Saw an interesting aircraft on the flight line today, one I assumed was a Ryan Navion until I looked at the tailplate. Turned out to be an Aero Commander 200, and rather rare. Only a hundred or so were ever built; apparently Aero took up the design from Myers not realizing that the hand-crafted machine came without jigs and there was no economical way to mass produce them.
Researching the plane brought me to this video of Bob Hoover‘s show in the Aero Commander Shrike. I was fortunate enough to see Hoover’s show in Meridian, back before the FAA took away his medical. I was pretty impressed even then, not knowing how much I didn’t know about a guy who could dead stick a civilian twin through an entire airshow.
I’m more impressed now.
Well I, for one, am at a loss for words……
That’s just a wonderful and amazing clip.
Lex:
The Commander is part of the line that started with the Meyers. There are all told only a couple hundred still flying but their owners are pretty passionate about ‘em and their performance for a design that’s almost as old as the Comanche is pretty impressive.
VR,
Comjam
I’ve commented about it before, but back in the day, when i was a young man, there was a retired commander who lived up the street from me who owned a Navion. He used to take me up with him, and to this day, I relish those memories. He put the flying bug into me with his “poor man’s Mustang”.
respects,
I entered into service in ’66 and Hoover was already a living legend even then. Practically everyone I met from O-3 up at that time had his own personal memory of a Hoover demonstration or air-show performance of some kind. He was a North American man and the things he could do/did in P-51s, F-86s and F-100Cs were simply unbelievable. If ever a guy deserved to be called a living legend in his own time it was old Bob.
You’re right, VX… and you have a much more knowledgeable perspective than I. That said… I was privileged to see Hoover fly the NAA P-51 at an airshow in Santa Maria (near Vandenberg AFB) sometime around 1967 or so. That was a truly remarkable demonstration and something I’ll never, ever forget. The oohs and ahhs just kept on comin’…
Damn, Hoover is a legend. Should have been the one to break the sound barrier, too. I’m a little proud to say that when the FAA took his medical, Australia stepped up and gave him one of ours
Good on the Aussies! For far too long the FAA has had precious
little to do with aviation, and thus has occupied its time solely with administration.
I think it ought to be a law, anybody who is in a position to declare another unfit can be challenged to a duel, the loser gives up their license for a year. The weapons are the tools they license is to use. I may be older, Junior, but if you can’t do it as well as I do, you’re in no position to judge.
– Max
A most estimable man. Wish I knew him.
Good Hoover bio here: http://www.airportjournals.com/Display.cfm?varID=0702024
I may be wrong, but if I remember correctly, it was often said, Bob Hoover would take a full glass of water with him into the cockpit. Then he would drink half of it and place the half full glass of water on the console. He would then fly a full aerobatic air show. Once he landed and and was ready to get out, he would finish drinking the glass of water, without spilling a drop!
You see what old Bob did walking the a/c down the rnwy from wheel to wheel? He used to do that in an F-86 with him standing up in the cockpit waving to the crowd–then add power and go around for a normal full stop. (In case you’re wondering, since were no zero-zero seats in those days being strapped in at zero alt was rather academic.)
I saw Hoover several times and even talked to him a bit at Oshkosh once. Niceest guy you could ever meet.
His Aero Commander routine was the most precise thing I’ve ever seen. After deadsticking the aircrat he always managed to conserve enough energy to roll right to a stop show center without having to start and engine to taxi.
Way back in the 70s I saw him at Charlottesville, VA do both this Commander and P-51 act. At the time something he did in the -51 was OK but didn’t impress me all that much. It was his Tenneseee Waltz (I think that is what he called it) where, on performing a wheel landing he would proceed straight done the runway lifing one main gear and then the other – all while rolling out staight down the centerline.
It was only I flew a T-6 and wheel landed it that, upon having one gear off the ground due to a gust, bounce, or other pilot induced stupidity, that I realized just how impossible ti it to do. Kind of like trying to hop on top of a bowling ball on one foot while it is moving.
The guy is a legend and will be at Oshkosh in a few weeks – sadly he has stopped doing his act. It was a tragedy waht the FAA did – took 5 years of his career for nothing. And a WAR HERO TO BOOT…
One Sunday some years ago, when our kids were small, we drove over into the Central Valley to visit friends in Lodi. Which route passes up Hwy. 99 past Stockton.
We ended up passing by Stockton airport (SCK), just in time to see a bright yellow Rockwell Sabreliner coming in from the east on short final.
Doing repeated slow rolls.
After an brief period of not believing my own eyes, I figured out who was flying the jet; and why the freeway access roads’ shoulders in both directions were packed with stopped cars.
