A meeting between Yeager and Bader would have been interesting!

MAINJAFAD, listened to the link you provided and a new piece of information put up by BrownNACA modified the XP-42 with an all flying tailplane March 1943 and made its first flight the same month in the hands of Langley test pilot John P. "Jack" Reeder. NASA photo.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8ab76a7e8b.jpg

I’m fortunate to live about a day’s drive from Oshkosh, so for many years now, my only holiday would be spent there (yes, pathetic, I know). As a participant in the Young Eagles program, I would attend a luncheon workshop, and Gen. Yeager would drop by, being the honorary chairman for a few years. He was quite willing to just hang out with us mere mortals. I was able to get his signature on my Young Eagles cap.

It was not uncommon there to have a forum with Gen. Yeager and Col. Hoover both on stage, doing their “there I was...” stories. We could have listened for hours longer than the forums lasted. Though the details are getting foggy, I thought I recalled a story that Hoover was slated to fly the X-1 flight, but did something to get himself in trouble. Yeager got the honor instead, and the rest is history. (Someone with better details please correct me.) I sensed they were keen friends, and also keen rivals. I got to meet Hoover when he flew his Shrike in the local airshow, and found myself several feet behind him in a concession line. As I was an air show volunteer, I approached him to make sure he was aware of the performers’ lounge. He said he was, but was also getting something for friends there. I told him his money was no good here, and bought his meal. He looked gobsmacked and genuinely thanked me, as if that had never happened before. Then he signed that same Young Eagles hat. He was quite a gentleman. I have great respect for them both, and for their courage to push the edge, but I do regard Hoover as the better pilot.

Yeager was always the nominated pilot, Hoover was the backup. Perhaps if the fact that Yeager had two broken ribs and in considerable pain had become known he may have been grounded and the flight would then have been Hoovers. Hoover was on the program because Yeager had requested so, along with Jack Ridley, who rather than being given a piloting role was assigned as flight test engineer. Hoover never got to fly the aircraft but Ridley did a number of times. One month after the supersonic flight where Hoover flew chase he had an accident in an F-84 where a fire burnt through the control runs, the ejection seat failed so he jumped where he was slammed into the tail, broke a leg and a few other bones, following a protracted convalescence his spot in the X-1 program had already been filled.

Hoover tells the tale in Forever Flying (1996) that he got caught flat-hatting trying to impress a girl and for his punishment was moved from the X-1 to the chase plane for the Mach 1 attempt.

Airbubba, could you please scan the relevant part of the book and email? Yeager was always the number one man, with Bob the backup, so interested in the proposition that Bob was to make the supersonic run, having no previous experience in the aircraft.

Here's the Bob Hoover story about how he was moved from primary pilot to chase pilot in the X-1 test project in this fair use excerpt from Forever Flying (1996):

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5e9a14bb29.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....28bed3733e.jpg

Many thanks for that, interesting that no where does history, or the official accounts, comment on that story. More believable than the self promotional story Yeager tells. In away it makes sense, since Hoover had been assigned as project test pilot of the Me 163, so was knowledgeable about rocket operations, although the project was cancelled following glide flights