Slocum

I know real airshow pilot Bob Hoover had a spat with the FAA a few years ago that he won but what is he up to now? The last thing I have found is below but that was two years ago. Anyone know?

Thanks

Roger


(March 14, 2000)

Bob Hoover announced yesterday that, due to his inability to obtain adequate liability insurance coverage, he is cancelling his air show commitments for the year 2000. He and his family are considering donating his Shrike Commander to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Mr. Hoover emphasized that he is in EXCELLENT physical and mental health. And he extends his sincere appreciation to everybody in the air show community who supported him throughout his career and during his difficult experience with the FAA in the mid-nineties.

In a phone call last night with Mr. Hoover, he indicated that he made not be finished yet as an active air show pilot and that he is actively considering alternatives for the future. He is quite sure, however, that he will not be flying air shows this year.

JoshL

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Bob Hoover was killed several years ago while performing his famous manuever of pulling out the control stick in flight and waving it for the crowd. He apparently could not get the stick back in time and crashed. I am not sure what airshow or event it was but, I do remember my grandfather telling shortly after it happened. We used to go to the "GREAT READING,PA AIRSHOW" every year and had seen him perform the same maneuver several times. It is a shame because he was favorite of the locals at our airshow. I know there was a story about it in the READING EAGLE newspaper when it happened....maybe they have a web site with archives that you could search.

Slocum

I had heard similar stories before, always "several years ago" and dieing in a crash. I have still been searching and just found another article just one year ago.

Anyone have hard evidence?

Roger

News
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Hoover remains uninsured

Kirk Gormley

3/16/2001

Bob Hoover, the pilot’s pilot and the legend’s legend, will pull on the ol’ flight suit for another go-around at Sun ’n Fun next month, but he won’t be craning necks at the daily air show.

If he does perform at all this year, Hoover said last week in a telephone interview, it will be in the Western United States.

“I’m still faced with a bit of a problem on the insurance,” Hoover said. “I have a lot of friends working on it. If we get it squared away, I hope to be back on the circuit soon.”

The 79-year-old former test pilot reaped several years of free coverage as part of his air-show sponsorship deals, but found himself shopping for insurance last year for the first time since the late 1980s. Unable to find coverage that he could afford, he canceled his 2000 schedule in early March. Last April at Sun ’n Fun he said he had lined up Great American Insurance for 2001, but that deal fell through when Great American dropped out of the aviation business shortly afterward.

Hoover did appear in two air shows last year: Sun ’n Fun in Lakeland, Florida, and the Salinas Air Show in Salinas, California. Hoover said he skirted the air-show insurance restrictions by not flying aerobatics at either venue.

Sun ’n Fun 2000 was Hoover’s last public performance in his famous Shrike Commander . The Rockwell twin was then turned over to Sun ’n Fun’s International Sport Aviation Museum, where it remains on display. The aircraft will eventually be moved to the Air & Space Museum’s $238 million annex at Dulles Airport in Virginia. The facility is scheduled to open in December 2003.

Hoover returned to his air-show roots last October in Salinas, flying a Sabreliner 60. The aircraft is owned by Fry’s Electronics, which has 17 stores in California, Texas, Oregon and Arizona.

Hoover, who generated widespread sympathy and outrage in the pilot community when the FAA pulled his medical in the mid-1990s, said he will fly the Fry-owned Sabreliner again this year if he can locate insurance coverage.

The major stumbling block, Hoover said, is liability coverage. Nobody will sell him more than $2 million worth of coverage. “That wouldn’t go very far if I had a lawsuit,” he said.

Hoover also said any possible 2001 air-show performances would be limited to the Western United States, where Fry’s Electronics is building its public presence.

The dean of air show pilots said he passed his most recent physical last September. “They make me take stress tests, run treadmills and do neurological tests” to keep a second-class medical current, he said.

Though Hoover is frustrated by the insurance predicament that will limit his Sun ’n Fun activities to signing books, shaking hands and posing for photographs, he said he isn’t feeling sorry for himself. From serving as Chuck Yeager’s X-1 backup pilot, to flight-testing the F-86 and F-100 for North American Aviation, to building a huge air-show following, his has been a career for the ages.

“I’ve just been the luckiest person in the world,” he said.

The eclectic Larry Shapiro

Larry Shapiro was one of those guys who kept a low profile while making a fairly significant impact on the general aviation industry.

Mr. Shapiro, 82, who died recently in Arizona, was a career pilot, inventor, businessman and general aviation enthusiast.

Thousands of pilots and aircraft owners have benefited from some of the many aftermarket products he engineered over the years.

In the 1970s Mr. Shapiro created and produced the “Suitcase Cycle,” a full-sized motorcycle that could be broken down to the size of a suitcase. It was so compact that it could be stowed in the baggage compartment of many general aviation aircraft, including Cessna 172s and Cherokee 140s.

Mr. Shapiro went on to found Turboplus in the mid-1980s. Under his leadership the company designed and manufactured ram-air intercoolers for a variety of turbo-charged airplanes.

In the 1980s he founded Spoilers, Inc., a company that manufactures hydraulically actuated aerodynamic spoiler systems for pressurized piston-powered aircraft.

Mr. Shapiro had a life-long love for aviation. His first airplane was a Stinson that he bought when he was 18 years old. He began a 37-year career in 1941 with United Airlines. A captain at 23, he retired in 1978 with 35,000 hours in Boeing 247s, DC-3s, -4s, -6s, -7s and Boeing 747s. His personal plane during his “retirement” years was a Beech Travel Air.

Here’s to Larry Shapiro. He was an eclectic aviator with a remarkable résumé. We should all be so fortunate.



