Burbank Airport Thanks Bob Hope for the Memories

In a week marking the centennial of aviation, Burbank Airport was renamed Wednesday for legendary entertainer and frequent flier Bob Hope, who himself marked his 100th birthday just weeks before his death in July.

Orville Wright completed the world’s first powered, controlled flight on Dec. 17, 1903, about seven months after Hope’s birth on May 29, 1903. Hope’s daughter, Linda Hope, said that was not just coincidence.

“I think it was, in some ways, destiny. If he didn’t have planes, he wouldn’t have been able to fly around the world to entertain as many troops as he did,” she said at the renaming ceremony. “I wish that I had his frequent flier miles.”

Master of ceremonies Johnny Grant, the ceremonial mayor of Hollywood, occasionally had to compete with roaring jet engines overhead as he spoke.

“Bob, right now, would say, I hope it’s one of ours,” Grant said to laughs from the audience.

Two Korean War-era T-28s, flown by pilots from the Midland, Texas-based Commemorative Air Force, buzzed through the sky in tribute to the airport’s new namesake, who spent 50 years flying to battlefields around the globe to entertain U.S. troops. Originally three planes had been scheduled.

“Can you believe two airplanes for Bob Hope?” Grant asked. “There should have been a fleet up there. Oh, well, budget shortage.”

Linda Hope said the renaming was more than a kind gesture.

“It has a special meaning,” she said. “[The airport] was like a second home to Dad. Sometimes my mother had to feed him on those little airplane food trays to make him feel at home.”

At the end of the ceremony, a banner with the airport’s previous name dropped away to reveal another with a cartoon drawing of Hope’s famous ski-jump nose profile and the airport’s new name, Bob Hope Airport.

Charles Lombardo, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, said the renaming was an appropriate tribute to the Toluca Lake resident.

“Everyone will know now, coming in and out, that this is where he called home.”