The Greatest Stick and Rudder Man

October 25, 2016 8:28 AM

Bob Hoover, one of the finest pilots in generations, has died at age 94.

Recognizable by his his iconic hat, he is perhaps most famous for his engine-out airshow routine. Bob Hoover's other feats include pouring a glass of iced tea while guiding a plane upside down and escaping German captivity in WWII by stealing one of their aircraft.

posted by exogenous (32 comments total)

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posted by Dean358 at 8:35 AM on October 25, 2016

A long life well lived. Also a hell of a pilot. His calm control flying a twin with only one engine running is remarkable mastery.
posted by Nelson at 8:39 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

A man with full faith in physics. Both pouring out ice tea upside down and landing his no-engine airplane after a no-engine loop & barrel roll on airspeed alone.
posted by chavenet at 8:43 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

RIP Bob. Old school.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:45 AM on October 25, 2016

Please everyone go check out the main FPP link. I grew up with flying in my blood, and the first video there is the most masterful flying I've ever seen, bar none. If you want to see someone at the pinnacle of mastery of their discipline, that's what it looks like. His supreme confidence in the laws of physics and utter disregard for the stall warning is something to behold.

You get ALL the .s, Mr. Hoover!
posted by iffthen at 8:46 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Incredible pilot, and a warm and genuine human being.
Great job, Bob. We'll miss you.
posted by rp at 8:47 AM on October 25, 2016

✈
posted by Gelatin at 8:53 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got to see him perform in his Learjet when I was a kid. It was amazing. I was familiar with the razor edge precision of other pilots and the incredible things that the Blue Angles could do. But what Bob Hoover did didn't look like flying, it was just as iffthen says, mastery.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 8:53 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The best compliment you can make about a pilot like this is that he died peacefully at home at an advanced old age.

His Shrike Commander is at the Udvar-Hazy Center - if you find yourself with a long layover at Dulles, there's a shuttle bus that will take you to the museum from the terminal.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:53 AM on October 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

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posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:59 AM on October 25, 2016

• Proof that there are old, bold pilots.

(This is probably not very believable but my mother dated Bob Hoover for a time in the early 80s.)
posted by bz at 9:16 AM on October 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

I saw his Shrike Commander routine and his P51 routine when I was a kid. Stunning at his craft. But now I'm watching his yaw routine in that same aircraft from that link above and just sitting here agape. Gonna have to arrange a long layover at Dulles, as backseatpilot suggests.
posted by straw at 9:44 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

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posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:56 AM on October 25, 2016

Whatever those Air Force test pilots were doing up there it seems to have given them some serious longevity. Hoover's buddy Chuck Yeager is 93 and still around.

It's guys like Hoover who deserve a send-off phrase like, "Godspeed"
posted by wabbittwax at 10:11 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

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I never saw him fly (except in videos, of course) but I did once get the opportunity to hear him speak: a wonderful human being, the very definition of a gentleman. Godspeed, Mr. Hoover.
posted by easily confused at 10:38 AM on October 25, 2016

The videos on this post are truly unskippable. To be watching an aerobatic performance -- literally the definition of "just showing off" -- and still feeling the urge to shout at the screen "come on, now you're just showing off" at some of the maneuvers is a hell of the thing.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:02 AM on October 25, 2016

I kind of feel like one of the reasons he's set apart is just how effortless and almost laconic his Shrike Commander routine looks. There's nothing terribly showy there - he's not doing hammerheads and tail stalls, just very straightforward loops and rolls for the most part - but this combination of unfussy routine and (frankly) kind of boring airplane, executed flawlessly in a suit and tie is just the definition of understated confidence to me.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:20 AM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I would say they should make a movie of his life, but they would have to leave too much out. I mean, he was training to be Chuck Yeager's backup to break the sound barrier after all his exploits in WW II, and he was still just 24 years old. Good profile here, linked in the first article in the FPP.
posted by TedW at 12:05 PM on October 25, 2016

You people all talking about his flying, when there's this from the FPP to take into consideration, too:

Having been shot down over Nice, France in World War II, Hoover spent 16 months as a POW, spending much of the time in solitary confinement as punishment for two dozen escape attempts. Finally, he succeeded just before the end of the war by stealing a German fighter.

