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.
How Bessie Coleman, a Chicago manicurist, sailed to France in 1920 to become the first Black woman in the world to earn a pilot's license.
Radio Hangar explores Bob Reeve, the Valdez Mudflats, and the Stainless-Steel Skis That Turned a Tidal Bog Into the Only Runway a Glacier Pilot Needed.
Flak-Bait, the B-26 Marauder that flew a record 207 combat missions, is being conserved at the Smithsonian exactly as she came home.
How Ivan Gates and Clyde Pangborn built the Gates Flying Circus, sold dollar airplane rides, and flew the first nonstop crossing of the Pacific.
How the RAF's 1943 Dambusters raid used Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb to breach the Ruhr dams - and what it cost.
Roscoe Turner won the Thompson Trophy three times, flew with a lion named Gilmore, and helped drive early aviation technology.
The Cornfield Bomber: how an F-106 recovered from a flat spin, landed itself in a Montana field, and flew again for years.
The Douglas DC-3 first flew in 1935, made passenger air travel profitable, won a war, and 90 years later still refuses to retire.
How the Flying Tigers and their shark-toothed P-40 Warhawks defended Burma against a superior enemy in 1941-42.
The story of the Gee Bee Model R and how Jimmy Doolittle rode the most dangerous racer in America to a 1932 Thompson Trophy win.
How the B-17 Memphis Belle survived 25 combat missions in 1943, nearly rotted on a scrap heap, and was saved by a 13-year restoration.
The story of Bob Hoover - POW escapee, X-1 backup pilot, and the airshow legend who poured iced tea during a barrel roll.
How airmail pilot Elrey 'Jepp' Jeppesen turned a ten-cent notebook into the Jeppesen charts every instrument pilot still flies today.
In 1928, Charles Kingsford Smith flew the Southern Cross across the Pacific for the first time - a 7,000-mile journey no one had dared before.
How a B-29 named Doc went from a Mojave bombing target to one of only two airworthy Superfortresses, restored by the town that built her.
How Alaskan bush pilot Don Sheldon landed a Piper Super Cub high on Denali to rescue injured climbers in May 1960.
On August 12, 1977, Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first free flight, proving a pilot could glide an orbiter to a landing.
How P-38 Lightning pilots flew a 1,000-mile ocean route to ambush Admiral Yamamoto on April 18, 1943 in Operation Vengeance.
The story of Ormer Locklear, aviation's first great wing walker, and the searchlight signal that failed on the night he died.
The Enola Gay's 20-year, 300,000-hour Smithsonian restoration saved the B-29 amid a bitter national fight over how to display her.