The Bockscar nearly didn't survive its own mission on August 9, 1945 - a story of mechanical failure, a shielded city, and a crew running on fumes over the Pacific.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito proved that speed alone could replace defensive armament, flying over 36,000 wartime sorties with loss rates far below the heavy bomber force.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 revolutionized air travel in 1936, then became the C-47 that carried paratroopers into Normandy and earned Eisenhower's designation as one of four weapons that won WWII.
TaildraggerOn July 23, 1983, a metric unit conversion error left Air Canada Flight 143 with less than half its required fuel, forcing a dead-stick landing in a Boeing 767.
TaildraggerThe Gee Bee Super Sportster was the fastest propeller-driven aircraft in America in the early 1930s - and its extreme design left fingerprints on every WWII fighter that followed.
TaildraggerThe Hawker Hurricane destroyed roughly 55% of Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain - more than the iconic Spitfire - yet history has largely forgotten it.
TaildraggerJohn Alcock and Arthur Brown flew nonstop across the Atlantic in 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, in an open cockpit with primitive instruments.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon pioneered high-altitude glacier landings on Denali that transformed mountaineering expeditions and made survival rescues possible where no pilot had gone before.
TaildraggerEddie Rickenbacker earned 26 aerial victories in WWI then survived 24 days adrift in the Pacific - the defining story of the Ace of Aces.
TaildraggerHow Pan Am's China Clipper and pilot Edwin Musick opened the Pacific to commercial aviation starting November 22, 1935.
TaildraggerThe first flight around the world was completed on September 28, 1924, by three U.S. Army Air Service crews in Douglas World Cruisers - 26,345 miles in 175 days.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus barnstormed America with war-surplus biplanes in the 1920s, turning curious farmers into the next generation of pilots.
TaildraggerThe Grumman F6F Hellcat reversed American fortunes in the Pacific, earning a 19-to-1 kill ratio and destroying Japan's carrier air arm.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle completed Europe's first publicly recognized 25-mission bomber tour in May 1943; a 14-year restoration at Wright-Patterson unveiled her in 2018.
TaildraggerHow a single crashed Zero fighter recovered from Alaskan tundra in 1942 revealed the vulnerabilities that reversed American fortunes in the Pacific air war.
TaildraggerThe Vought F4U Corsair was too fast and too difficult for carrier operations - so the Navy gave it to the Marines, who turned it into one of the most effective fighters of World War II.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew around the world twice, discovered the jet stream, and built the first pressure suit - all with one eye and no high school diploma.
TaildraggerIn July 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Dublin in a leaking, fuel-soaked Curtiss Robin - then claimed he misread his compass.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 to Mach 1.06 over the Mojave Desert - with two broken ribs and a sawed-off broomstick in his pocket.
TaildraggerHow a retired Army captain's unconventional tactics turned 112 volunteer pilots and shark-mouthed P-40 Warhawks into the most effective fighter unit in Asia.
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