The Gimli Glider and the Boeing seven sixty-seven that ran out of gas at forty-one thousand feet
The full story of the Gimli Glider, the Air Canada Boeing 767 that ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet and glided to a deadstick landing in 1983.
TaildraggerTaildragger
The Vickers Wellington pulled from Loch Ness and the bomber that spent forty-five years at the bottom of Scotland's most famous lake
The story of Wellington bomber N2980, ditched in Loch Ness in 1940 and recovered 45 years later as the best surviving example of its type.
TaildraggerDouglas Bader and the legless fighter ace who escaped from prison camps as often as he shot down Messerschmitts
Douglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash, then became one of the RAF's deadliest fighter aces in World War II.
TaildraggerRudolf Hess and the solo Messerschmitt flight to Scotland that nobody ordered on May tenth, nineteen forty-one
On May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess flew a Messerschmitt Bf 110 solo from Germany to Scotland in one of aviation's most bizarre unauthorized missions.
TaildraggerWhiskey Seven and the D-Day C-forty-seven that flew back to Normandy seventy years later
Whiskey Seven, a D-Day C-47 that dropped paratroopers over Normandy in 1944, was restored and flew the same mission 70 years later.
TaildraggerSaburo Sakai and the four-hour flight home blind in one eye after a bullet through the skull
How Saburo Sakai flew a Zero 560 miles home with a bullet in his skull, blind in one eye, and survived.
TaildraggerSwamp Ghost the B-seventeen Flying Fortress pulled from a Papua New Guinea swamp after sixty-four years
Swamp Ghost, a B-17E that crash-landed in Papua New Guinea in 1942, survived 64 years in a swamp before its extraordinary recovery.
TaildraggerWatson's Whizzers and the American test pilots who stole Hitler's jet fleet before the ink on VE Day was dry
How a band of American test pilots raced across defeated Germany to seize Hitler's secret jets before the Soviets could claim them.
TaildraggerBeryl Markham and the solo westbound Atlantic crossing that history tried to forget
Beryl Markham made the first solo east-to-west Atlantic crossing in 1936, then was forgotten by history for nearly fifty years.
TaildraggerGail Halvorsen the Candy Bomber and the handkerchief parachutes that fed hope to the children of Berlin
Gail Halvorsen, the Berlin Airlift's Candy Bomber, turned two sticks of gum into Operation Little Vittles and gave a besieged city hope.
TaildraggerRichard Byrd and Floyd Bennett and the North Pole flight that history still argues about on May eighth, nineteen twenty-six
The 1926 Byrd-Bennett North Pole flight remains aviation's most debated claim — here's what happened and why historians still argue.
TaildraggerThe Farnborough crash of nineteen fifty-two and the de Havilland one ten that broke apart over the crowd
The 1952 Farnborough crash killed 31 people and fundamentally changed how every air show in the world operates today.
TaildraggerThe Lady Be Good and the B-twenty-four Liberator lost in the Sahara for fifteen years
The Lady Be Good, a B-24 Liberator lost in 1943, sat perfectly preserved in the Sahara for 15 years before discovery.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle B-seventeen and the thirteen-year restoration that brought America's most famous bomber home
The Memphis Belle's thirteen-year restoration preserved combat scars from 25 missions over occupied Europe.
TaildraggerThe Travel Air Mystery Ship and the civilian racer that humiliated every military fighter at the nineteen twenty-nine Cleveland Air Races
How a secret civilian racer from Wichita humiliated every military fighter at the 1929 Cleveland Air Races and changed American aviation.
TaildraggerChuck Yeager and the broken ribs that rode through the sound barrier on October fourteenth, nineteen forty-seven
How Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the Bell X-1 with two cracked ribs and a broomstick.
TaildraggerThe Battle of the Coral Sea and the carrier duel where warships never saw each other
The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 was the first naval battle fought entirely by aircraft, where opposing fleets never saw each other.
TaildraggerThe Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster and the five brothers from Springfield who built the fastest death trap in the sky
The Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster was the fastest and most lethal racing airplane of the 1930s, built by five self-taught brothers.
TaildraggerThe Lake Michigan warbirds and the Navy trainers pulled from freshwater graves to fly again
Dozens of WWII Navy trainers rest on Lake Michigan's bottom, and the remarkable recoveries are producing airworthy warbirds decades later.
TaildraggerThe Pan Am Pacific Clipper and the flying boat that flew home the wrong way around the world after Pearl Harbor
After Pearl Harbor closed the Pacific, Pan Am captain Robert Ford flew the Boeing 314 Pacific Clipper home the wrong way — westward around the entire world.
Taildragger