48 Facts About Bob Hoover

Robert Anderson Hoover was an American fighter pilot, test pilot, flight instructor, and record-setting air show aviator.

Bob Hoover flew Spitfires in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and was shot down in 1944 off the coast of France.

Bob Hoover was held for over a year in a German POW camp before eventually escaping and flying to safety in a stolen enemy aircraft.

Bob Hoover then worked as a United States Air Force and civilian test pilot after the war, flying chase for Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 supersonic flight in 1947, and as a flight instructor for North American Aviation during the Korean War.

Bob Hoover is best known as an air show display pilot, who flew for nearly 50 years until his retirement in 1999.

Bob Hoover received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988 and Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1992, along with several other military and civilian awards and accolades.

Bob Hoover learned to fly at Berry Field in Nashville, Tennessee while working at a local grocery store to pay for the flight training.

Bob Hoover enlisted in the Tennessee National Guard and was sent for pilot training with the United States Army.

Bob Hoover was later assigned to the Supermarine Spitfire-equipped 52d Fighter Group in Sicily.

Bob Hoover spent 16 months at Stalag Luft 1, a German prisoner-of-war camp in Barth, Germany.

One night due to the conditions in the camp there was a riot and fight involving several thousand inmates and Bob Hoover used this opportunity to scale the fence and escape, despite the fact that Dwight Eisenhower had issued the order for prisoners to no longer attempt to escape due to the rapid advance of the Allies.

Bob Hoover was joined by two other POWs and together they made their way down a dirt road to a German farmhouse where a lone woman made the starving men some food.

Bob Hoover being a pilot began inspecting the planes but they all seemed damaged and incapable of flight.

Bob Hoover eventually found a reconnaissance plane, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, with some damage, but a full tank of fuel.

Bob Hoover did not even taxi towards the runway, simply hitting the throttle and heading straight out across a field to take off.

Bob Hoover did not have a parachute and was in an enemy aircraft flying towards Allied lines knowing he would be an easy target for an American or British fighter pilot.

Bob Hoover did not even have a means to tell whether he had safely reached Allied territory; he simply knew to look for the windmills of Holland and land when he saw them.

Bob Hoover became Yeager's backup pilot in the Bell X-1 program and flew chase for Yeager in a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star during the Mach 1 flight.

Bob Hoover flew chase for the 50th anniversary of the Mach 1 flight in a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Bob Hoover left the air force for civilian jobs in 1948.

Bob Hoover flew flight tests on the North American FJ-2 Fury, F-86 Sabre, and the North American F-100 Super Sabre.

The Bob Hoover Mustang was purchased by North American Aviation from Dave Lindsay's Cavalier Aircraft Corp.

Bob Hoover demonstrated the Mustang and later an Aero Commander at hundreds of air shows until his retirement in the 1990s.

In 1997, Bob Hoover sold "Ole Yeller" to his good friend John Bagley of Rexburg, Idaho.

Bob Hoover set transcontinental, time-to-climb, and speed records, and personally knew such great aviators as Orville Wright, Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, Jacqueline Cochran, Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin.

In 1969, Bob Hoover was president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and he had been a personal friend of Charles Lindbergh since the early 1950s, when the reclusive Lindbergh was using the pseudonym "Mr Schwartz".

Bob Hoover persuaded Lindbergh to attend the SETP annual symposium and banquet at the Beverley Hilton, as his guest.

Bob Hoover introduced both Lindbergh and Armstrong, to the surprise of the press and other attendees, and many photos were published of Bob Hoover's wife Colleen flanked by both 'heroes' of aviation.

Bob Hoover was best known for his civil air show career, which started when he was hired to demonstrate the capabilities of Aero Commander's Shrike Commander, a twin piston-engine business aircraft that had developed a staid reputation due to its bulky shape.

Bob Hoover showed the strength of the aircraft as he put it through rolls, loops and other maneuvers, which most people would not associate with executive aircraft.

Bob Hoover was known for creating the stunt of successfully pouring a cup of tea while performing a 1G barrel roll.

Bob Hoover's air show aerobatics career ended in 1999, but was marked by issues with the Federal Aviation Administration over his medical certification that began when Hoover's medical certificate was revoked by the FAA in the early 1990s.

Bob Hoover believed his successful management of this difficult emergency should have convinced the FAA that he hadn't lost any ability.

Meanwhile, Bob Hoover was granted a pilot license and medical certificate by Australia's aviation authority.

Bob Hoover's United States medical certificate was restored shortly afterward and he returned to the American air show circuit for several years before retiring in 1999.

At 77 years old Bob Hoover still felt capable of performing and passed a FAA physical post-retirement, but he was unable to obtain insurance for air shows.

Bob Hoover died on October 25,2016, near his home in Los Angeles at the age of 94 from heart failure.

The lead element featured a Rockwell Sabreliner, similar to another aircraft that Bob Hoover flew during air shows, along with two F-16 Fighting Falcons from the United States Air Force Thunderbirds aerobatic team and a Canadair CT-114 Tutor from the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds aerobatic team.

Bob Hoover was considered one of the founding fathers of modern aerobatics and was described by General Jimmy Doolittle as "the greatest stick-and-rudder man who ever lived".

Bob Hoover was made an honorary member of the United States Navy aerobatic team the Blue Angels, the United States Air Force Thunderbirds, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the American Fighter Aces Association and the original Eagle Squadron, and received an Award of Merit from the American Fighter Pilots Association.

Bob Hoover was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988 and to the Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1992.

On May 18,2010, Hoover delivered the 2010 Charles A Lindbergh Memorial Lecture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC The US Air Force Test Pilot School conferred an honorary doctorate on Hoover at the school's December 2010 graduation ceremony.

On December 12,2014, at the Aero Club of Washington's 67th annual Wright Memorial Dinner, Bob Hoover was awarded the National Aeronautic Association's Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.

The Bob Hoover Academy was named after him, which was founded by Sean Tucker in 2017 and acts as a charitable education and aviation program for at-risk teens, largely backed by the local California school district and Harrison Ford.

On March 11,2017, at the 2017 United States Air Force Academy Recognition Dinner, Bob Hoover was announced as the Class Exemplar for the USAFA Class of 2020.

Hoover's decades of revolutionary flying formed the framework for the 2014 documentary film, Flying the Feathered Edge: The Bob Hoover Project, directed by Kim Furst, which centers around Hoover's life and legacy.

The "Bob Hoover nozzle", used on refueling equipment dispensing jet fuel, is designed with a flattened bell shape.

Once Bob Hoover recovered, he widely promoted the use of the new type of nozzle with the support and funding of the National Air Transportation Association, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association and various other aviation groups.