'Ole Yeller', Bob Hoover's old P-51D.

[BERNIE MOSFET]

I've been out in Alamosa, Colorado the last week working out at the airport. When we got in this morning we found a P-51 on the ramp that had come in last night. Turns out it was Bob Hoover's old P-51, now owned and operated by John Bagley.

Bob Hoover served during WW2 as a test pilot, and later on a Spitfire squadron stationed in Sicily. He was shot down over Southern France, taken prisoner and eventually escaped 16 months later. He stole a FW-190 and flew to safety.

After the war he was Yeager's backup on the X-1 program, and flew the P-80 chase plane on the first super-sonic flight.

Bob Hoover flew this P-51 all over in airshows for years, and it has also been the official pace plane for the Reno National Championship Air Races Unlimited class.

If you want to know more about Hoover, you can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hoover







This is his takeoff later in the day. We asked John to fly over mid field on his way out. He obliged. Fast forward to about 1:20 if you don't want to wait. I don't really have anything to say about it; I just smile like an idiot every time I watch it.

[HarrisonTX]

MAN That fly by was baaad ass!

I saw my first vintage war birds last week myself. A b17 and b24 were at TSTC. Super cool.

[Magnimike1]

really cool

[Strychnine]

His stolen 190 story is fucking cool.


For anyone who has never heard / read it...

Bob Hoover: A Calm Voice in the Face of Disaster

http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eagle_bi...oover_2005.asp

When Hoover and Ennis left that area, they came across an abandoned Luftwaffe air base, just inside Germany's border. The base was deserted, except for a few ground crew. As the men looked for an aircraft that might be flyable, they were surprised to be totally ignored. They discovered at least 25 Focke-Wulf 190s, but none were airworthy.

"They were all shot up," Hoover said. "I finally came to one that had a lot of holes in it, but not in any of the vital organs."

Although he had never flown a Focke-Wulf 190, Hoover had learned about the aircraft from a fellow POW, Gus Lundquist, who had gone to England to evaluate captured German airplanes.

"He talked one of the lead generals into letting him fly a mission, and was shot down," Hoover said. "One day, I told him that I wanted to go to Wright Field after I got out, and he said, 'I'm from Wright Field!' When we'd have an opportunity, he'd sketch in the dirt where everything was."

The men made plans to use the plane, but Ennis had decided not to fly out with Hoover.

"He never wanted to fly again," Hoover said.

When a mechanic noticed the men, Hoover motioned him closer with a gun he'd acquired during their travels. They discovered that the German could speak French.

"Jerry told him that if he didn't help me get airborne, he'd kill him," Hoover said. "I got in the cockpit and the German helped me get the engine going. The fuel gauge was full and the engine ran up nicely."

Realizing that the Germans could shoot at him as he took off, Hoover closed the canopy, opened the throttle full power and went across the grass field to the runway.

"I got airborne and pulled the gear up," he remembered. "The stupidity of what I was doing hit me. I thought, 'Here I am in a German airplane, without a parachute.'"

Since he was flying a plane with a swastika painted on the side, the Allies might take aim as well.

"It was overcast at about 4,000 feet," he said. "I pulled up to the bottom of that overcast, so I wouldn't be a target."

Hoover headed north until he saw the North Sea.

"I didn't have any maps or charts," he said. "I knew that if I turned west and followed the shoreline, I would be safe when I saw windmills, because the Dutch hated the Germans."

He followed the coastline to the liberated Zuider Zee in Holland. When he saw windmill, he looked for somewhere to get fuel.

"I had passed over some airfields that appeared to be deserted, but I knew that deserted runways were often mined," he said.

He found a field and decided to land, but hit a ditch he hadn't spotted from the air.

"I ground-looped it and wiped the landing gear out," he said.

Hoover was disappointed.

"I wanted to get the plane back to England," he said.

As darkness approached, he remembered seeing a road past some trees.

