The Gee Bee Super Sportster and the most beautiful deathtrap in air racing history
The Gee Bee Super Sportster was the fastest and most dangerous racing airplane of the 1930s, built by five self-taught brothers in a converted dance hall.
The Hangar
Aviation history and storytelling with Taildragger. Warbird restorations, legendary pilots, famous flights, and the stories that shaped aviation from the Wright Brothers to the Space Shuttle.
Wrong Way Corrigan and the most famous navigational mistake that fooled absolutely nobody
Douglas Corrigan flew a patched-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938, claiming it was a navigational error nobody believed.
Beryl Markham and the solo flight west across the Atlantic that nobody remembers
Beryl Markham became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic east to west in 1936, then vanished from history for fifty years.
How a beat-up Mustang in the Texas desert launched the warbird airshow movement
How five Texas pilots who bought a forgotten P-51 Mustang in 1957 launched the warbird preservation movement that saved thousands of WWII aircraft.
The de Havilland Mosquito and the impossible quest to fly the Wooden Wonder again
The decades-long quest to return the de Havilland Mosquito to flight demanded lost woodworking skills, wartime materials, and extraordinary determination.
The de Havilland Mosquito and the wooden wonder that outran everything in the sky
The de Havilland Mosquito was a wooden WWII aircraft that outran fighters, carried bomber payloads, and became the most versatile combat plane of the war.
The Lafayette Escadrille forms on this day in nineteen sixteen
On April 20, 1916, the Lafayette Escadrille formed as American volunteer pilots joined France's air war a full year before the U.S. entered WWI.
Wrong Way Corrigan and the most deliberate accident in aviation history
Douglas Corrigan 'accidentally' flew from New York to Ireland in 1938 after being denied permission for years.
Glacier Girl and the P-38 Lightning pulled from under the ice
The story of Glacier Girl, a P-38 Lightning recovered from 268 feet of Greenland ice and restored to flight after 60 years.
The Berlin Airlift Easter Parade of nineteen forty-nine
The 1949 Easter Parade delivered nearly 13,000 tons of supplies to blockaded Berlin in 24 hours, breaking Soviet resolve.
The Pan Am Pacific Clipper's secret flight around the world after Pearl Harbor
After Pearl Harbor, Pan Am's Pacific Clipper flew 31,500 miles around the world because its Pacific route home no longer existed.
Bob Hoover and the greatest airshow act nobody could explain
Bob Hoover's dead-stick airshow routine in a stock twin-engine Shrike Commander remains the most extraordinary demonstration of airmanship ever performed.
Bob Hoover, the pilot's pilot who stole a Focke-Wulf from the Nazis
Bob Hoover escaped a Nazi POW camp, stole a Focke-Wulf 190, and became the greatest demonstration pilot in aviation history.
Glacier Girl and the P thirty-eight pulled from beneath two hundred sixty-eight feet of Greenland ice
The story of Glacier Girl, a WWII P-38 Lightning recovered from 268 feet beneath Greenland's ice cap and restored to flying condition.
Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to fly solo around the world
On April 17, 1964, Jerrie Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world in a Cessna 180 named Spirit of Columbus.
The Cornfield Bomber, the F one oh six that landed itself
The true story of an F-106 Delta Dart that recovered from a flat spin and landed itself in a Montana cornfield in 1970.
The Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot
The Grumman F6F Hellcat achieved a 19-to-1 kill ratio and destroyed Japanese naval aviation at the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
Wrong Way Corrigan and the greatest wink in aviation history
Douglas Corrigan flew a beat-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938, claiming he read his compass wrong.
Bob Hoover and the dead-stick energy management routine that defined airshow flying
Bob Hoover's dead-stick Shrike Commander routine defined airshow flying for 40 years and remains the gold standard for energy management.
Harriet Quimby's Channel Crossing on April sixteenth, nineteen twelve
On April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel—a landmark flight overshadowed by the Titanic disaster.