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.
On December 20, 1943, German ace Franz Stigler escorted a crippled B-17 to safety instead of shooting it down - the true story behind A Higher Call.
How North Dakota schoolteacher Carl Ben Eielson flew Alaska's first airmail, crossed the Arctic by air, and vanished over Siberian ice.
How British aerobatic champion Neil Williams saved a Zlin with a folded wing in 1970 by flying it inverted and landing upside down.
How Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb and 617 Squadron broke the Ruhr dams flying at 60 feet in the dark on the night of May 16–17, 1943.
Otto Lilienthal made over 2,000 glider flights in the 1890s, proving human flight was possible and inspiring the Wright brothers.
How Pancho Barnes went from fastest woman alive to running the desert club where test pilots celebrated breaking the sound barrier.
How Louise Thaden won the 1929 Women's Air Derby, the cross-country race newspapers mocked as the Powder Puff Derby.
How the $50 war-surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jenny launched the 1920s barnstorming era and put a generation of Americans in the sky.
The Piper J-3 Cub taught most of America to fly on 65 horsepower, then went to war as the L-4 Grasshopper artillery spotter.
The Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes' all-wood flying boat, flew once for under a minute in 1947 and now lives in McMinnville, Oregon.
How Tom Reilly spent a decade rebuilding the world's only airworthy XP-82 Twin Mustang - and why its propellers spin the way they do.
In December 1986, Voyager flew nonstop around the world without refueling - the story of the last great first in aviation.
Wiley Post, a one-eyed Oklahoma roughneck, flew solo around the world in 1933 and pioneered the pressure suit and jet stream.
How Bob Hoover poured iced tea while rolling a twin-engine Shrike Commander upside down - and what it teaches every pilot about energy management.
In 1911, Cal Rodgers flew the Vin Fiz coast-to-coast in 49 days - the first flight across America, achieved after the prize was already lost.
How the Gates Flying Circus and Clyde 'Upside-Down' Pangborn sold America its first airplane ride for a nickel and shaped a generation of pilots.
How a P-38 Lightning was recovered from 268 feet of Greenland ice and restored to flight 50 years after the Lost Squadron went down.
How Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 on Oct 14, 1947 - with two cracked ribs and a sawed-off broomstick.
In August 1955, test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolled Boeing's one-and-only 707 prototype over Lake Washington and helped sell the jet age.
The Douglas DC-3 was the first airliner to profit on passengers alone, then won a war as the C-47 - and it's still flying today.