Aviation Event with Bob Hoover!

Aviation Event with Bob Hoover
by Nick on Sep.02, 2010
Published in "Friends of Aviation"
Direct link:
http://www.friendsofaviation.com/2010/09/02/aviation-event-with-bob-hoover
If you are in Los Angeles or the surrounding areas, mark your calendars in red for Saturday, October 9th. Aviation Legend Bob Hoover will be the Grand Marshall at the event “A Salute to North American Aviation”, which is being held at Zamperini field, Torrance. The event is being put on by the Western Museum of Flight. Click here to get all details about the event.

Mr Hoover is a true legend of Aviation, as covered in an earlier blog this week. He is now in his late 80′s but still very active and in high spirits. No less an authority than Jimmy Doolittle considers Hoover “the greatest stick and rudder pilot who ever lived”. In the 1990′s, Chuck Yeager called Hoover the best pilot flying.

Born in 1922, he soloed at age 16 and went on to become a fighter pilot in WWII, during which he was shot down and served more than a year as a German prisoner of war. He escaped from the prison, stole a German fighter plane and made it back to allied territory in that.

He was selected at the back up pilot to Chuck Yeager, when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. In 1950, he became one of the chief test pilots for North American Aviation and, subsequently, for the merged NAA-Rockwell. Hoover retired from the aviation industry in 1986 but continued appearing in air shows after that. Click on the photo above or on this link to watch an 8 minute interview, where he describes parts of his very rich life in an interview that was done last year.


The Museum Director, Cynthia Macha, to the left with Chuck Galbasin from the City of Torrance are doing the final planning for the upcoming event, which will be a very memorable occasion.

If you have not visited the Western Museum of Flight and are in the Los Angeles area take the opportunity to do so. It is well worth doing it! Located at Torrance Airport, 3315 Airport Drive, they are open 10am-3pm Wednesday through Sunday.
The Western Museum of Flight is a non-profit, educational institution dedicated to preserving and displaying aircraft history and artifacts of southern California’s aviation heritage. The Museum’s educational programs give children an opportunity to see and touch the airplanes that made aviation history history.

The collection includes warbirds, aircraft and target drones, piston and jet aircraft engines, aircraft components, aircraft ejection seats, World War II instruments, aircrew accessories, and an extensive model aircraft collection. This area is very rich in aviation history. More details about them can be found at their website: http://www.wmof.com/

Video on Bob Hoover can be viewed on Friends of Aviation Site at: http://www.friendsofaviation.com/gallery/v/movies/Bob_Hoover_Legend_of_Aviation.html