Operational History
In military service, it was initially designated the L-26 though in 1962 this was changed to U-4 for the USAF and U-9 for the US Army.
Under ownership of Rockwell in the 1960s, WWII pilot Bob Hoover demonstrated the Shrike Commander 500S for decades in a variety a "managed energy" routines including single-engine and engine-out aerobatics. His Shrike Commander is displayed in the colors of his last sponsor Evergreen International at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Bob Odegaard continued the tradition in 2012 flying a 1975 Shrike 500S in a Bob Hoover tribute routine.
One U-4B became a presidential transport aircraft for Dwight Eisenhower between 1956 and 1960. This was the smallest "Air Force One," and the first to wear the now-familiar blue-and-white livery.
As of 2004, Shrike Commanders remained in service with the United States Coast Guard and United States Customs ServiceBut were retired from service in 2012.
A single 560F was operated by the Belgian Air Force as the personal transport of the late king Boudewijn from 1961 to 1973.
Read more about this topic: Aero Commander 500 Family
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)