EAA Tennessee Warbirds First Squadron, a founding member of the Ridge Runner flight team, and a lead pilot for the T-34 Association’s FAST team.

The owner of BMT Aviation, he had a passion and reputation for collecting, restoring, and flying vintage military aircraft. His collection included nearly two dozen warbirds, including several T-34s, T-6s, AT-11s, helicopters, and a Grumman TBM Avenger, which was the crown jewel of his fleet.

Berry was an Army and Marine Corps veteran, becoming a pilot in 1978. He held a commercial certificate, an instrument rating, a private pilot multiengine rating, and a helicopter certificate. He logged more than 8,000 hours of flying in his career.

Berry was also the owner of Berry Machine & Tool in Lawton, Oklahoma, a tire mold repair company that serviced the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s largest global plant for more than 35 years. He died in October at age 77..

Mark Holliday

Holliday grew up in an aviation family and celebrated his 16th birthday by soloing 26 airplanes. 

He earned his private pilot certificate on his 17th birthday, and eight days later flew a Mooney Mite from Hastings, Minnesota, to the 1969 EAA fly-in at Rockford, Illinois. Holliday hasn’t missed an EAA convention since.

Holliday built his hours flying for his family’s FBO, Lake Elmo Aero, at Lake Elmo Airport (21D) in Minnesota. He delivered airplanes to customers in every state in the nation with the exception of Hawaii and had logged nearly 1,500 hours by the time he was 21.

The owner of a Swift, Holliday flew aerobatic routines in airshows for 25 years and is known in the type community for his extensive knowledge and expertise in all things Swift.

Among the 200 different types of aircraft he has flown are World War I replicas, a Texas Bullet, a Meyers 200D, a Monocoupe, a Mullicoupe, a Knight Twister, and his 210 hp Swift.

Dave Cronk

In 1972, Cronk transformed Bob Lovejoy’s initial Quicksilver prototype into a product, launching what has become known as a line of the safest and best-selling rigid-wing hang gliders of the 1970s.

He’s also credited with bringing full structural analysis and flight testing into the industry. Cronk adapted his fully proven Quicksilver glider designs to powered ultralights, creating the weight-shift Quicksilver, the MX, MXL, Sprint, and GT series.

In 1994, the GT-500 became the first ultralight certified in the FAA’s sport plane category. Cronk’s tube, bolt, and sewn Dacron sleeve construction is widely accepted and remains fundamental to many modern ultralight aircraft designs.

In addition to his work with Quicksilver, Cronk won the 1975 World Hang Gliding  Championships in Austria in a glider of his own design. His Cumulus 10 hang glider is on permanent display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

Always an inventor, Cronk was elected to the Francis Rogallo Kitty Hawk Hall of Fame and developed inflatable military structures for the U.S. Army, earning him the branch’s Greatest Inventions Award.

Cronk is an active consultant for several ultralight aircraft companies, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and SpaceX.