The pilots, the airframes, and the flights that built modern aviation.
Aviation has more saved-from-oblivion stories per square foot than almost any other field of human endeavor.
Airframes pulled from jungles, glaciers, and crashed-and-buried wartime hideouts. Pilots whose names you know and whose names you don’t. Battles, airlifts, raids, races. The decade-long restorations volunteers spent thousands of hours on because the airplane mattered too much not to fly again.
This is the room where Taildragger holds court.
He’ll tell you about the B-17 that spent fifty years rotting in a Papua New Guinea swamp before a team decided it was coming home, the P-47 dragged out of an ice field in eastern Europe and brought back to flying condition, the Berlin Airlift candy bombers, and the women of the WASPs who weren’t recognized as veterans until decades after they ferried bombers across the country in wartime.
Pattern shows up when a historical lesson lands cleanly in modern training. Vector chimes in when a piece of vintage avionics deserves the engineering treatment.
Every restoration is sourced. Every famous-pilot story is sourced. When a date or a unit number is in dispute, we say so. Welcome to the hangar.
The Swamp Ghost B-17E survived 67 years in a Papua New Guinea swamp to become the most original Flying Fortress left on earth.
TaildraggerThe 16-year restoration of B-29 Superfortress 'Doc' from desert hulk to flying warbird is one of aviation's greatest preservation stories.
TaildraggerThe P-47 Thunderbolt Dottie Mae ditched in an Austrian lake on VE Day 1945, sat submerged for 60 years, and flew again in 2017 after a 12-year restoration.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle's 13-year restoration at Wright-Patterson required over 200,000 hours to save America's most famous WWII bomber from decades of neglect.
TaildraggerThe story of Glacier Girl, a WWII P-38 Lightning recovered from 268 feet beneath Greenland's ice cap and restored to flying condition.
TaildraggerRadio Hangar explores Voyager, the Rutan Brothers, and Jeana Yeager - the Homebuilt That Flew Around the World Without Stopping, Told From the Canard Rows at Oshkosh.
TaildraggerHow the 1929 Travel Air Mystery Ship beat the U.S. Army and Navy at Cleveland and pushed American aviation toward the monoplane.
TaildraggerThe Gee Bee Super Sportster earned a killer reputation, but Doolittle and Delmar Benjamin proved it was demanding, not evil.
TaildraggerA bipartisan bill, the BRRRRT Act, aims to halt the A-10 Warthog's retirement until a certified replacement is operational.
TowerOn July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot flew a 25-hp monoplane across the English Channel, ending England's age as an unreachable island.
TaildraggerHow Gladys Ingle of the Thirteen Black Cats changed an airplane wheel in mid-air, and why barnstorming built modern aviation.
TaildraggerThe 1942 Doolittle Raid launched 16 B-25 bombers off the USS Hornet to strike Tokyo, a mission that reshaped the Pacific war.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus sold over a million Americans their first airplane ride for a dollar and launched the barnstorming era.
TaildraggerHow Glacier Girl, a P-38 Lightning, was recovered from 268 feet of Greenland ice 50 years after crash-landing and flew again in 2002.
TaildraggerHow Wiley Post, a one-eyed Oklahoma pilot, flew the Winnie Mae solo around the world in 1933 and pioneered the pressure suit.
TaildraggerThe Beechcraft Staggerwing's backward-staggered wings made this 1930s luxury biplane faster than fighters - here's the real story.
TaildraggerRoscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times, flew with a pet lion named Gilmore, and became the golden age of aviation's greatest showman.
TaildraggerHow Alaska bush pilot Don Sheldon pioneered glacier landings on Denali and rewrote the rules of backcountry flying.
TaildraggerHow Curtis Pitts and pilot Betty Skelton turned a homemade Florida biplane into the airplane that taught the world to roll.
TaildraggerHow Benny Howard's homebuilt Mister Mulligan won both the 1935 Bendix and Thompson trophies - the only airplane ever to do it.
TaildraggerThe story of the Gee Bee Super Sportster, the barrel-shaped racer Jimmy Doolittle flew to 296 mph in 1932 - and why it wasn't the murderer history claimed.
TaildraggerHow Canadian bush pilots wrote the spec for the de Havilland Beaver in 1947, creating a floatplane that still works worldwide today.
TaildraggerHow $50 surplus Curtiss JN-4 'Jenny' biplanes launched the barnstorming era and put ordinary Americans in the sky.
TaildraggerHow Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 on October 14, 1947 - with two cracked ribs and a sawed-off broomstick.
TaildraggerHow Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan flew a patched-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938 and blamed his compass.
TaildraggerHow Glyn Powell's hand-built molds and New Zealand's Avspecs team returned the de Havilland Mosquito to flight after 16 years grounded.
TaildraggerHow the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - the 'Night Witches' - flew obsolete canvas biplanes on 23,000+ night raids in WWII.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 first flew in 1935, made airlines profitable, helped win WWII as the C-47, and still flies today.
