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.
Over 100 WWII aircraft lost during carrier training on Lake Michigan survived 50+ years of cold freshwater, yielding some of the finest restored warbirds in existence.
The Gee Bee Model R won the 1932 Thompson Trophy at 252 mph and became the defining image of American air racing's golden age - and its deadliest lesson.
The Grumman F6F Hellcat achieved a 19-to-1 kill ratio in WWII, accounting for 75% of all U.S. Navy aerial victories in the Pacific theater.
The Hughes H-4 Hercules flew once in 1947 - 70 feet high, 26 seconds, one mile - and is the largest wooden aircraft and flying boat ever built.
Bob Hoover escaped a WWII German POW camp by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190 and became the airshow pilot Neil Armstrong called the greatest he ever saw.
Bob Reeve invented glacier flying in 1932 from necessity - broke and resourceful in Valdez, Alaska - and built an airline that ran for nearly six decades.
Cal Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight in 1911, surviving 84 days, 16 crashes, and near-total aircraft rebuilding to reach the Pacific.
How barnstormer Clyde Pangborn went from inverted flight at county fairs to completing the first nonstop transpacific flight in 1931.
Doc, a 1944 B-29 Superfortress rescued from the Mojave Desert, flew again over Wichita on July 17, 2016, after a decade of volunteer restoration work.
On May 16–17, 1943, nineteen Lancaster crews flew at sixty feet over black water to destroy the Ruhr dams - a story of precision engineering and extraordinary cost.
North American's XB-70 Valkyrie flew at Mach 3 riding its own shockwave, was cancelled before combat, and only one of two airframes survives today.
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt overcame deep skepticism about its size to become the top-scoring fighter in the entire European theater of World War II.
How a pre-war floatplane racing series - saved by a private widow's check - became the crucible that produced the Spitfire and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
Wiley Post flew around the world twice, discovered the polar jet stream, and invented the pressure suit that made space travel possible - all on $1,800 and one eye.
On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Dublin after filing a flight plan for Los Angeles - then blamed a faulty compass for the detour.
Bessie Coleman became the world's first Black woman to earn an international pilot's license in 1921, after crossing the Atlantic when every American flight school refused her.
Carl Ben Eielson opened Alaska to air travel in the 1920s before dying at 32 during a 1929 Arctic rescue mission over the Bering Strait.
On December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed aviation's last great first - a nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in the Voyager aircraft.
How a WWII P-38 Lightning buried under 268 feet of Greenland ice for 50 years was located, excavated, and restored to flight in 2002.
Ormer Locklear invented wing walking from a loose radiator cap in 1918 and became America's most famous aviator - until a Hollywood night flight killed him at 28.