Kirk Gormley is editor of The Flyer.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


General Aviation News - 800.426.8538
P.O. Box 39099
Lakewood, WA 98439

Lumpy Pants

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Contact Sneakypete here in RCUniverse. I believe he knows the answer!

Johng

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Musta been his ghost I saw signing books up at Oshkosh last year...

I have had the privlege to see Bob Hoover perform in both the Sabreliner and the Aerocommander. I saw him and Yeager fly formation in Mustangs at Oshkosh maybe 3 years ago. Hope I can still pull g's when I'm that age. Those guys just keep going.

Saw Bud Anderson at a video-game trade show once, of all places. He was promoting a new dogfight game. Those goobers had no idea who he was. Still regret not striking up a conversation.

I've got an old aerocommander that I'll paint with Hoover's name on the wings, when I do get around to re-building it.

Wayne22

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That simply is not true....it may be some other pilot....but defintely not Bob Hoover.

He has recently joined forces with Victory simulations in the new flight sim "Bob Hoovers Xtreme Air Racing"....

There are several sources on the net verifying that he was at Oshkosh last year signing autographs, and that he has donated the Shrike Commander......

JoshL

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Sorry....my info must not be correct. I heard the story from my grand father years ago who was not in the best of health at the time. His memory or recollection of the facts may have been a bit fuzzy. I am glad to hear that he IS still around and hope to someday see him fly again! I remember seeing his routine many years ago at the Reading airshow and it was well worth the admission to see it.

Wayne22

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Apparently, he is putting a deal together for an exciting new act....he may be on the airshow circuit this year.......

JDHammer

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JoshL- You may be thinking of Art Scholl. He was a great performer with his Chipmunk. He used to get out of the cockpit in flight and stand on the wing while he flew the airplane. His dog, Aileron, used to fly with him. He was killed while flying a Pitts Special during the filming of the movie, "Top Gun". An unrecoverable inverted spin into the ocean was the cause.

hattend

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He just lent his name and voice to the flight sim "Bob Hoover's Extreme Air Racing" (http://www.xtremeairracing.com) so somebody better contact a psychic. He autographed his book for me at Reno 2000.

He isn't dead. Certainly not as a result of any accident (I've never seen him do the trick you mention in his "Old Yeller" P-51 or the Shrike.)

You have the wrong act.

wbrian

I heard that story too but don’t remember the name of the pilot.
Is that story folklore?

Mr Shrike

 Hey Guys. I think you all have the wrong Bob Hoover. I just went to GOOGLE and found that Bob Hoover is ALIVE AND WELL and is now 91. Still going strong after all these years.  I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Hoover in 1977 in South Africa in Durban when he put on four performances over the weekend using a late friend of mines Shrike Commader. So where ever or who ever wrote that Bob Hoover of Shrike Commander fame was dead is totally incorrect.

hookedonrc

My son and I attended the National Air races in Reno in 2011. The one where the P-51 went into the stands on Friday. We had main grandstand seats 12 rows up for all 5 days. By a huge stroke of luck we were at Tahoe for the day. My son started getting text messages asking us if we were ok, and then Saturday and Sunday races were canceled.
On Thursday, Bob Hoover was honored for his work. He then flew the new Cessna corporate jet, but not as the only pilot. Here are a couple of pics. Bob is the one in the big straw hat which is sort of a trademark for him. So as of September 2011 he was alive and well and with help, in the cockpit.

GarySS

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2005 Oshkosh meeting the public (in a suit!!!) IN THE SUN!!!

oskartek

According to Wikipedia March 13, 2013 Bob is very much alive.
Legend has it that Bob is the only pilot ever to be able to take a new P-51
and in one flight wring the plane out so hard that after he landed the entire
aircraft except the engine was decertified for flight.
Using up an aircraft and knowing when to put it back on the ground without
ripping it apart in the air is an incredibly fine line.

Eat your heart out Chuck Yeager.

Happy flyin', Oscar

Chad Veich

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No disrespect intended but I think the term "urban legend" might be a more appropriate than "legend".

oskartek

[quote]ORIGINAL: Chad Veich

Chad,
Take your nitpickin' english major type crap and stick it where the sun dont' shine.


Legend,

Noun,A story in which akernel of truthisembellishedto an unlikely degree.

swify

Maybe your Grandfather had him confused with "The Great Waldo Pepper". Bob Hoover flew a Shrike Commander, I seriously doubt he would pull out the control stick from it and wave it at the crowd.

thailazer

Bob Hoover's book "Forever Flying" is a great read and filled with stories of aviation history in the USA. Just amazing stuff. Live on Bob, no matter what others are saying!

Chad Veich

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Just FYI, Bob Hoover was alive and well and autographing copies of his book yesterday at the Planes of Fame Airshow in Chino, CA.

Mr Shrike

Good ol Bob. Never one to miss being with the public. I attended many of his seminars when he was in Australia   about 30 years ago. What he doesnt know about the Aero Commander is just incredible. He was the consumate pilot and never took a risks or did anything that was beyond his aircarafts  capabilities - or his !

eddieC

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Lol.  It looks like that 'Cessna' jet is a Beech! That's a Beech Premier. 

kenworthbob

Hey people, just checked on this. You all had me worried! He is fine, and is to be honored at Oshkosh this year on Tuesday. Sounds like a place to be. He won't live forever, however he seams to be trying! He is legend for sure. I have been lucky to have seen him perform. It was a sight to see.

hookedonrc

LOL...you are right. When I posted my pics, I couldn't remember the brand, so I took a guess. And you have good eyes, I took the picture and several others as he flew it and never noticed the Fly Beech on the bottom of the wing.