TaildraggerHow the Vought F4U Corsair's bent inverted gull wing solved an engineering problem and earned it the fearsome name Whistling Death.
TaildraggerHow showman-pilot Roscoe Turner flew with a pet lion named Gilmore and became the only man to win the Thompson Trophy three times.
TaildraggerHow F-4 pilot Bob Pardo pushed a crippled Phantom nearly 90 miles to safety over Vietnam in 1967, a feat known as Pardo's Push.
TaildraggerThe story of Ormer Locklear, the first wing walker, who invented aerial stunting in barnstorming's golden age before dying at age 28.
TaildraggerBefore Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong was a Navy combat pilot and X-15 test pilot - and that flying is what got him to the moon.
TaildraggerHow a P-38 Lightning buried under 268 feet of Greenland ice for 50 years was recovered and flew again as Glacier Girl.
TaildraggerHow RAF ace Douglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash and still flew the Battle of Britain on two artificial legs.
TaildraggerHow Alaskan bush pilot Don Sheldon mastered glacier landings on Denali in a Piper Super Cub, saving stranded climbers and pioneering ski-plane flying.
TaildraggerHow Cal Rodgers flew the Vin Fiz coast-to-coast in 1911, surviving 16 crashes to become the first person to fly across America.
TaildraggerThe Vought F4U Corsair overcame early carrier rejection to achieve an 11-to-1 kill ratio in the Pacific and serve through the Korean War, with over 12,600 built across eleven years.
TaildraggerThe Swamp Ghost is a B-17E bomber that crash-landed in a Papua New Guinea swamp in 1942 and sat preserved and largely intact for 64 years before recovery.
TaildraggerHow a 1929 six-day endurance flight over Los Angeles proved aerial refueling was operationally viable and laid the strategic foundation for American airpower in World War II.
TaildraggerThe all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 23,000 combat sorties in WWI-era Po-2 biplanes, earning the German nickname 'Night Witches.'
TaildraggerRoscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - the only pilot in history to do so - combining elite flying skill with deliberate, strategic self-promotion during aviation's golden age.
TaildraggerIn 1928, bush pilot Punch Dickins flew a 3,900-mile survey of Canada's unmapped Barren Lands, earning the McKee Trophy and opening the Northwest Territories to regular air service.
TaildraggerOperation Tidal Wave on August 1, 1943 sent 178 B-24 Liberators against Romania's Ploesti oil refineries at treetop level, producing five Medals of Honor in a single mission.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was America's greatest early aviator, whose death-defying stunts from 1910 to 1915 transformed the airplane from curiosity to cultural icon.
TaildraggerGlenn Curtiss won history's first international air speed race in 1909, invented naval aviation, and built the trainer that gave WWI pilots their wings - all while fighting the patent war that nearly grounded American aviation.
TaildraggerDoc the B-29 Superfortress spent 42 years abandoned in the Mojave Desert before volunteers returned her to the Kansas skies where she was born.
TaildraggerBeryl Markham was the first person to fly solo nonstop from England to North America on September 4, 1936, battling headwinds alone for 21 hours and 25 minutes.
TaildraggerOn September 1, 1974, the SR-71 Blackbird crossed the Atlantic in 1 hour 54 minutes - a record no aircraft has broken in over 50 years.
TaildraggerHow the P-51 Mustang's Merlin engine and 1,100-mile range broke the Luftwaffe and rescued Allied strategic bombing from catastrophic failure in 1944.
TaildraggerThe Grumman F6F Hellcat reversed American fortunes in the Pacific by out-engineering the Zero, achieving a 19-to-1 kill ratio and accounting for over 60% of all naval air victories.
TaildraggerThe Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was the fastest piston-engined fighter of WWII, reaching ~475 mph - but only around 40 were ever built.
TaildraggerThe 1927 Dole Derby offered $35,000 in prize money for a nonstop flight from Oakland to Honolulu, but the race became one of aviation's most sobering disasters.
TaildraggerOn November 22, 1935, Pan Am's China Clipper completed the first scheduled transpacific flight, covering 8,000 miles from California to Manila in 59 hours and 48 minutes of flying time.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear of Greenville, Texas invented airplane-to-airplane transfers and became barnstorming's first true showman before dying at 28 in 1920.
TaildraggerOn the night of May 16, 1943, RAF 617 Squadron flew modified Lancasters at sixty feet above German reservoirs to deliver Barnes Wallis's revolutionary bouncing bomb against the Ruhr Valley dams.
TaildraggerFlak Bait, the B-26 Marauder that flew 207 combat missions over Europe, is being fully restored at the Smithsonian with all 1,100+ battle damage patches preserved.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 after every American flight school turned her away - so she crossed the Atlantic to earn her license in France.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt outscored every Allied fighter group in the European theater - here's why the heaviest single-engine fighter of WWII remains underappreciated.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle B-17 survived 25 combat missions over Europe, then 40 years of outdoor neglect, before a 12-year restoration returned her to museum condition in 2018.