I saw Hoover at Brown Field in the early eighties, in the Shrike. This was a famous show — not for the show, but for what followed. Turns out that the line mistook his piston powered Shrike for the advanced Commanders, which were turbine powered, and fueled it with Jet-A. Crashed after takeoff in the ravines north of Otay Mesa. This led to the “Hoover Nozzles” — a flattened bell shaped nozzle on jet fuel lines, which cannot be inserted into piston powered a/c with “Hoover Rings” installed.
I don’t know if the Federal Anti-aviation Adminstration ever disciplined the idiots that got Hoover’s medical pulled. They should have fired them, but they probably got promoted instead.
Yeager was once heard to say that Hoover was the best pilot he’d ever met.
I thought you were joking about deadsticking an entire airshow. Simply amazing.
Saw Hoover at the Reno races years ago – he must have written the book on energy management and precision. Showed ‘em all you could be old AND bold.
Dang! Looks like he violated numerous laws of physics, aerodynamics and threw in some sleight of hand and photoshopping tricks to do all that.
Unfreakingbelievable.
And a nice guy to boot? Can’t ask for more qualifications than all that.
Gotta read the biography (linked above). Earned a DFC, shot down flying Spitfires, POW, escaped from POW camp, test pilot, backup pilot to Chuck Yeager on the X-1 first supersonic flight. Disliked inept authority figures. Lots of crashes in all sorts of different planes- and lived to tell about them.
Most of it probably true, too (unlike many aeronuats’ tales of derring doo.
You can’t make all that stuff up if you tried!
Amazing!
Bob Hoover was the ultmate expert on energy management. I saw him many times in the Shrike and he also did an amazing routine in the T-28 for a brief time in the late 70′s. Saw himat Reno.
Another legend comes to mind and that was Bill Fornof in his F8f Bearcat. He used to put on shows at many of the NAS’s especially in the training command. I saw him at NAS Whiting and at NAS CORPC in the 60′s. His son Corky also performed and I watched him roll his BD5J into a ball at Corpus in 74 or 75 due to fuel comtamination.
Love the F8f….all engine and prop,no frills.
I saw the Fornof’s Bearcat at Houma, LA when I was on a X-country from Key West to Houston back in the early 70′s. My step dad went from SNJ’s to F8F’s at Corpus back in ’49. I can’t imagine strapping that beast on as a cadet with so few hours…
Fluegelman/
I know, the way they pushed people thru to first-line aircraft was unbelievable, but SOP to those guys in those days and seemingly no big deal (I guess as everybody was doing it) from everything I’ve read reading between the lines. Sort of reminds one of the old saying about “Iron Men and Wooden Ships,” doesn’t it?
I watched Hoover at Bader Field (R.I.P), in Atlantic City, sometime in the late ’70s, flying whatever he was flying back then, and it remains the most impressive air show routine I have ever seen.
Saw his Aero Commander gig over the Battery in Charleston, paired with the Thunderbirds in F-4s…in the late 70s. Yes, I recall the first one engine off, then two engines off loops quite well.
AT-one, we just might have bumped into one another at ACY-Bader Field. He also did a show at the FAA-Tech Ctr, or that’s what it is called now. Let me see if I can remember the name back then, “The National Aeronautics Facilities Experimental Center or NAFEC. Before that it was Pamona Naval Air Station, during WWII. After 9/11, it went back to being a “hot base”. On 9/11, people would get ‘hypnotized’ and top their cars on the civilian road at the end of the runway. The Military mere sending fully armed troops, with fully loaded weapons, to keep the crowds moving. The Military knew these people did not have clue. Not many people know everything about that day on that base.
You talk of Bader field, it is one of the first actual Airports is the country.
In case you didn’t know, Bader closed back in late 2006. I think they’re still fighting about how to use the property, although a minor league ball field was built on part of the site.
Try this Hoover vid too, with some good historical background
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B09nWQHdRiU
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Mr. Hoover at Oshkosh. Quite the gentlemen.
Lex, any plans to attend EAA?
I’d love to go, but I don’t see how I can work it in this year. Maybe next year?
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I’m in the same boat re: Oshkosh. Next year…always next year.
Been 5 years – too long.
OldT6Flyer/
OT, but how did your daughter come out in the blog contest? I voted early and often, just couldn’t find any grave-yards to schlep into the voting booth…
Well the polls are still open – not sure how long.
As of a few minutes ago she was in third or fourth place. She’s shooting for top 5 as the winner gets picked by the judges and judges can be bought.
Still time to dig up that old email you never check and vote again, and again, and again….
OldT6/
I got mail? Tell me the date, my Spam filter is on the Fritz and half of everything valid goes directly to spam
and I keep forgetting to check–muy mea culpas.
Grumpy,
I don’t believe it was water – I believe Bob was a Southern Gentleman, therefore it was iced tea he flew with.
A must read for any aviation fan: “Forever Flying” by Bob Hoover himself. All the great stories are in there along with his WWII exploits.