Special bonus: the iced tea demonstration... http://youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBcapxGHjE&search=Bob%20Hoover
I was lucky enough to see Bob Hoover a few times at various airshows when I was younger. He left a big impression on me!
Thanks for that clip. Always good to see. Kin I say sumpin again ? I, in years past....like 38 or, so performed in quite a few airshows in which Bob Hoover also participated, Abottsford was the big one and Paine Field was another and don't recall which one it was when he had to borrow a P-51 from someone to do his routine because his Ol' Yaller had the tail blown off by a mechanic trying to fill a low pressure oxy system from a high pressure cart at a stop somewhere in the mid-west. I believe that he was flown out on a special flight to get there on time but he did a flawless show. The next year half way across Canada on his way to Abottsford he had engine failure and had to land his P-51 on a two lane country road somewhere in the middle of wheat country. He allowed the airplane to roll backwards and turned it into a side road where he parked it. He said that he no sooner got out of the airplane when an elderly lady drove up and chewed him out for improperly parking his airplane and partially blocking the road. We saw him do his power off routine for the first time at Abottsford after Chuck Lyford did it in a P-38 the year before but Bob first did the P-51 act and jumped out and got into the Aerocommander and did the "glider" show. I disagree with Hoover, however, because he is a gifted and skillful pilot, not an average "anybody can do it " variety. He has never become complacent about his flying like some of the other performers who, as he said, are no longer with us. One of the all time greats!
I saw him do his "Energy Management" routine at Arlington in the mid-90's. It was a Saturday. I remember on the next day, Sunday, I was at a car show in a park on the northeast end of the airport, below the pattern. I heard the sound of his plane throughout the routine until he killed both engines. I couldn't see him but I could hear the whistling through the trees as he did his routine. He came right over head, still whistling away, then pop, one engine fires up and then the other, all of this maybe 2/300 or so off the ground and away he went around the pattern again. Comments from the car show attendees were funny, unaware and not paying attention to the routine, "That guy just about crashed! Did ya' hear it?! He lost both engines for a minute!" .People were turning white and starting to look up when they heard him coming overhead. I said to a couple , "No, It's okay, he did that on purpose" and they looked at me like, " WHAT A DUMBASS".
I have had the good fortune to watch a handful of his shows, and one of my favorite "energy management" routines is where the line guy walks out during the end of the show and puts a single chock out in the middle of the ramp alongside the other planes, and when Bob lands after the last engine out routine, the airplane lands, turns off on the taxi way, rolls across the ramp, and with what seems like the last ounce of energy and forward motion, touches the nosewheel to that chock. That's impressive to me as a lot of the inverted stuff, etc. Thanks for the iced tea video - hadn't seen it in years! Great stuff
..........to the ......pillow? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Sounds like a description of me getting ready to go to sleep
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
