Flak Bait, serial 41-31773, flew 202 combat missions and took 1,000+ documented hits over occupied Europe - more than any other American aircraft in WWII.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was the toughest single-engine fighter of World War II - a 17,000-pound giant designed to absorb catastrophic damage and still bring its pilot home.
TaildraggerBob Reeve turned Alaska's tidal mudflats and glaciers into a commercial freight operation in 1932, building one of aviation's most unlikely empires from nothing.
TaildraggerGlenn Curtiss beat Louis Bleriot by six seconds at the 1909 Rheims air meet to win the world's first international air trophy - and reshape American aviation.
TaildraggerRichard Bong of Poplar, Wisconsin earned 40 aerial kills flying a P-38 Lightning over New Guinea - a record no American pilot has ever broken.
TaildraggerHow Barnes Wallis's spinning bomb and 617 Squadron's precision flying destroyed two of Germany's most critical dams in a single night in 1943.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented barnstorming in 1919, became one of America's most famous men, and died on a Hollywood film set on August 2, 1920, at age 28.
TaildraggerOn October 15, 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier became the first human being in recorded history to leave the ground, rising 84 feet above Paris in a tethered Montgolfier balloon.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston rolled the 707 prototype twice over Lake Washington - a calculated gamble that may have sold the jet age.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito was a twice-rejected wooden aircraft that became WWII's most versatile combat plane - outrunning enemies it was never supposed to fight.
TaildraggerThe 1927 Dole Derby sent fifteen aircraft from Oakland to Honolulu for a $25,000 prize - and cost ten lives, reshaping American aviation regulation forever.
TaildraggerThe Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was the fastest piston-engine fighter of WWII at 474 mph - and only one complete example survives, at the Smithsonian.
TaildraggerHow a P-38F Lightning abandoned on the Greenland ice cap in 1942 was recovered from 268 feet of glacial ice and restored to flight 60 years later.
TaildraggerOn January 26, 1990, the SR-71 Blackbird set a transcontinental speed record of 2,124 mph on its final flight before retiring to the Smithsonian.
TaildraggerR.J. Mitchell designed the Spitfire's iconic elliptical wing from a decade of Schneider Trophy racing, completing the prototype while dying of cancer at 42.
TaildraggerIn 1911, Cal Rodgers flew a fragile Wright biplane 3,200 miles across America in 84 days, surviving 60-plus crashes to prove a continent could be crossed by air.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon completed over 6,000 glacier landings in Alaska's Ruth Amphitheater across 27 years, defining what safe, disciplined bush flying looks like in the world's most demanding terrain.
TaildraggerFlak-Bait, a Martin B-26 Marauder, flew 202 combat missions in WWII - more than any other Allied aircraft - and carries over 1,000 patches as proof.
TaildraggerFrank Luke Jr. compiled 18 aerial kills in 17 days in WWI, earning Eddie Rickenbacker's declaration that he was the greatest individual fighter of the entire war.
TaildraggerRoscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times - a record never matched - by combining theatrical showmanship with genuine pylon racing skill.
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