In December 1943, a Luftwaffe pilot chose mercy over victory over the North Sea - and the two men who lived it didn't find each other again for 46 years.
TaildraggerDoc the B-29 Superfortress returned to flight on July 17, 2016, after decades in the California desert - one of the most significant warbird restorations in American aviation history.
TaildraggerDouglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash, proved he could still fly to operational standards, was discharged on a technicality, then returned in WWII to lead RAF fighter squadrons.
TaildraggerFlak Bait, a Martin B-26 Marauder, flew 202 combat missions over occupied Europe - more than any other American aircraft in the entire European Theater.
TaildraggerHarold Gillam - the Alaska bush pilot no crash could kill - died in January 1943 trying to walk to help after putting his passengers down on a frozen mountain.
TaildraggerOn April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel - a feat buried by the Titanic disaster that same week.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle flew a complete circuit under a canvas hood at Mitchel Field - the first fully blind flight, and the foundation of every IFR approach flown since.
TaildraggerOn September 2, 1944, a 20-year-old Navy pilot named George H.W. Bush completed his bomb run over Chichi Jima with his engine on fire, bailed out, and floated four hours before a submarine rescued him.
TaildraggerPhoebe Omlie became the first woman to hold a U.S. federal transport pilot's license in 1929, starting as a barnstorming wing-walker before shaping national aviation policy.
TaildraggerOn June 4, 1942, Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers the Navy had already written off sank three Japanese fleet carriers in six minutes and turned the Pacific War.
TaildraggerThe barrel-shaped Gee Bee Model R-One hit 252 mph to win the 1932 Thompson Trophy - and killed nearly every pilot who flew it after Doolittle walked away.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was the heaviest single-engine fighter of WWII - and its near-indestructibility made it one of the most effective combat aircraft ever built.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female licensed pilot in 1921 after sailing to France when every American flight school refused her application.
TaildraggerBob Hoover escaped a German POW camp by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190 and became the aviator that Neil Armstrong, Chuck Yeager, and Jimmy Doolittle each called the greatest they had ever seen.
TaildraggerIn 1911, Cal Rodgers crossed the United States in 84 days on just 60 hours of flight experience, becoming the first pilot to fly coast to coast.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon pioneered the glacier landing techniques still used in Alaska today, flying ski planes into the Alaska Range professionally for thirty years from Talkeetna.
TaildraggerThe 1983 Soviet shoot-down of KAL Flight 007 killed 269 people and directly led to President Reagan opening GPS to civilian aircraft worldwide.
TaildraggerOn May 16, 1943, nineteen RAF Lancasters flew at 60 feet in darkness to breach Nazi Germany's Ruhr Valley dams in one of history's most precisely executed aerial missions.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wing-walking in 1919, became America's most famous aviator, and died on a Hollywood film set blinded by klieg lights during a night stunt.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, test pilot Tex Johnston barrel rolled Boeing's 707 prototype over Lake Washington - and sold the jet age.
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