test pilots, bottom row second from right,
c.1957 Hoover learned to fly at
Berry Field in
Nashville, Tennessee while working at a local grocery store to pay for the flight training. He enlisted in the
Tennessee National Guard and was sent for pilot training with the
United States Army. Assigned to the 98th Fighter Squadron, he was assigned to advanced training in Florida, flying P-40Ks, and was accidentally shot down by a fellow pilot over Mullet Key Bay, Florida, on November 9, 1942. During World War II, Hoover was sent to
Casablanca, where his first major assignment was flight testing the assembled aircraft ready for service. He was later assigned to the
Supermarine Spitfire-equipped
52d Fighter Group in
Sicily. On February 9, 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by
Siegfried Lemke, a pilot of
Jagdgeschwader 2 in a
Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France, and he was taken prisoner. He 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 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. He 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. As they were leaving Hoover wrote a note for her to give to the American army in the coming weeks stating that she had assisted the three of them, and to treat her kindly. The woman also gave the trio a handgun with several extra magazines. 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. He 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. After flying all the way across The Netherlands to the
Zuider Zee he finally spotted windmills and landed in a field, at which point he was surrounded by angry Dutch farmers armed with pitchforks who were under the impression they had just captured a German. Eventually a British supply truck came by at which point Hoover was able to explain who he was. After the war, he was assigned to flight-test duty at
Wilbur Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio. There he impressed and befriended
Chuck Yeager. When Yeager was later asked whom he wanted for flight crew for the
supersonic Bell X-1 flight, the first flight to break the
sound barrier, he named Hoover. 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. He also flew chase for the 50th anniversary of the Mach 1 flight in a
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. Hoover was a graduate of both the USAF Test Pilot School in class 1946c, and the US Naval Test Pilot School in Class 6. Hoover left the air force for civilian jobs in 1948. After a brief time with the
Allison Engine Company, he worked as a test/demonstration pilot with
North American Aviation, in which capacity he went to Korea to teach pilots flying combat missions in the
Korean War how to dive-bomb with the
North American F-86 Sabre. During his six weeks in Korea, Hoover flew many combat bombing missions over enemy territory, but was denied permission to engage in air-to-air combat flights. During the 1950s, Hoover visited many active-duty, reserve, and
Air National Guard units to demonstrate the capabilities of various aircraft to their pilots. Hoover flew flight tests on the
North American FJ-2 Fury, F-86 Sabre, and the
North American F-100 Super Sabre. In the early 1960s, Hoover began flying a
North American P-51 Mustang at air shows around the country. The Hoover Mustang (
registration N2251D) was purchased by North American Aviation from Dave Lindsay's
Cavalier Aircraft Corp. in 1962. A second Mustang (
N51RH), later named "Ole Yeller", was purchased by North American Rockwell from Cavalier in 1971 to replace the earlier aircraft, which had been destroyed in a ground accident when an oxygen bottle exploded after being overfilled. Hoover demonstrated the Mustang and later an Aero Commander at hundreds of air shows until his retirement in the 1990s. In 1997, Hoover sold "Ole Yeller" to his good friend John Bagley of
Rexburg, Idaho. "Ole Yeller" still flies frequently and is based at the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg. 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, Hoover was president of the
Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP), and he had been a personal friend of Charles Lindbergh since the early 1950s, when the reclusive Lindbergh was using the pseudonym "Mr Schwartz". Hoover persuaded Lindbergh to attend the SETP annual symposium and banquet at the Beverley Hilton, as his guest. At the top table, they were joined by Neil Armstrong, who had just been released from quarantine after the
Apollo 11 mission. Hoover introduced both Lindbergh and Armstrong, to the surprise of the press and other attendees, and many photos were published of Hoover's wife Colleen flanked by both 'heroes' of aviation. The story of the occasion was later narrated by Hoover in the 2014 documentary film
Flying the Feathered Edge: The Bob Hoover Project. in 2004 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. 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. As a grand finale, he would shut down both engines and execute a loop and an eight-point hesitation slow roll as he headed back to the runway. Upon landing he would touch down on one tire followed gradually by the other. After pulling off the runway, he would restart the engines to taxi back to the parking area. On airfields with large enough parking ramps, such as the
Reno Stead Airport, where the
Reno Air Races take place, Hoover would sometimes land directly on the ramp and coast all the way back to his parking spot in front of the grandstand without restarting the engines. He was also known for creating the stunt of successfully pouring a cup of tea while performing a
1G barrel roll. == End of career ==