On 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.
TaildraggerHow 300,000 volunteer hours over 13 years brought B-29 Doc back to the sky over Wichita in 2016 - one of only two flying Superfortresses left on Earth.
TaildraggerThe 1934 MacRobertson Air Race flew 11,300 miles from England to Australia in under three days, reshaping the future of long-haul commercial aviation.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle - the first B-17 crew to complete 25 combat missions over occupied Europe - is now fully restored and on permanent display in Dayton, Ohio.
TaildraggerThe P-51 Mustang became WWII's finest piston-engine fighter through bold engineering decisions, a revolutionary wing, and one test pilot's honest memo.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was the most-produced American fighter of WWII - a massive, armor-laden aircraft engineered to bring pilots home from the worst the Luftwaffe could deliver.
TaildraggerHow Bob Reeve built Alaska's air supply network from a tidal mud flat and glacier landings, guided by one enduring rule: go home slow.
TaildraggerHow one man's obsession with flying WWI-era aircraft kept the first generation of flight alive at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York.
TaildraggerFlak Bait, the Martin B-26 Marauder that flew 202 WWII combat missions, remains the most battle-proven American aircraft of the war - and its Smithsonian restoration tells that story in aluminum.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully blind flight at Mitchel Field, NY, proving instrument flying could make commercial aviation viable in all weather.
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