Ah yes, the legendary Bob Hoover. I saw him do this routine many times before he retired from the airshow circuit. It was always a show stopper to watch him go through the entire routine with engines shut down (one loop, one 8 point roll, and the landing on each main) then silently roll all the way to the center of the flight line, get out and wave to the crowd! He was da man!
I read somewhere that Bob had originally made up this maneuver during WWII in the P38 Lightning at the behest of Army Air Corps brass, and showed the maneuver to successive squadrons of newbie P38 drivers in order to give them more confidence in their airplanes. Many years after the war, North American Aviation asked him to represent them and come up with an airshow routine that would help boost the sales of the Aero Commander 500. Bob adapated the old P38 maneuvers to the AC500, mainly by limiting himself to 3.8G's so he would not overstress the airplane. His airshow routine in the AC500 made the airplane a commercial success. Many corporate operators ended up buying the airplane based solely on Bob's showing off what the airplane was capable of doing.
RC