TaildraggerThe Hughes H-4 Hercules holds the record for the largest wingspan of any aircraft ever flown at 320 feet, and has called Oregon's Evergreen Aviation Museum home since 2001.
TaildraggerThe Gee Bee Super Sportster was the fastest piston racer of the 1930s - a machine so demanding it required genius to fly and cost its creators everything to build.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston rolled a prototype jet airliner twice over Lake Washington, executing one of the most consequential demonstrations in aviation history.
TaildraggerSix iconic WWII warbirds explained on America's 250th anniversary - from the Mustang's Merlin swap to the Dauntless strikes that turned the Pacific War.
TowerOn April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 435 miles over open ocean to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor, using decoded Japanese communications.
TaildraggerJohn Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight on June 14–15, 1919 - eight years before Lindbergh - in an open-cockpit WWI bomber.
TaildraggerOn July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from New York to Ireland on a flight plan filed for Los Angeles - and spent 57 years insisting it was a compass error.
TaildraggerWiley Post used a $1,800 workers' comp settlement to learn to fly, then circled the globe twice, discovered the jet stream, and invented the pressure suit.
TaildraggerThe F4U Corsair went from Navy reject to one of WWII's most feared fighters - built around a massive engine, refined by Marines, and flying combat missions into 1969.
TaildraggerOn December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager, covering 25,000 miles in nine days.
TaildraggerThe Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - the Night Witches - flew 23,000 WWII combat sorties in fabric biplanes, navigating at night by compass and clock alone.
TaildraggerThe Curtiss NC-4 crossed the North Atlantic in May 1919 - eight years before Lindbergh - carrying six Navy men 1,500 miles by dead reckoning alone.
TaildraggerHow Doc's Friends spent 16 years and 300,000 volunteer hours rescuing a B-29 Superfortress from the Mojave Desert and returning it to Wichita's skies.
TaildraggerHarold Gillam was Alaska's most technically disciplined bush pilot - and his final flight in January 1943 became one of the territory's most haunting stories.
TaildraggerOn July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished over the Pacific during their final approach to Howland Island - a radio failure that aviation still learns from today.
TaildraggerQatar's donated Boeing 747-8 has now carried President Trump, serving as a bridge aircraft while Boeing completes the long-delayed VC-25B replacement.
TowerOn July 2, 1900, Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ-1 made its first flight over Lake Constance - predating the Wright Brothers by three years and launching the world's first commercial airline.
TaildraggerThe Lockheed Constellation revolutionized transatlantic travel with its pressurized cabin, 300+ mph cruise speed, and unmistakable triple-tail silhouette - and a design story that's as compelling as the aircraft itself.
TaildraggerHow Wilfrid 'Wop' May survived being chased by the Red Baron in 1918 and went on to complete a life-saving mercy flight through the Canadian wilderness in 1929.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1943, the Eighth Air Force launched 291 B-17s against Schweinfurt's ball bearing factories and lost 60 aircraft and 600 men in a single day.
TaildraggerThe SR-71 Blackbird's preflight wasn't just about the aircraft - it was a full physiological preparation protocol that treated the pilot as mission-critical hardware.
TowerOn July 21, 1921, Army Air Service bombers sank the German battleship Ostfriesland in 21 minutes, validating Billy Mitchell's controversial claim that airpower had made the battleship obsolete.
TaildraggerBefore crossing the Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh spent years as a barnstormer, building the real-world skills that made his historic 1927 flight possible.
TaildraggerThe 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision killed 128 people and directly triggered the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration - reshaping every clearance, squawk code, and radar handoff in use today.
TaildraggerOn May 24, 1988, TACA Flight 110's crew deadsticked a powerless Boeing 737 onto a Louisiana levee, saving all 45 people aboard.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 transformed commercial aviation in 1936 and went on to serve in WWII, the Berlin Airlift, and Vietnam - with hundreds still flying today.
TaildraggerOn April 6, 1924, four U.S. Army biplanes departed Seattle to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of Earth - 26,000 miles with no radio nav, no weather radar, and no margin for error.
TaildraggerThe North American X-15 set a crewed aircraft speed record of Mach 6.72 in 1967 that still stands, and flew thirteen missions above the recognized boundary of space.
VectorThe North American XB-70 Valkyrie was America's most technically advanced Cold War bomber - capable of Mach 3 at 70,000 feet but cancelled before entering service.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear climbed out of a moving Curtiss Jenny in 1917 to fix a loose radiator cap - and accidentally invented American barnstorming.
TaildraggerThe SR-71 Blackbird flew over 3,500 Cold War missions at Mach 3.2 and was never once shot down - here's the full story of how it was built and why it worked.
