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 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.
The Lockheed Constellation revolutionized transatlantic travel with its pressurized cabin, 300+ mph cruise speed, and unmistakable triple-tail silhouette - and a design story that's as compelling as the aircraft itself.
How Wilfrid 'Wop' May survived being chased by the Red Baron in 1918 and went on to complete a life-saving mercy flight through the Canadian wilderness in 1929.
On October 14, 1943, the Eighth Air Force launched 291 B-17s against Schweinfurt's ball bearing factories and lost 60 aircraft and 600 men in a single day.
On July 21, 1921, Army Air Service bombers sank the German battleship Ostfriesland in 21 minutes, validating Billy Mitchell's controversial claim that airpower had made the battleship obsolete.
Before crossing the Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh spent years as a barnstormer, building the real-world skills that made his historic 1927 flight possible.
The 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision killed 128 people and directly triggered the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration - reshaping every clearance, squawk code, and radar handoff in use today.
On May 24, 1988, TACA Flight 110's crew deadsticked a powerless Boeing 737 onto a Louisiana levee, saving all 45 people aboard.
The Douglas DC-3 transformed commercial aviation in 1936 and went on to serve in WWII, the Berlin Airlift, and Vietnam - with hundreds still flying today.
On April 6, 1924, four U.S. Army biplanes departed Seattle to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of Earth - 26,000 miles with no radio nav, no weather radar, and no margin for error.
The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was America's most technically advanced Cold War bomber - capable of Mach 3 at 70,000 feet but cancelled before entering service.
Ormer Locklear climbed out of a moving Curtiss Jenny in 1917 to fix a loose radiator cap - and accidentally invented American barnstorming.
The SR-71 Blackbird flew over 3,500 Cold War missions at Mach 3.2 and was never once shot down - here's the full story of how it was built and why it worked.
Lincoln Beachey flew before 17 million Americans and was called the greatest aviator who ever lived by Orville Wright - before dying at age 28.
Glacier Girl is a P-38 Lightning recovered from 270 feet of Greenland ice in 1992 and restored to flying condition, taking to the sky again in 2002.