Beryl Markham and the Night Atlantic: The Solo Flight That Went the Hard Way
Beryl Markham was the first person to fly solo nonstop from England to North America on September 4, 1936, battling headwinds alone for 21 hours and 25 minutes.
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Glenn Curtiss, the Gordon Bennett Trophy, and the Patent War That Nearly Grounded American Aviation
Glenn Curtiss won history's first international air speed race in 1909, invented naval aviation, and built the trainer that gave WWI pilots their wings - all while fighting the patent war that nearly grounded American aviation.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey and the Death Dip: The Man Who Taught America to Look Up
Lincoln Beachey was America's greatest early aviator, whose death-defying stunts from 1910 to 1915 transformed the airplane from curiosity to cultural icon.
TaildraggerPunch Dickins and the Barren Lands: Opening the Canadian North by Air
In 1928, bush pilot Punch Dickins flew a 3,900-mile survey of Canada's unmapped Barren Lands, earning the McKee Trophy and opening the Northwest Territories to regular air service.
TaildraggerThe Question Mark: Six Days Over Los Angeles and the Endurance Flight That Proved Airpower Could Stay Up Forever
How a 1929 six-day endurance flight over Los Angeles proved aerial refueling was operationally viable and laid the strategic foundation for American airpower in World War II.
TaildraggerThe Solar Challenger and the English Channel: July Seven, Nineteen Eighty-One
On July 7, 1981, pilot Steve Ptacek flew the Solar Challenger from France to England in 5 hours 23 minutes on nothing but sunlight - no fuel, no batteries, no stored energy of any kind.
TaildraggerThe Swamp Ghost: The B-Seventeen That Slept in a Papua New Guinea Swamp for Sixty-Four Years
The Swamp Ghost is a B-17E bomber that crash-landed in a Papua New Guinea swamp in 1942 and sat preserved and largely intact for 64 years before recovery.
TaildraggerAmerica at two-fifty and the flight display that owned the sky
America's 250th anniversary flight display over Washington D.C. on July 4, 2026 put 123 years of powered flight history in the sky at once.
TowerBessie Coleman and the License Nobody in America Would Give Her
Bessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 after every American flight school turned her away - so she crossed the Atlantic to earn her license in France.
TaildraggerBob Hoover and the FW 190 He Stole: The Greatest Aviator Jimmy Doolittle Ever Saw
Bob Hoover stole a Focke-Wulf 190 from a Luftwaffe airfield to escape a German POW camp - then became the greatest airshow pilot who ever lived.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear and the Airplane Transfer: The Texan Who Built Barnstorming Into an Art Form
Ormer Locklear of Greenville, Texas invented airplane-to-airplane transfers and became barnstorming's first true showman before dying at 28 in 1920.
TaildraggerThe China Clipper: Pan American's First Crossing of the Pacific
On November 22, 1935, Pan Am's China Clipper completed the first scheduled transpacific flight, covering 8,000 miles from California to Manila in 59 hours and 48 minutes of flying time.
TaildraggerThe Dole Derby: The Race to Hawaii That Swallowed the Pacific
The 1927 Dole Derby offered $35,000 in prize money for a nonstop flight from Oakland to Honolulu, but the race became one of aviation's most sobering disasters.
TaildraggerThe Dornier Do 335 Pfeil: The Fastest Piston Fighter Nobody Got to Fight
The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was the fastest piston-engined fighter of WWII, reaching ~475 mph - but only around 40 were ever built.
TaildraggerThe North American P-51 Mustang: The Fighter That Saved the Eighth Air Force
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.
TaildraggerThe SR-71 Blackbird's New York to London Record: One Hour and Fifty-Four Minutes at Mach Three
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.
TaildraggerAlcock and Brown: The Sixteen Hours That Crossed the Atlantic First
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.
TaildraggerTex Johnston and the Barrel Roll That Sold the Jet Age
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.
TaildraggerThe Hughes H Four Hercules at the Evergreen Aviation Museum: The Largest Wingspan That Ever Left the Water
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.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt: The Jug That Flew Too Fast for Its Own Controls
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.
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