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 Grumman F6F Hellcat reversed American fortunes in the Pacific by out-engineering the Zero, achieving a 19-to-1 kill ratio and accounting for over 60% of all naval air victories.
How the P-51 Mustang's Merlin engine and 1,100-mile range broke the Luftwaffe and rescued Allied strategic bombing from catastrophic failure in 1944.
On September 1, 1974, the SR-71 Blackbird crossed the Atlantic in 1 hour 54 minutes - a record no aircraft has broken in over 50 years.
John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight on June 14–15, 1919 - eight years before Lindbergh - in an open-cockpit WWI bomber.
On April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 435 miles over open ocean to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor, using decoded Japanese communications.
On August 7, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston rolled a prototype jet airliner twice over Lake Washington, executing one of the most consequential demonstrations in aviation history.
The Gee Bee Super Sportster was the fastest piston racer of the 1930s - a machine so demanding it required genius to fly and cost its creators everything to build.
The Hughes H-4 Hercules holds the record for the largest wingspan of any aircraft ever flown at 320 feet, and has called Oregon's Evergreen Aviation Museum home since 2001.
The Memphis Belle B-17 survived 25 combat missions over Europe, then 40 years of outdoor neglect, before a 12-year restoration returned her to museum condition in 2018.
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt outscored every Allied fighter group in the European theater - here's why the heaviest single-engine fighter of WWII remains underappreciated.
Harold Gillam was Alaska's most technically disciplined bush pilot - and his final flight in January 1943 became one of the territory's most haunting stories.
How Doc's Friends spent 16 years and 300,000 volunteer hours rescuing a B-29 Superfortress from the Mojave Desert and returning it to Wichita's skies.
The Curtiss NC-4 crossed the North Atlantic in May 1919 - eight years before Lindbergh - carrying six Navy men 1,500 miles by dead reckoning alone.
The Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - the Night Witches - flew 23,000 WWII combat sorties in fabric biplanes, navigating at night by compass and clock alone.
On December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager, covering 25,000 miles in nine days.
The F4U Corsair went from Navy reject to one of WWII's most feared fighters - built around a massive engine, refined by Marines, and flying combat missions into 1969.
Wiley Post used a $1,800 workers' comp settlement to learn to fly, then circled the globe twice, discovered the jet stream, and invented the pressure suit.
On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from New York to Ireland on a flight plan filed for Los Angeles - and spent 57 years insisting it was a compass error.
On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished over the Pacific during their final approach to Howland Island - a radio failure that aviation still learns from today.
On July 2, 1900, Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ-1 made its first flight over Lake Constance - predating the Wright Brothers by three years and launching the world's first commercial airline.