TaildraggerGlacier Girl is a P-38 Lightning recovered from 270 feet of Greenland ice in 1992 and restored to flying condition, taking to the sky again in 2002.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey flew before 17 million Americans and was called the greatest aviator who ever lived by Orville Wright - before dying at age 28.
TaildraggerIn 1924, eight U.S. Army Air Service airmen became the first to circle the globe by air, crossing 26,000 miles in open-cockpit biplanes before Charles Lindbergh ever left the ground.
TaildraggerCharles Carpenter, an Illinois schoolteacher turned Army aviator, bolted six bazookas to a Piper Cub and hunted German tanks across France in 1944.
TaildraggerBeryl Markham flew solo from England to Nova Scotia in 1936 - east into the prevailing winds, at night - and wrote what Hemingway called the best prose he'd ever read.
TaildraggerBob Reeve pioneered glacier runway operations in 1930s Alaska, turning tidal mud flats and remote ice fields into reliable supply routes for Wrangell Mountain mines.
TaildraggerThe U.S. Air Force is keeping 54 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in service following Operation Epic Fury, a live-fire demonstration that made the case for the Warthog's continued relevance.
TowerHow the Boeing 747-200's upgraded engines eliminated the mandatory Anchorage fuel stop and permanently reshaped transpacific air travel.
TowerThe first solo shirt-cut is aviation's oldest student milestone ritual, tracing back over 100 years to WWI-era open-cockpit training and the moment an instructor no longer needed to hold on.
RampOperation Vittles - the 1948 Berlin Airlift - delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies across 277,000 flights to prove airpower could sustain life, not just end it.
TaildraggerThe Lockheed P-38 Lightning was WWII's most distinctive fighter - twin-engine, twin-boom, and with the range to change the outcome of the Pacific war.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the world's first fully blind flight at Mitchell Field - the 15-minute demonstration that invented IFR.
TaildraggerOn August 1, 1943, 177 B-24 Liberators flew at treetop level into the most defended target in Europe, earning five Medals of Honor in a single afternoon.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus flew over a million Americans in the 1920s and built the cultural foundation for commercial aviation.
TaildraggerHarold Gillam, Alaska's legendary Ghost Pilot, vanished in January 1943 near Ketchikan - and four survivors endured 31 days in the wreckage before rescue.
TaildraggerOn May 16, 1919, the Curtiss NC-4 became the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean - a feat that history has largely handed to someone else.
TaildraggerOn June 4, 1942, a fuel-starved squadron of SBD Dauntless dive bombers sank three Japanese fleet carriers in roughly five minutes, permanently shifting the balance of power in the Pacific War.
TaildraggerHow SBD Dauntless BuNo 2106, a Battle of Midway veteran, spent 50 years in Lake Michigan and was recovered and restored.
TaildraggerOn June 20, 1939, Erich Warsitz flew the Heinkel He 176 - history's first aircraft powered by rocket alone.
TaildraggerHow Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon flew the first nonstop Pacific crossing in 1931 - and climbed onto the wing mid-flight to survive it.
TaildraggerOn June 19, 1944, U.S. Hellcats destroyed roughly 350 Japanese aircraft over the Philippine Sea, ending Japanese naval air power for good.
TaildraggerIn 1911, Cal Rodgers became the first person to fly across America in the Vin Fiz, surviving 49 days and 16 crashes.
TaildraggerHow Valery Chkalov and the ANT-25 flew nonstop over the North Pole from Moscow to Washington State in June 1937.
TaildraggerHow Charles Blair flew a red P-51 Mustang solo across the North Pole in 1951 using sun-compass navigation.
TaildraggerThe Spruce Goose flew just 26 seconds on November 2, 1947 - here's the story of Howard Hughes' birch-built H-4 Hercules.
TaildraggerRadio Hangar explores The Vulcan howl and XH558, the last Avro Vulcan to fly the airshow circuit.
TaildraggerHow WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker survived 24 days adrift in the Pacific - and why he believed willpower, not equipment, decided who lived.
TaildraggerRadio Hangar explores Amelia Earhart and the Friendship, the gold trimotor that crossed the Atlantic on June seventeenth, nineteen twenty-eight.
TaildraggerRadio Hangar explores The Cleveland National Air Races and Jimmy Doolittle winning the first Thompson Trophy in the Travel Air Mystery Ship, nineteen twenty-nine.
TaildraggerRadio Hangar explores That's All, Brother and the C-forty-seven that led the D-Day invasion, rescued from a Wisconsin boneyard the week before the scrappers came.
TaildraggerWhy some carriers are 'airlines,' some 'airways,' and some just 'air' - the maritime and railroad roots behind aviation's oldest words.
TowerRadio Hangar explores The Air Force Retires the Last A-10 Warthog and What Actually Fills Its Close Air Support Role.
