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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
The Twelve-Year Resurrection of Dottie Mae, the P-47 Thunderbolt That Ditched on VE Day
The P-47 Thunderbolt Dottie Mae ditched in an Austrian lake on VE Day 1945, sat submerged for 60 years, and flew again in 2017 after a 12-year restoration.
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.
The DC two and a half and the impossible ferry flight out of China
The legendary story of the DC-2½, a Douglas DC-3 flown out of wartime China in 1941 with a mismatched DC-2 wing bolted to its fuselage.
Old Six Sixty-Six and the Buka mission, two Medals of Honor in a single airplane
The story of Old 666, the patched-together B-17 whose June 1943 Buka mission earned two Medals of Honor in a single flight.
Burt Rutan and the Voyager non-stop around the world flight
In 1986, Burt Rutan's homebuilt Voyager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in nine days.
The Reno Air Races - pylon racing at four hundred miles per hour
The Reno Air Races pushed warbirds to 500+ mph at 50 feet off the desert floor for six decades of speed, engineering brilliance, and profound risk.