Some 1,500 people gathered in Clay Lacy’s hangar at Van Nuys Airport, Calif., on Friday to give R.A. Bob Hoover a fitting sendoff and celebrate his remarkable life. The legendary pilot died on October 25 at the age of 94. Airshow performer Sean D. Tucker and Reno Air Races commentator Danny Clisham emceed. Opening the proceedings on a joyous note, Tucker inquired upward, “Mr. Hoover, are you looking down on us?” Mimicking the great Tennessean as only he can, Tucker replied, “You bet your ass I am!”

Lacy, Harrison Ford, Mark Armstrong (Neil’s son, who read John Gillespie Magee’s High Flight) and Jonna Doolittle (granddaughter of Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, who long ago proclaimed Hoover to be the greatest stick-and-rudder man who ever lived) were among many who paid their respects at the podium. With split-second timing befitting Hoover’s flying, the March Air Reserve Base Honor Guard performed a flag ceremony for the Hoover family and, simultaneous with the last rifle shots, the flyovers began: a Sabreliner with two Thunderbirds F-16s and a Snowbirds Tutor; an F-22 with two F-86s; and, most poignant, Hoover’s P-51, Ole Yeller, which broke away from a Spitfire, P-40 and Grumman Hellcat in a Missing Man finale.

View the slideshow from the event.