TowerThe true story of Franz Stigler, the German ace who escorted a crippled B-17 to safety instead of shooting it down in December 1943.
TaildraggerThe crew of B-17 'Old 666' earned two Medals of Honor and a DSC for every man - the most decorated flight in U.S. history.
TaildraggerThe B-52 Stratofortress has outlived roughly 20 retirement attempts and may serve until age 100, thanks to its overbuilt airframe and standoff-weapon mission.
TowerOn June 15, 1916, Bill Boeing test-flew the B&W seaplane himself - the first airplane Boeing ever built.
TaildraggerOn June 13, 1944, the V-1 buzz bomb struck London, becoming the first cruise missile used in combat and changing air warfare forever.
TaildraggerThe Boeing 747SP sacrificed fuselage length to achieve ultra-long-range nonstop flights no other airliner could match in the 1970s.
TowerSoviet bombers featured glass noses because the USSR lacked compact radar technology, placing human navigators where Western jets mounted radar.
TowerOn June 7, 1939, the Dixie Clipper made history as the first scheduled transatlantic passenger flight from New York to Europe.
TaildraggerSpitfire ML407 survived D-Day, decades of neglect, and personal tragedy to become one of the world's most storied warbirds.
TaildraggerFlak Bait, the most battle-damaged American bomber to survive WWII, flew 207 missions and took over 1,000 flak holes before its painstaking Smithsonian restoration.
TaildraggerOn June 5, 1944, over 800 C-47 crews flew paratroopers into Normandy through flak and cloud, launching the D-Day invasion.
TaildraggerNoel Wien's 1924 flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks in an open-cockpit biplane changed Alaska forever.
TaildraggerOn June 4, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers launched the first public hot air balloon flight in Annonay, France, launching the age of human flight.
TaildraggerHow Eddie Rickenbacker, America's WWI Ace of Aces, survived 24 days adrift in the Pacific in 1942.
TaildraggerThe 1962 crash of Air France Flight 007 at Orly killed 130 people, including 106 Atlanta art patrons, and reshaped a city's cultural identity.
TaildraggerOn June 2, 1910, Charles Rolls completed the first nonstop round-trip flight across the English Channel - and died flying 39 days later.
TaildraggerThe Focke-Wulf 190 first flew on June 1, 1939, and became one of WWII's most feared fighters thanks to Kurt Tank's radical radial-engine design.
TaildraggerWilbur Wright, the quiet genius behind powered flight, died of typhoid fever on May 30, 1912, at just forty-five years old.
TaildraggerThe midnight demolition of Chicago's Meigs Field in 2003 remains general aviation's most brazen political attack on a public-use airport.
TaildraggerHow 1,400 shipyard workers repaired USS Yorktown in 72 hours, giving the Navy the third carrier that won the Battle of Midway.
TaildraggerA ranked look at the five most powerful US Navy aircraft carriers ever built, from the postwar Midway class to the electromagnetic-launch Ford class.
TowerFrom the de Havilland Comet to the Boeing 737 MAX, these controversial aircraft exposed deadly flaws that reshaped aviation safety forever.
TowerOn May 28, 1940, RAF fighters fought and died over Dunkirk in battles the soldiers below never saw.
TaildraggerOn May 27, 1958, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom made its first flight - an unwanted jet that became the defining fighter of a generation.
TaildraggerEight aircraft defined supersonic flight from Chuck Yeager's Mach 1 in 1947 to the X-15's Mach 6.7 record that still stands today.
TowerHow sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 400 miles at wave-top height to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto in 1943.
TaildraggerHow volunteers rescued the B-29 Fifi from a Navy bombing range and restored her to flying condition against impossible odds.
TaildraggerOn May 26, 1970, the Tupolev Tu-144 became the first commercial transport aircraft to reach Mach 2, a milestone in the Cold War supersonic race.
TaildraggerHow a crashed Japanese Zero in Alaska's Aleutian Islands gave Grumman the intelligence to build the F6F Hellcat and turn the Pacific air war.
TaildraggerThe Navy Curtiss NC-4 completed the first transatlantic flight on May 22, 1919, a milestone most people wrongly attribute to later aviators.
TaildraggerHurricane R4118, a Battle of Britain combat veteran with 49 sorties, was recovered from India and restored to airworthy condition.
TaildraggerThe B-52 Stratofortress has survived 15 retirement proposals and will fly past 2040 thanks to cost, versatility, and a massive upgrade program.
TowerOn May 21, 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, landing in Ireland after nearly 15 harrowing hours.
TaildraggerOn May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field in the Spirit of Saint Louis for the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
TaildraggerOn May 19, 1919, Harry Hawker and Kenneth Mackenzie-Grieve ditched in the North Atlantic, failing to cross but proving it could be done.
TaildraggerDouglas Corrigan 'accidentally' flew from New York to Ireland in 1938 after being denied permission three times.
