On October 7, 1903, America's best-funded flying machine program crashed into the Potomac - nine days before the Wright Brothers succeeded at Kitty Hawk.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolled the Boeing 707 prototype over Lake Washington - a calculated move that launched the jet age.
TaildraggerThe F4U Corsair was rejected by the Navy for carrier use, handed to the Marines, and became the most feared propeller-driven fighter in the Pacific.
TaildraggerOn February 2, 1970, an F-106 Delta Dart recovered its own flat spin after the pilot ejected and belly-landed itself in a Montana cornfield with the engine still running.
TaildraggerThe Fokker D.VII was the only aircraft ever named by designation in a major international armistice - and the story of why reveals how air power changed warfare forever.
TaildraggerR.J. Mitchell designed the Supermarine Spitfire while dying of cancer at 42 - his elliptical wing kept the aircraft competitive from 1936 to 1954.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew around the world alone in 1933, then pioneered the pressure suit and jet stream research that shaped every pressurized aircraft flying today.
TaildraggerCal Rodgers completed the first coast-to-coast flight across America in 1911, covering 3,200 miles in a Wright biplane with no instruments, no weather service, and no map - just a railroad to follow.
TaildraggerBefore Paris and the ticker-tape parade, Charles Lindbergh spent three years barnstorming Midwest pastures - the unglamorous apprenticeship that built the pilot who crossed the Atlantic.
TaildraggerOn October 5, 1931, Clyde Pangborn completed the first nonstop transpacific flight - 4,500 miles from Japan to Washington State, without landing gear.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon pioneered glacier landing techniques in Alaska's Ruth Amphitheater, transforming Denali mountaineering and building the operational foundation every expedition team still relies on today.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully blind flight at Mitchel Field, proving that instruments - not instincts - could safely guide pilots through clouds.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was the most famous pilot in the world in 1915 - until a structural failure over San Francisco Bay killed him at 28 before 300,000 witnesses.
TaildraggerOn April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew a 435-mile dead reckoning intercept that killed Admiral Yamamoto and altered the course of the Pacific War.
TaildraggerRobin Olds was a WWII double ace who designed Operation Bolo on January 2, 1967 - the most decisive air engagement of the Vietnam War, destroying 7 MiG-21s with zero American losses.
TaildraggerThe Avro Lancaster emerged from a failed twin-engine bomber to become WWII's most capable heavy bomber, culminating in the technically precise 60-foot dam-busting raid of May 1943.
TaildraggerThe B-29 Bockscar dropped the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, despite a broken fuel pump, a 45-minute rendezvous delay, and three failed bomb runs over its primary target.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito outran every Luftwaffe fighter sent after it - here's the engineering story and the restoration science keeping the last flying examples airworthy.
TaildraggerHow a crashed Japanese Zero in the Aleutians led directly to the F6F Hellcat's 19-to-1 kill ratio and the destruction of Japanese naval air power.
TaildraggerOn July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew 28 hours and 13 minutes from Brooklyn to Dublin - officially claiming he meant to go to Los Angeles the whole time.
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