Pour Out an Iced Tea for Bob Hoover

Updated Jul 2, 2020 3:13 PM EDT

It’s a special kind of sand that makes a guy like Bob Hoover stand out among a generation of heroes. Born in 1922, Hoover was a fighter pilot in the Second World War. He flew in North Africa before pulling a primo assignment piloting a Spitfire out of Sicily. After getting shot down over the Mediterranean, Hoover spent more than a year as a German prisoner in Stalag Luft 1 before making a run for it as the Russians advanced on the camp.

Not content to spend the remainder of the war learning Russian, or hiding in a German barn, Hoover stole a German Focke Wulf 190 and flew like mad to get behind the Western front. In his appropriated German plane, Hoover had to avoid allied aircraft (lest he get shot down by unwitting friendly fire) all the way to Holland, where he landed in a field and was promptly surrounded by pitchfork-wielding locals convinced he was a Nazi flyer. His incredible exploits during the war alone are enough to qualify a guy as pretty damned impressive in my eyes. But Hoover was just getting started.

Unlike so many of his peers, Hoover didn’t leave the cockpit after the war. He stayed on with the Air Corps as it became the Air Force, serving as a test pilot, and eventually as both Chuck Yeager’s wingman and the backup pilot for his famous Mach 1 flight in the Bell X-1. Even after leaving the service, Hoover continued to fly and test military aircraft as a civilian test pilot.

While Hoover had a remarkable gift for flying the wings off high-performance military aircraft ( sometimes literally ), it was in civilian aviation where Hoover cemented his legend. After a stint flying for aircraft manufacturers, Hoover made for the air racing and air show circuit, where he performed in everything from P-51 Mustangs to cumbersome, twin-engine Commander utility planes. As it turned out, Hoover’s great talent wasn’t making high-performance planes scream for mercy, it was making crowds scream for more after watching Hoover’s impossibly graceful flights in totally pedestrian aircraft.

Engine-out aerobatic flights and perfect one-wheel touch-and-go landings aside, Hoover might be most famous for executing a perfect roll in his twin-engine commander while pouring a glass of iced tea . YouTube is packed to the gills with videos of his antics. Like this one . And this one . And this one . He was many things, but most of all, Hoover was a hell of a pilot—and with his air shows, he inspired a great many more to try to fill his shoes.

Bob Hoover died this morning, at the age of 94. My Facebook feed—usually a spattering of politics and off-road trucks and friendly idiocy—was instead filled with kind words and videos of Hoover, modestly and warmly being his own quiet kind of hero. The last thing we need is fewer heroes, but seeing friends from a dozen countries and hobbies and political outlooks come together early in the morning to give this good man a tip of the hat on his passing is one last act of inspiration from a guy who seemed to have an endless well of the stuff.

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更新于美国东部时间2020年7月2日下午3:13

正是这种特殊的经历，让鲍勃·胡佛这样的人物在众多英雄中脱颖而出。胡佛生于1922年，是二战时期的一名战斗机飞行员。他曾在北非作战，之后驾驶喷火战斗机从西西里岛起飞，执行了一项重要的任务。在地中海上空被击落后，胡佛被关押在施塔拉格空军第一战俘营（Stalag Luft 1），作为德国战俘度过了一年多的时间。在苏军逼近战俘营时，他设法逃脱。

胡佛并不满足于在战争剩余的时间里学习俄语，或者躲在德国的谷仓里，他偷了一架德国福克沃尔夫190战斗机，疯狂地飞往西线后方。驾驶着这架缴获的德国飞机，胡佛必须一路躲避盟军飞机（以免被友军误伤），最终抵达荷兰。他降落在一片田野里，立刻被一群手持干草叉的当地人包围，他们认定他是纳粹飞行员。单凭他在战争期间的这些惊人事迹，在我看来就足以称得上是一位相当了不起的人。但这仅仅是胡佛传奇故事的开始。

与许多同辈飞行员不同，胡佛战后并未离开驾驶舱。他继续留在航空兵团（后更名为空军），担任试飞员，最终成为查克·耶格尔驾驶贝尔X-1飞机完成著名1马赫飞行时的僚机和后备飞行员。即使退役后，胡佛仍然以民用试飞员的身份继续驾驶和测试军用飞机。

胡佛虽然拥有驾驶高性能军用飞机时令人惊叹的飞行天赋（有时甚至真的会把机翼弄掉），但真正让他名垂青史的却是民用航空领域。在为飞机制造商飞行一段时间后，胡佛转战航空竞赛和航展，驾驶过从P-51野马战斗机到笨重的双引擎“指挥官”通用飞机等各种机型。事实证明，胡佛的真正天赋并非在于让高性能飞机发出刺耳的轰鸣，而在于他驾驶着看似普通的飞机，以无比优雅的飞行技艺征服观众，让他们意犹未尽。

除了单发失效时的特技飞行和完美的单轮触地复飞之外，胡佛最出名的或许是驾驶他的双引擎指挥官飞机一边倒冰茶一边完美地完成滚转。YouTube 上充斥着他这些滑稽表演的视频。比如这个，还有这个，以及这个。他有很多身份，但最重要的是，胡佛是一位杰出的飞行员——他的飞行表演激励了无数人追随他的脚步。

鲍勃·胡佛今天早上去世了，享年94岁。我的Facebook动态——通常充斥着政治、越野卡车和一些无伤大雅的趣事——却被胡佛的悼念文字和视频填满，他谦逊而温暖，默默地扮演着一位英雄的角色。我们最不需要的就是英雄的减少，但看到来自十几个国家、拥有不同爱好和政治观点的朋友们一大早就聚集在一起，向这位好人致以最后的敬意，这无疑是这位似乎拥有无穷无尽的激励力量的人的又一次鼓舞人心的举动。

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