On May 15, 1941, the Gloster E.28/39 made Britain's first jet-powered flight, proving Frank Whittle's revolutionary engine concept.
TaildraggerMax Conrad made over 200 solo ocean crossings in single-engine Pipers, earning the title Flying Grandfather.
TaildraggerHow the Schneider Trophy seaplane races of the 1920s and 1930s directly produced the Spitfire and its Merlin engine.
TaildraggerOn May 14, 1908, mechanic Charlie Furnas became the first airplane passenger in America at Kill Devil Hills, NC.
TaildraggerThe Kee Bird B-29 survived 48 years on a frozen Greenland lake only to burn during its rescue attempt moments before takeoff.
TaildraggerOn May 13, 1913, Igor Sikorsky flew the first four-engine airplane, defying experts who called multi-engine flight impossible.
TaildraggerJimmy Stewart flew twenty combat missions over Nazi Germany in a B-24 Liberator, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross twice.
TaildraggerThe 1988 Ramstein airshow disaster killed 67 spectators and three pilots, fundamentally rewriting airshow safety rules worldwide.
TaildraggerA Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk sat untouched in the Egyptian Sahara for 70 years after its pilot vanished, sparking a fierce restoration debate.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Airlift delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies over 277,000 flights, ending when the Soviet blockade lifted on May 12, 1949.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman crossed the Atlantic to earn her pilot's license after every U.S. flight school refused to teach a Black woman to fly.
TaildraggerThe story of Wellington bomber N2980, ditched in Loch Ness in 1940 and recovered 45 years later as the best surviving example of its type.
TaildraggerOn May 11, 1926, the airship Norge completed the first verified flight across the North Pole, crossing from Europe to Alaska.
TaildraggerOn May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess flew a Messerschmitt Bf 110 solo from Germany to Scotland in one of aviation's most bizarre unauthorized missions.
TaildraggerHow a band of American test pilots raced across defeated Germany to seize Hitler's secret jets before the Soviets could claim them.
TaildraggerHow a secret civilian racer from Wichita humiliated every military fighter at the 1929 Cleveland Air Races and changed American aviation.
TaildraggerThe 1926 Byrd-Bennett North Pole flight remains aviation's most debated claim - here's what happened and why historians still argue.
TaildraggerDozens of WWII Navy trainers rest on Lake Michigan's bottom, and the remarkable recoveries are producing airworthy warbirds decades later.
TaildraggerThe Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 was the first naval battle fought entirely by aircraft, where opposing fleets never saw each other.
TaildraggerIn 1987, 19-year-old Mathias Rust flew a rented Cessna 172 from Helsinki to Moscow's Red Square, exposing Soviet air defense failures and reshaping Cold War politics.
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