TaildraggerThe Bristol Blenheim flew Britain's first offensive mission of WWII, then vanished - until one man spent 31 years bringing her back.
TaildraggerThe 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption exposed aviation's vulnerability to volcanic ash and sparked the global warning systems pilots rely on today.
TaildraggerAlcock and Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight in June 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, in an open-cockpit biplane.
TaildraggerThe B-26 Marauder went from the most feared bomber in the Army Air Forces to the lowest combat loss rate of any American bomber in Europe.
TaildraggerThe Bermuda Sky Queen's 1947 emergency ocean landing saved 69 lives but was overshadowed by Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier the same day.
TaildraggerThe last surviving Dornier Do 17, a WWII German bomber, was recovered from the English Channel in 2013 after 73 years underwater.
TaildraggerMax Conrad made over 200 solo ocean crossings in single-engine Pipers, earning the title Flying Grandfather.
TaildraggerHow the Schneider Trophy seaplane races of the 1920s and 1930s directly produced the Spitfire and its Merlin engine.
TaildraggerThe Navy's MQ-25 Stingray lets F/A-18 pilots command an unmanned aircraft from their own cockpit, reshaping carrier aviation.
TowerOn May 14, 1908, mechanic Charlie Furnas became the first airplane passenger in America at Kill Devil Hills, NC.
TaildraggerThe Kee Bird B-29 survived 48 years on a frozen Greenland lake only to burn during its rescue attempt moments before takeoff.
TaildraggerOn May 13, 1913, Igor Sikorsky flew the first four-engine airplane, defying experts who called multi-engine flight impossible.
TaildraggerJimmy Stewart flew twenty combat missions over Nazi Germany in a B-24 Liberator, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross twice.
TaildraggerA Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk sat untouched in the Egyptian Sahara for 70 years after its pilot vanished, sparking a fierce restoration debate.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Airlift delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies over 277,000 flights, ending when the Soviet blockade lifted on May 12, 1949.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman crossed the Atlantic to earn her pilot's license after every U.S. flight school refused to teach a Black woman to fly.
TaildraggerThe story of Wellington bomber N2980, ditched in Loch Ness in 1940 and recovered 45 years later as the best surviving example of its type.
TaildraggerOn May 11, 1926, the airship Norge completed the first verified flight across the North Pole, crossing from Europe to Alaska.
TaildraggerOn May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess flew a Messerschmitt Bf 110 solo from Germany to Scotland in one of aviation's most bizarre unauthorized missions.
TaildraggerHow a band of American test pilots raced across defeated Germany to seize Hitler's secret jets before the Soviets could claim them.
TaildraggerHow a secret civilian racer from Wichita humiliated every military fighter at the 1929 Cleveland Air Races and changed American aviation.
TaildraggerThe 1926 Byrd-Bennett North Pole flight remains aviation's most debated claim - here's what happened and why historians still argue.
TaildraggerTen ambitious aircraft programs that were cancelled before production, from nuclear-powered bombers to forward-swept wing fighters.
TowerDozens of WWII Navy trainers rest on Lake Michigan's bottom, and the remarkable recoveries are producing airworthy warbirds decades later.
TaildraggerThe Maverick Act would transfer three F-14D Tomcats to Huntsville, Alabama, with at least one potentially restored to flying condition.
TowerIn 1987, 19-year-old Mathias Rust flew a rented Cessna 172 from Helsinki to Moscow's Red Square, exposing Soviet air defense failures and reshaping Cold War politics.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey, the most famous pilot of aviation's early era, died in a wing failure dive over San Francisco Bay in 1915.
TaildraggerThe US Navy continues to rely on the F/A-18 Super Hornet because it delivers unmatched multirole flexibility from a carrier deck at a fraction of the F-35C's cost.
TowerThe Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst on May 6, 1937 destroyed the world's largest airship in 37 seconds and ended rigid airship travel forever.
TaildraggerDouglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan flew from New York to Dublin in 1938, claiming he meant to go to California - and never admitted otherwise.
TaildraggerIn 1959, Marine pilot William Rankin ejected at 47,000 feet and survived 40 minutes inside a thunderstorm.
TaildraggerThe Boeing 777 marks 30 years as the best-selling long-haul widebody in commercial aviation history, with over 2,000 deliveries.
TowerCaptain Eric 'Winkle' Brown flew 487 aircraft types and made 2,407 carrier landings, records no pilot will likely ever break.
TaildraggerOn May 4, 1930, Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in a secondhand biplane with just 75 hours in her logbook.
TaildraggerPancho Barnes broke speed records, organized Hollywood stunt pilots, and built the legendary bar where test pilots gathered after breaking the sound barrier.
TaildraggerThe story of Just Jane, the Avro Lancaster that two Lincolnshire brothers spent decades restoring to honor their brother lost over Nuremberg in 1944.
