00:00Bob Hoover has crashed.
00:04Spectators who were thrilled by this precision aviator's dazzling aerobatics
00:09were always wondering when Mr. Lucky's luck would run out.
00:12It ran out in October of this year.
00:15But this is the rest of the story.
00:19Early aviation inspired some hot rodders.
00:22Helmets and goggles and scarf-in-the-wind show-offs who would fly upside down on purpose.
00:26Or they would thrill the state fair crowd with a loop-de-loop and land with a dead engine sometimes
00:31on purpose.
00:33Stump flyers were a reckless breed of daredevils.
00:38Please not to be confused with the professional test pilot
00:42whose aerobatics are meticulously calculated to measure what each flying machine can do or cannot do.
00:48When Parks College presented its Aviation Pioneer Award to the world's most notable decorated and respected living pilot,
00:54the audience of airmen was on his feet cheering even before hearing his name.
00:58For who else could it be but Bob Hoover?
01:02With Bob Hoover's loving hands on the controls,
01:05a flying machine will do things it would never do for anybody else.
01:08In the Army Air Corps, he was legendary,
01:10developing pilot confidence in their aircraft by putting each new warplane
01:14through a hair-raising ring-out of rolls into a feathered engine,
01:17rolls with both engines feathered,
01:19tumble recovery, even rolls in a V-17.
01:22Bob Hoover.
01:24He threw spitfires in support of the invasions of Sicily and Italy.
01:28After 58 combat missions, he was shot down, imprisoned, escaped.
01:31More recent years, as an aviation executive,
01:34he's demonstrated for airshow spectators a degree of precision flying
01:37designed to build confidence in civil aviation,
01:39meanwhile providing for us all
01:42a blue-sky ballet of incomparable majesty.
01:49I am among the privileged.
01:52I have flown with Bob Hoover.
01:55I have watched with awe those artistic hands
01:58as they completely mastered the machine,
02:01once taking him and it and me
02:04just six feet off the runway
02:08and upside down,
02:10and then cutting both engines
02:12off.
02:15Bob Hoover,
02:16how and why did you learn to fly
02:18more artfully than anybody?
02:20And now I quote,
02:22I was five when Lindbergh turned
02:24every young boy's eyes toward the skies,
02:25but when I was 14 and got into an airplane
02:28for the first time,
02:28I grew deathly ill.
02:30I was terribly embarrassed.
02:31Still, I was determined,
02:33and by 15 I'd soloed.
02:34I'd get in, get sick,
02:35get out, throw up,
02:36get in again,
02:37and gradually I forced myself
02:38to do stalls and spins
02:39and wing-overs one after another
02:41after another,
02:41pushing my limits of tolerance
02:42further and further and further.
02:46Bob Hoover,
02:46the pilot's pilot.
02:47The tall, lean,
02:49always elegantly attired
02:50superstar of precision flying
02:52was motivated to excellence
02:54by a boyhood embarrassment
02:55until he made friends
02:57with his fears.
02:59And now Bob Hoover's
03:00legion of admirers
03:01will be distressed to learn
03:02that he's been hospitalized
03:03in Kissimmee, Florida,
03:05five broken ribs
03:06and a punctured lung.
03:07There he performed
03:08with his usual phenomenal dexterity,
03:11thrilling the crowd
03:13and inspiring fellow birdmen
03:15at their annual Kissimmee air show.
03:23And then afterward,
03:25driving out of the airport parking lot,
03:27he was broadsided by another car.
03:29And now you know
03:32the rest of the story.
Comments