The pilot who has logged the most hours flying the P-51 Mustang, Lee Lauderback, founder of Stallion 51, has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the Bob Hoover Award of Aviation Excellence.
The award is intended to shine a spotlight on those who are doing outstanding work to advance and magnify aviation’s future, according to the board of directors of the Bob Hoover Legacy Foundation (BHLF).
Lauderback’s outstanding record as an aviator, flying aviation historian, and airshow demonstration pilot, accruing the stunning total of over 10,000 hours in the legendary P-51 Mustang, were just a few of the factors that made him this year’s award winner, according to BHLF officials.
“One of the things we most enjoy with the Bob Hoover Legacy Foundation is the chance to recognize and reward outstanding citizens of the aviation world, and in this case, a great friend of Bob’s, with the honors that they so greatly deserve,” noted BHLF President Tracy Forrest.
The foundation presented its first-ever Bob Hoover Award of Aviation Excellence last year to the volunteers and pilots who have flown more than 2 million EAA Young Eagles in 90 countries since the program’s launch in 1992.
The criteria for the award states: “The Bob Hoover Award of Aviation Excellence will be given annually by the Bob Hoover Legacy Foundation to an individual, organization, company, program, educational institution, or government entity that has advanced and improved the future of American aviation in a manner or manners consistent with the standards of technical excellence, safety, determination, and generosity of spirit that defined Robert Anderson ‘Bob’ Hoover.”
This year’s award winner was initially announced during a press conference on the opening day of EAA AirVenture 2019, but due to Lee’s intensely busy schedule, he was unable to accept the award, in person, until the foundation’s executive director could meet up with him at the 2019 Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Regional Fly-In in Tullahoma, Tennessee, where Lauderback was performing in Crazy Horse.
Back some forty years ago, when l was taking Ground School in Ohio we got a visitor who was a regional sales rep. for North American Rockwell. This fellow had a video of Bob Hoover demonstrating his prowess flying the Shrike and the Mustang. I was learning how to fly a tailwheel aircraft and found that watching Bob Hoover helped me greatly with the T.O’s and landings.