TaildraggerOn May 3, 1923, Lieutenants Oakley Kelly and John Macready completed the first nonstop transcontinental flight across the United States.
TaildraggerHow Saburo Sakai flew nearly five hours home with a bullet in his skull after being shot over Guadalcanal in 1942.
TaildraggerOn April 30, 1924, the Douglas World Cruiser Seattle crashed into an Alaskan mountainside, nearly ending the first-ever flight around the world.
TaildraggerFive Canadian airports dating back to the 1920s are still operating today, from Winnipeg's 1920 grass strip to Vancouver International.
TowerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was WWII's heaviest single-engine fighter, devastating in both air combat and ground attack roles.
TaildraggerCalifornia's five oldest airports still operating in 2026 span from 1923 to 1930, each with deep roots in American aviation history.
TowerDouglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash, then became one of the RAF's greatest fighter aces in World War II.
TaildraggerHow a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 crashed in a Russian forest in 1943 was recovered six decades later and restored to flying condition.
TaildraggerA crewless B-17 Flying Fortress landed itself in a Belgian field in 1944 after all nine crew members bailed out.
TaildraggerThe Boeing 2707 was America's audacious supersonic airliner program, killed by Congress in 1971 after a billion dollars and zero flying prototypes.
TowerWiley Post lost an eye in an oilfield accident, bought his first airplane with the insurance money, and changed aviation forever.
TaildraggerOn April 28, 1919, Leslie Irvin made the first intentional free-fall parachute jump, proving humans stay conscious in free fall.
TaildraggerBoeing's Sonic Cruiser promised near-sonic speed but was shelved after 9/11 - its technology became the 787 Dreamliner.
TowerHow pilot Gail Halvorsen's unauthorized candy drops over Berlin transformed Cold War relations and became aviation's greatest humanitarian story.
TaildraggerHow 16 P-38 Lightnings flew 435 miles at wave-top height to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943.
TaildraggerThe 1910 Los Angeles Air Meet at Dominguez Field drew half a million spectators and ignited America's love affair with flight.
TaildraggerJackie Cochran rose from barefoot orphan to the fastest woman alive, breaking the sound barrier and holding over 200 flight records.
TaildraggerThe Hawker Hurricane scored 60% of Battle of Britain kills yet nearly vanished - here's how restorers are saving it.
TaildraggerOn April 27, 2005, the Airbus A380 - the largest commercial airplane ever built - made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France.
TaildraggerHow Tom Reilly spent two decades restoring the world's only flyable XP-82 Twin Mustang from a rusted hulk in an Ohio field.
TaildraggerOn April 26, 1937, the Condor Legion bombed the Basque town of Guernica in a three-hour attack that changed aerial warfare forever.
TaildraggerThe first production MQ-25 Stingray completed its maiden flight on April 25, 2026, marking a milestone in unmanned carrier-based tanker aviation.
TowerEugene Bullard, born in Georgia in 1895, became the first Black combat pilot in history, flying for France because America refused him.
TaildraggerThe story of how the most-produced military aircraft in history was pulled from a Russian lake and restored to flight.
TaildraggerOn April 25, 1945, the Eighth Air Force flew its final bombing mission over Europe, striking the Skoda works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.
TaildraggerIn 1958-59, Bob Timm and John Cook kept a stock Cessna 172 airborne for 64 days, setting a record that still stands.
TaildraggerJimmy Angel crashed his Flamingo monoplane atop Venezuela's Auyán-tepui in 1937, proving the world's tallest waterfall existed.
TaildraggerThe story of Pappy Boyington, the Marine Corps' top ace of WWII who turned a squadron of misfits into legends over the Solomon Islands.
TaildraggerOperation Eagle Claw's 1980 desert failure killed eight Americans and reshaped U.S. special operations aviation forever.
TaildraggerThunder Over Michigan returns to Willow Run Airport, where Ford built a B-24 bomber every hour during WWII.
RampThe Vought F4U Corsair was rejected by the Navy for carrier use but became one of WWII's greatest fighters in Marine Corps hands.
TaildraggerLouise Thaden and Blanche Noyes won the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race outright in a Beechcraft Staggerwing, beating every male competitor.
TaildraggerArt Scholl, one of the greatest aerobatic pilots in history, died filming a flat spin sequence for Top Gun in 1985.
TaildraggerRichard Bong scored 40 aerial victories in the Pacific, making him the highest-scoring American fighter ace in history.
TaildraggerThe story of Whiskey Seven, a D-Day C-47 restored by volunteers and flown back to Normandy 70 and 75 years later.
TaildraggerHow four open-cockpit biplanes attempted the first flight around the world in 1924, and why Alaska nearly ended it all.
TaildraggerThe National Warplane Museum airshow in Geneseo, New York, delivers an intimate warbird experience on grass that larger shows can't match.
RampThomas Fitzpatrick stole a Piper from Teterboro and landed it on a Manhattan street twice - in 1956 and 1958 - to win bar bets.
