How a crashed Japanese Zero in an Alaskan swamp shaped the Hellcat's design - and fueled the most lethal air combat record in US Navy history.
TaildraggerThe Hawker Hurricane destroyed 55% of German aircraft in the Battle of Britain - more than the Spitfire - yet history gave the glory to its more glamorous stablemate.
TaildraggerThe Hughes H-4 Hercules flew exactly once on November 2, 1947 - one minute over Long Beach Harbor that proved a wooden giant could fly.
TaildraggerThe 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia produced two legends: a purpose-built wooden racer that won, and a commercial airliner guided down by car headlights.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first licensed Black pilot in 1921 - but only after every American flight school turned her away.
TaildraggerIn June 1928, Charles Kingsford Smith flew a heavily overloaded Fokker trimotor from Oakland to Brisbane, becoming the first crew to cross the Pacific Ocean by air.
TaildraggerGlacier Girl is a P-38F Lightning recovered from 268 feet beneath the Greenland ice cap and returned to flight in 2002, sixty years after an emergency landing during Operation Bolero.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle flew the first fully blind flight at Mitchel Field, demonstrating the instruments that became the foundation of modern IFR.
TaildraggerOn September 1, 1983, KAL Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet fighter after a single navigation mode error sent 269 people 300 miles off course - and directly triggered civilian GPS.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wing walking in 1919 out of necessity - not showmanship - and became barnstorming's defining figure before dying at 29 on a Hollywood film set.
TaildraggerOn August 6, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolled a 100,000-pound prototype jet over Lake Washington - and in doing so, sold the airplane that launched the jet age.
TaildraggerThe Convair B-36 Peacemaker was the largest combat aircraft ever mass-produced, holding nuclear deterrence watch from 1948 to 1959 with a 230-foot wingspan.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle was the first B-17 crew to complete 25 combat missions over Nazi Europe, a milestone that reshaped morale across the entire Eighth Air Force in 1943.
TaildraggerThe Vought F4U Corsair was rejected by the U.S. Navy for carrier operations in 1942, yet became WWII's most celebrated fighter - with the British solving its notorious approach problem.
TaildraggerWiley Post's 1933 solo world flight broke a record and produced the first airborne evidence of the jet stream, shaping aviation to this day.
TaildraggerIn January 1932, bush pilot Wop May flew a Bellanca monoplane over the Northwest Territories in the first aerial manhunt in North American history.
TaildraggerOn December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled circumnavigation of the Earth, landing after 216 hours aloft in an aircraft built by hand in a desert hangar.
TaildraggerFlak-Bait flew 207 combat missions in WWII - a record no American aircraft has matched - and its ongoing restoration at Udvar-Hazy preserves every patch as evidence.
TaildraggerOn November 2, 1947, Howard Hughes flew the world's largest airplane - the H-4 Hercules - one mile across Long Beach Harbor, vindicating years of ridicule and an $18 million gamble.
TaildraggerHow barnstorming bush pilot Jimmy Angel discovered the world's tallest waterfall and crash-landed atop an ancient Venezuelan mesa in 1937, leaving his plane behind for 33 years.
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