Although that escape involved a lot of crazy flying, too.
posted by ambrosen at 12:31 PM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

There's nothing terribly showy there

Yeah, maybe my reaction comes from knowing just enough about airplanes and aerobatics to be dangerous. When he shuts off the engines and does his unpowered barrel roll into the loop, it was like "Wow, that's a cool demonstration of precision flying". And then he had the sheer audacity to cap that off by doing those one-wheel touchdowns before actually landing, and that was the part where I kind of lost it. (In a good way.)
posted by tobascodagama at 12:55 PM on October 25, 2016

Also, I'm definitely going to go and find a Shrike Commander module for Flight Simulator X later on.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:56 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stealing an FW-190. You know, the kind of high-performance aircraft where (at least I expect) after you already know how to fly they spend a fairly extensive amount of time teaching you how not to immediately kill yourself in this specific aircraft.

I also wonder how much technical German he knew before he sat down in that cockpit, presumably for the first time, and flew off.

[obligatory inclusion of the entire text of High Flight]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:04 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

(For other sim nerds, Carenado apparently has modules for FSX and X-Plane that are well-received. One of the promo shots for the X-Plane version shows the left engine stopped in flight.)
posted by tobascodagama at 1:04 PM on October 25, 2016

Stealing an FW-190. You know, the kind of high-performance aircraft where (at least I expect) after you already know how to fly they spend a fairly extensive amount of time teaching you how not to immediately kill yourself in this specific aircraft.

I also wonder how much technical German he knew before he sat down in that cockpit, presumably for the first time, and flew off.

He hadn't flown one before, but he'd recently had a little free time to study up on them. Also, having a well-motivated ground crew can help.

Although he had never flown a Focke-Wulf 190, Hoover had learned about the aircraft from a fellow POW, Gus Lundquist, who had gone to England to evaluate captured German airplanes.

“He talked one of the lead generals into letting him fly a mission, and was shot down,” Hoover said. “One day, I told him that I wanted to go to Wright Field after I got out, and he said, ‘I’m from Wright Field!’ When we’d have an opportunity, he’d sketch in the dirt where everything was.”

The men made plans to use the plane, but Ennis had decided not to fly out with Hoover.

“He never wanted to fly again,” Hoover said.

When a mechanic noticed the men, Hoover motioned him closer with a gun he’d acquired during their travels. They discovered that the German could speak French.

“Jerry told him that if he didn’t help me get airborne, he’d kill him,” Hoover said.

posted by zamboni at 1:44 PM on October 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

I saw Hoover fly a number of times, both in the yellow Mustang and the Aero Commander. Incredible skill and artistry in the air. I regret never meeting him in person.

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posted by pjern at 2:51 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I saw Bob Hoover and his Shrike at Arlington in Washington State in the 90's. There were a few acts but his stood out out out. A lot of airshow routines are kinda graceless in my opinion. There will be some bazillion horsepower plane hanging off its prop or doing vertical Lomcevaks with crappy music blaring from the pa. (Very skillful flying no doubt at all but still kind of dorky, like harley blatting dorky.) Bob Hoovers routine was the soul of grace.

(The other act that was revelatory that day was watching Patty Wagstaff, I don't know what the reality of it is but to me it felt like all of the freedom in world stretched out against the sky, it was so beautiful that it made me cry.)
posted by Pembquist at 3:36 PM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

s!
posted by mwhybark at 4:08 PM on October 25, 2016

I remember the fuss when the FAA tried to ground him. It’s not really bureaucracy’s fault that it doesn't deal well with the truly one-of-a-kind.

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posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 5:33 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

That first video linked is stunning.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:11 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this post. I didn't know about him (though it's possible I saw hi, without knowing at Oshkosh as a kid). Really amazing stuff. I wish I could find better footage of him in a P-51. That's my favorite plane.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:23 AM on October 26, 2016

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Wow. Thanks for the link.
My uncle--a Navy pilot in the mid-1960s--co-owned a T28 that he often flew in airshows around the Southeast during the early 1980s. He'd gotten to know Hoover over the years, and I had the good fortune of meeting him the day before a show. I was probably only 10, so I don't remember much. But we have one reel of film my dad shot that day: a couple of shots from takeoff, to aerobatics, and landing, with me getting out of the plane, and then it jumps to several of us standing next to Hoover and waiving, before cutting to his practice routine. I saw him at least another 10 times over the years, and he always seemed to be just a bigger than life character who loved performing.
NOTE: I recently discovered a guy named Steve Henry, who's also amazing (I know a lot of guys do short take-off stuff, but he also does a lot of dead-stick stuff).
posted by whatgorilla at 11:03 PM on October 26, 2016

On a cross-country drive In the late 80s I stumbled across an airshow way out in the desert at Blythe, CA. Hoover and his Shrike Commander were there. I knew enough about aviation to stay around to see his routine, but as nonchalant it is to see the in-camera footage, seeing it in front of you in all 3 dimensions is some seriously impressive challenges to physics.
posted by quartzcity at 3:25 AM on October 31, 2016