On May 26, 1970, the Tupolev Tu-144 became the first commercial transport aircraft to reach Mach 2, a milestone in the Cold War supersonic race.
TaildraggerHow a crashed Japanese Zero in Alaska's Aleutian Islands gave Grumman the intelligence to build the F6F Hellcat and turn the Pacific air war.
TaildraggerPatty Wagstaff won three consecutive US National Aerobatic Championships from 1991-1993, forever changing competition aerobatics.
TaildraggerThe F-100 Super Sabre became the first production fighter to exceed Mach 1 in level flight on May 25, 1953, changing military aviation forever.
TaildraggerNine obsolete Swordfish biplanes attacked the battleship Bismarck on May 24, 1941, and every one survived.
TaildraggerThe Navy Curtiss NC-4 completed the first transatlantic flight on May 22, 1919, a milestone most people wrongly attribute to later aviators.
TaildraggerHurricane R4118, a Battle of Britain combat veteran with 49 sorties, was recovered from India and restored to airworthy condition.
TaildraggerOn May 21, 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, landing in Ireland after nearly 15 harrowing hours.
TaildraggerOn May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field in the Spirit of Saint Louis for the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
TaildraggerOn May 19, 1919, Harry Hawker and Kenneth Mackenzie-Grieve ditched in the North Atlantic, failing to cross but proving it could be done.
TaildraggerDouglas Corrigan 'accidentally' flew from New York to Ireland in 1938 after being denied permission three times.
TaildraggerThe 1949 Berea crash that killed pilot Bill Odom and two bystanders ended the Cleveland National Air Races and reshaped airshow safety forever.
TaildraggerThe Bristol Blenheim flew Britain's first offensive mission of WWII, then vanished - until one man spent 31 years bringing her back.
TaildraggerThe 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption exposed aviation's vulnerability to volcanic ash and sparked the global warning systems pilots rely on today.
TaildraggerAlcock and Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight in June 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, in an open-cockpit biplane.
TaildraggerRobin Olds scored 17 aerial victories across two wars and masterminded Operation Bolo, the most successful air-to-air mission of the Vietnam War.
TaildraggerThe B-26 Marauder went from the most feared bomber in the Army Air Forces to the lowest combat loss rate of any American bomber in Europe.
TaildraggerThe Bermuda Sky Queen's 1947 emergency ocean landing saved 69 lives but was overshadowed by Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier the same day.
TaildraggerOn May 16, 1943, nineteen Lancaster bombers attacked Germany's Ruhr Valley dams using spinning bouncing bombs dropped at exactly sixty feet.
TaildraggerThe last surviving Dornier Do 17, a WWII German bomber, was recovered from the English Channel in 2013 after 73 years underwater.
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