Bob Hoover

Robert Anderson Hoover (January 24, 1922 – October 25, 2016) was an American fighter pilot, test pilot, flight instructor, and record-setting air show aviator.

Hoover flew Spitfires in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and was shot down in 1944 off the coast of France.

He was held for over a year in a German POW camp before eventually escaping and flying to safety in a stolen enemy aircraft.

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.

The men then obtained bicycles and rode for several miles before they came across a seemingly abandoned airfield.

Hoover being a pilot began inspecting the planes but they all seemed damaged and incapable of flight.

He eventually found a reconnaissance plane, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, with some damage, but a full tank of fuel.

A German mechanic stunned the trio sneaking up on them demanding they halt but almost immediately had a gun pointed at him as Hoover demanded he start the engine of the plane that he was investigating.

With the engine started Hoover made the deal that since the aircraft only had room for one occupant that the other two POWs would keep the gun to aid in their escape.

He did not even taxi towards the runway he simply hit the throttle heading straight out across a field to take off.

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 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 then worked as a United States Air Force and civilian test pilot after the war, flying chase for Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 supersonic flight in 1947, and as a flight instructor for North American Aviation during the Korean War.

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.

He also flew chase for the 50th anniversary of the Mach 1 flight in a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.

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.

He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988 and Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1992, along with several other military and civilian awards and accolades.

He is best known as an air show display pilot, who flew for nearly 50 years until his retirement in 1999.

Referred to as the "pilot's pilot", Hoover revolutionized modern aerobatic flying and has been described in many aviation circles as one of the greatest pilots of all time.

In 2013, Flying magazine ranked him 10th on its list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation.

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.

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.