TaildraggerThe Night Witches of the 588th Regiment flew plywood biplanes with dead engines through enemy fire, completing over 23,000 combat sorties on the Eastern Front.
TaildraggerFive military aircraft have served for over 60 years each, and the engineering principles behind their longevity apply to all of aviation.
TowerThe B-24 Lady Be Good vanished over the Sahara in 1943 and was found intact sixteen years later, four hundred miles past its base.
TaildraggerRoscoe Turner won three Thompson Trophies, flew with a lion cub, and became the greatest air racing pilot of the 1930s.
TaildraggerThe story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the airmail pilot and wartime reconnaissance flyer who wrote The Little Prince and vanished over the Mediterranean in 1944.
TaildraggerHow a metric conversion error left Air Canada Flight 143 without fuel at 41,000 feet, and a glider pilot landed a 767 with no engines.
TaildraggerThe Doolittle Raid of April 1942 launched sixteen B-25 bombers from a carrier deck to strike Tokyo and alter the course of the Pacific War.
TaildraggerDouglas Corrigan flew a patched-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938, claiming it was a navigational error nobody believed.
TaildraggerThe Gee Bee Super Sportster was the fastest and most dangerous racing airplane of the 1930s, built by five self-taught brothers in a converted dance hall.
TaildraggerHow Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, with two broken ribs and a nine-inch piece of broom handle.
TaildraggerThe Red Baron died on April 21, 1918, after breaking his own combat rules - and over a century later, his killer remains disputed.
TaildraggerHow test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolled Boeing's only jet airliner prototype over Lake Washington in 1955 - and helped launch the jet age.
TaildraggerBob Hoover, called the greatest stick-and-rudder pilot ever by Jimmy Doolittle, redefined airmanship through six decades of flying.
TaildraggerHow five Texas pilots who bought a forgotten P-51 Mustang in 1957 launched the warbird preservation movement that saved thousands of WWII aircraft.
TaildraggerThe decades-long quest to return the de Havilland Mosquito to flight demanded lost woodworking skills, wartime materials, and extraordinary determination.
TaildraggerOn April 20, 1916, the Lafayette Escadrille formed as American volunteer pilots joined France's air war a full year before the U.S. entered WWI.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito was a wooden WWII aircraft that outran fighters, carried bomber payloads, and became the most versatile combat plane of the war.
TaildraggerThe 1949 Easter Parade delivered nearly 13,000 tons of supplies to blockaded Berlin in 24 hours, breaking Soviet resolve.
TaildraggerAfter Pearl Harbor, Pan Am's Pacific Clipper flew 31,500 miles around the world because its Pacific route home no longer existed.
TaildraggerThe Fokker Trimotor bridged barnstorming and commercial aviation, shaping bush flying and aircraft design after a fatal 1931 crash.
TowerDouglas Corrigan flew a beat-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938, claiming he read his compass wrong.
TaildraggerBob Hoover escaped a Nazi POW camp, stole a Focke-Wulf 190, and became the greatest demonstration pilot in aviation history.
TaildraggerOn April 17, 1964, Jerrie Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world in a Cessna 180 named Spirit of Columbus.
TaildraggerThe true story of an F-106 Delta Dart that recovered from a flat spin and landed itself in a Montana cornfield in 1970.
TaildraggerThe Grumman F6F Hellcat achieved a 19-to-1 kill ratio and destroyed Japanese naval aviation at the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
TaildraggerBob Hoover's dead-stick Shrike Commander routine defined airshow flying for 40 years and remains the gold standard for energy management.
TaildraggerOn April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel - a landmark flight overshadowed by the Titanic disaster.
TaildraggerDoc and FIFI, the world's only two flying B-29 Superfortresses, appeared together at Sun N Fun 2026 for a historic formation flyby.
RampThe legendary story of the DC-2½, a Douglas DC-3 flown out of wartime China in 1941 with a mismatched DC-2 wing bolted to its fuselage.
TaildraggerThe story of Old 666, the patched-together B-17 whose June 1943 Buka mission earned two Medals of Honor in a single flight.
TaildraggerIn 1986, Burt Rutan's homebuilt Voyager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in nine days.
TaildraggerThe Reno Air Races pushed warbirds to 500+ mph at 50 feet off the desert floor for six decades of speed, engineering brilliance, and profound risk.
TaildraggerAmelia Earhart was a skilled, courageous pilot whose real legacy is her flying, not her disappearance.
TaildraggerThe Women Airforce Service Pilots flew 77 military aircraft types in WWII, yet waited 33 years for veterans' status.
TaildraggerBob Hoover's extraordinary career spanned a WWII prison escape, test flying, and airshow performances that redefined precision aerobatics.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Airlift sustained a city of 2.5 million by air for 15 months - and one pilot's act of kindness became its most enduring legacy.
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