I enjoyed that he did his airshow flying in a suit and at least a tie.
Seems like the airshow pilots of today consider their most important piece of equipment is a mirror.
Bob switched to Nomex after he nearly burnt. There is an interview where he discussed making that decision.
The suit in the Shrike was mainly a gimmick because he was selling a business aircraft. The theory was all those businessmen would see themselves getting out of that airplane and if it could do an airshow like that, it could certainly fly them to Iowa to visit their vendor.
But Bob wasn't averse to wearing safety gear when it was called for.
As far as today's airshow pilots, depends on the pilot of course, but a lot of that image is just that, image. They're often fairly humble hard working folks under all that flash for the cameras. Count up the number of them who don't have a "day job" that actually pays the bills when not flying the airshow circuit. It isn't as glamorous as it might appear at first glance.
Back to Hoover... I found it interesting that a few folks have gone out and attempted what he could do in the Shrike at altitude in hopes of doing a "tribute" show or similar -- and so far, none have ever made it to the stage where they were willing (after attempting it up high and "safe" with a hairy eyeball on the altimeter and airspeed to see if they had reasonable margins) to apply for a low level waiver to do it.
That just speaks volumes about his smoothness and accuracy when his peers have given it a shot and said, "nope, I can't do that safely". And these are way better than average pilots.