"I thought if I walked to that road, maybe a military vehicle would come along," he said. "Just as I got ready to go into the trees, farmers with pitchforks came at me from all sides. They thought I was a German. They couldn't speak English, so I kept pointing towards the other side of the trees, and they took me there. I stopped an English truck. I said, 'I'm an American, but they think I'm a German!' This fella said, 'Get in here with us.'"

Hoover grins and says that later, everybody considered him a hero.

"People made it sound like a great escape, but the guards had deserted us," he said.

According to Hoover, in the two weeks before the Americans liberated the camp on April 30, 1945, about 200 POWs actually escaped.

"General Eisenhower was correct," he said. "We would've been safer to stay there. It was the dumbest thing I've ever done."

Bob and Colleen Hoover celebrate with Charles Lindbergh (second from right), the first man to fly across the Atlantic, and Neil Armstrong (left), the first man to land on the moon, shortly after Armstrong returned from space. Lindbergh was being inducted.

Hoover doesn't know of anyone else who flew an enemy plane out of Germany. He didn't talk about the incident for many years, even though a Nashville paper had reported his story soon after his return to the U.S. He finally talked publicly, 20 years later, at an air show performance in Redding, Penn.

"A security person came up to me and said, 'A man over here says he was in prison camp with you,'" Hoover recalled.

The man was Jerry Ennis. After he took the microphone and told the story to the air show visitors, Hoover decided to tell his story and dispel exaggerations.

[dee]

Those planes are awesome and the history behind that particular one is equally as awesome.

[scootro]

haha that was awesome! could you imagine what a sky full of those would sound like? i bet the enemy was terrified when they first heard it

[WesB]

IMHO that is the best sounding engine. So smooth. I love going to look at warbirds and watching them.

[BERNIE MOSFET]

MAN That fly by was baaad ass!

I saw my first vintage war birds last week myself. A b17 and b24 were at TSTC. Super cool.

TSTC? In Waco?

Old bombers are just cool. I've seen a few at airshows, and they're always impressive. One of my favorite movies is Memphis Belle; maybe not so historically accurate, but it drives home how ballsy those flight crews had to be.

haha that was awesome! could you imagine what a sky full of those would sound like? i bet the enemy was terrified when they first heard it

It has a very distinctive sound, and I just loved listening to it.

I'll upload a video from early this morning when he started it up. I can't tell how good the audio quality is from the laptop speakers I've got, but I can tell you it was tits live.


Edit: Here you go:

[Darren M]

I giggled like a school girl at that flyby. AWESOME!

[4bangen]

I love me some P-51D. My favorite r/c is my P-51D. I love bringing it in about eye level at full throttle. To see a real one do a fly by that close..... damn your lucky.
what the r/c looks like

what mine looks like after today's flight.


and to bring it home, my favorite picture, of my two favorite planes.

[HarrisonTX]

TSTC? In Waco?

Yea man.
Did you change your name from MOSFET, or is there two of you. I've always wondered, and finally saw MOSFET in a text book this week.

[BERNIE MOSFET]

I love me some P-51D. My favorite r/c is my P-51D. I love bringing it in about eye level at full throttle. To see a real one do a fly by that close..... damn your lucky.
what the r/c looks like

what mine looks like after today's flight.




Ouch, that's rough crashing your r/c. Looked good though!



and to bring it home, my favorite picture, of my two favorite planes.

Did you take the P-51/A-10 photo at the Fort Worth Airshow out at NAS JRB last year? Looks familiar. And, Agreed. Gorgeous aircraft!

Yea man.
Did you change your name from MOSFET, or is there two of you. I've always wondered, and finally saw MOSFET in a text book this week.

Used to just be MOSFET, but a certain admin/mod changed it when I was cheating at the stock game last year.

[Z06killinsbf]

Bitchin. My fav plane of all time

[crapstang]

P51s are pure badass.

[jason07]

Damn that's bad ass!