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.
Ormer Locklear invented wing walking and mid-air aircraft transfers in 1919, became Hollywood's first aerial stuntman, and died on camera at age 28.
The B-29 'Doc' survived decades as a weapons range target before a 16-year volunteer effort returned her to Wichita's skies on July 17, 2016.
In August 1927, eight planes raced 2,400 miles across the Pacific for a $25,000 prize - only two returned, and the disaster reshaped how aviation approached oceanic flight.
How the obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplane crippled Italy's battle fleet at Taranto in 1940 and delivered the torpedo that stopped the Bismarck in 1941.
On November 22, 1935, Pan American's China Clipper made the first scheduled commercial transpacific flight under Captain Edwin Musick, covering nearly 8,000 miles to Manila in seven days.
On December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew a homebuilt composite aircraft called Voyager around the entire Earth - nonstop, unrefueled - in nine days.
How bush pilot Wop May's 1932 aerial reconnaissance during the Mad Trapper manhunt laid the foundation for modern search-and-rescue aviation.
Bob Reeve turned Valdez tidal mud flats into a runway in 1932 and pioneered commercial glacier landing in Alaska using seal oil and methodical improvisation.
On April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel solo - a milestone the Titanic disaster nearly erased from history.
On June 14, 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight, crossing 1,890 miles in 16 hours and 27 minutes - eight years before Lindbergh.
Richard Bong scored 40 aerial kills in a P-38 Lightning during WWII - a record no American pilot has matched in any conflict since.
On January 2, 1967, Colonel Robin Olds led 48 aircrews in Operation Bolo, destroying seven MiG-21s over Hanoi in aviation's most successful aerial deception since World War II.
How the $50 Army surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jenny launched the barnstorming era and introduced millions of Americans to flight.
The de Havilland Mosquito was rejected by the Air Ministry twice before becoming WWII's most versatile combat aircraft - built almost entirely from wood.
The Gee Bee Super Sportster won the 1932 Thompson Trophy at 252 mph in Jimmy Doolittle's hands - and killed nearly everyone else who tried to fly it.
On July 23, 1983, a unit conversion error left Air Canada Flight 143 with half its required fuel, forcing a dead-stick landing at a Manitoba drag strip with 89 people aboard.
The Hughes H-4 Hercules flew exactly once - 70 feet above Long Beach harbor on November 2, 1947 - and remains the largest flying boat ever built.
The Memphis Belle completed 25 combat missions over occupied Europe in 1943, then spent four decades deteriorating outdoors before a 13-year restoration saved her.
On September 16, 1979, two East German families crossed the Iron Curtain in a homemade hot air balloon, covering 28 km to freedom in Bavaria in under 30 minutes.
On September 15, 1940, Keith Park committed Fighter Command's last reserve and held the sky over Britain - the day Hitler's invasion plan effectively died.