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.

[2][3][4][5][6] 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.

[2] Hoover learned to fly at Berry Field in Nashville, Tennessee while working at a local grocery store to pay for the flight training.

[9] During World War II, Hoover was sent to Casablanca, where his first major assignment was flight testing the assembled aircraft ready for service.

[11] On February 9, 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by Siegfried Lemke, a pilot of Jagdgeschwader 2[12] in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France, and he was taken prisoner.

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.

[17] 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.

After flying all the way across The Netherlands to the Zuider Zee he finally spotted windmills and landed in a field,[18] at which point he was surrounded by angry Dutch farmers armed with pitchforks who were under the impression they had just captured a German.

A second Mustang (N51RH), later named "Ole Yeller", was purchased by North American Rockwell from Cavalier in 1971 to replace the earlier aircraft, which had been destroyed in a ground accident when an oxygen bottle exploded after being overfilled.

Hoover set transcontinental, time-to-climb, and speed records,[26] and personally knew such great aviators as Orville Wright, Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, Jacqueline Cochran, Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin.

[33] Hoover's United States medical certificate was restored shortly afterward and he returned to the American air show circuit for several years before retiring in 1999.

At 77 years old Hoover still felt capable of performing and passed a FAA physical post-retirement, but he was unable to obtain insurance for air shows.

Although he had had free insurance for several years as part of air show sponsorship deals, he was forced in 1999 to pay for it out of his own pocket and could not get coverage under $2 million.

His last flight in his famous Shrike Commander was on October 10, 2003, from Lakeland, Florida, to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., with long-time friend Steve Clegg.

Following Hoover's retirement, his Shrike Commander was placed on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum, in Dulles, Virginia.

[36] A memorial service and celebration of life honoring Bob Hoover was held on November 18, 2016, hosted by aerobatic legend Sean D. Tucker and world renowned pilot Clay Lacy at the Van Nuys Airport in California.

The event culminated with a United States Air Force Honor Guard presenting an American flag to the family, coincident with a three-element fly-over.

[39] He was also made an honorary member of the United States Navy aerobatic team the Blue Angels, the United States Air Force Thunderbirds, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the American Fighter Aces Association and the original Eagle Squadron, and received an Award of Merit from the American Fighter Pilots Association.

[35] On May 18, 2010, Hoover delivered the 2010 Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Lecture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

[44] The Bob Hoover Academy was also named after him, which was founded by Sean Tucker in 2017 and acts as a charitable education and aviation program for at-risk teens, largely backed by the local California school district and Harrison Ford.

It cannot be inserted in the filler neck of a gasoline-powered aircraft with the "Hoover ring" installed, thus preventing the tank from accidentally being filled with jet fuel.