Ivan Gates built America's most famous flying circus in the 1920s without ever piloting a plane - transforming surplus WWI Jennys into a nationwide spectacle.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was the most famous aviator in America before his death at 28 - his flying redefined what aircraft could do and built public trust in aviation.
TaildraggerOn 16 May 1943, RAF 617 Squadron flew nineteen modified Lancasters at 60 feet to breach the Ruhr dams in one of aviation's most precisely engineered raids.
TaildraggerThe Lady Be Good, a WWII B-24 Liberator, was found intact in the Sahara 16 years after a faulty radio compass led its crew to bail out 240 miles inside the desert.
TaildraggerThe XB-70 Valkyrie - America's only Mach-3 strategic bomber - was cancelled by McNamara, lost one airframe in a midair collision, and survives today in Dayton.
TaildraggerThe F4U Corsair was rejected by the U.S. Navy for carrier operations in 1942, then became one of WWII's most lethal fighters - and stayed in combat through Korea.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew solo around the world in 1933 with one eye, a mechanical autopilot, and an elastic cord - then built the first pressure suit in aviation history.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 by crossing the Atlantic to train in France after every American flight school refused her admission.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person to exceed Mach 1 in the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis - with two cracked ribs and a piece of broomstick.
TaildraggerDoc the B-29 Superfortress spent 44 years in the Mojave Desert before volunteers restored her to flight in 2016 - one of only two airworthy examples of the Pacific War's decisive bomber.
TaildraggerHarold Gillam was Alaska's most feared bad-weather pilot - until a January 1943 mountain in southeastern Alaska ended his legendary career and stranded five survivors for 32 days.
TaildraggerOn September 14, 1939, Igor Sikorsky flew the VS-300 in Stratford, Connecticut, proving the single-main-rotor design that defines nearly every helicopter built since.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully hooded instrument flight at Mitchel Field, proving pilots could navigate safely without any visual reference to the outside world.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear was barnstorming's greatest showman - a Fort Worth carpenter who turned wing walking into art before dying on camera in 1920.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston rolled a prototype 707 twice over Lake Washington - a moment that became one of aviation's most legendary stories.
TaildraggerThe 1927 Dole Air Race sent eight planes from Oakland to Hawaii across 2,400 miles of open Pacific - only two finished, and seven people never came home.
TaildraggerHow a crashed Japanese Zero in an Alaskan bog gave American engineers the intelligence to build the F6F Hellcat - the Pacific War's most lethal carrier fighter with a 19-to-1 kill ratio.
TaildraggerThe Hughes H-4 Hercules - the largest flying boat ever built - made one 26-second flight in November 1947 and now stands preserved in McMinnville, Oregon.
TaildraggerThe Lockheed P-38 Lightning's twin-engine range made it America's deadliest Pacific fighter and carried Richard Bong to 40 aerial victories.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was the heaviest single-engine fighter America fielded in WWII, and its toughness and firepower saved the Allied strategic bombing campaign over Europe.
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