Harold Gillam - the Alaska bush pilot no crash could kill - died in January 1943 trying to walk to help after putting his passengers down on a frozen mountain.
TaildraggerOn April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel - a feat buried by the Titanic disaster that same week.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle flew a complete circuit under a canvas hood at Mitchel Field - the first fully blind flight, and the foundation of every IFR approach flown since.
TaildraggerPhoebe Omlie became the first woman to hold a U.S. federal transport pilot's license in 1929, starting as a barnstorming wing-walker before shaping national aviation policy.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female licensed pilot in 1921 after sailing to France when every American flight school refused her application.
TaildraggerBob Hoover escaped a German POW camp by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190 and became the aviator that Neil Armstrong, Chuck Yeager, and Jimmy Doolittle each called the greatest they had ever seen.
TaildraggerIn 1911, Cal Rodgers crossed the United States in 84 days on just 60 hours of flight experience, becoming the first pilot to fly coast to coast.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon pioneered the glacier landing techniques still used in Alaska today, flying ski planes into the Alaska Range professionally for thirty years from Talkeetna.
TaildraggerThe 1983 Soviet shoot-down of KAL Flight 007 killed 269 people and directly led to President Reagan opening GPS to civilian aircraft worldwide.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wing-walking in 1919, became America's most famous aviator, and died on a Hollywood film set blinded by klieg lights during a night stunt.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, test pilot Tex Johnston barrel rolled Boeing's 707 prototype over Lake Washington - and sold the jet age.
TaildraggerHow 300,000 volunteer hours over 13 years brought B-29 Doc back to the sky over Wichita in 2016 - one of only two flying Superfortresses left on Earth.
TaildraggerThe 1934 MacRobertson Air Race flew 11,300 miles from England to Australia in under three days, reshaping the future of long-haul commercial aviation.
TaildraggerThe P-51 Mustang became WWII's finest piston-engine fighter through bold engineering decisions, a revolutionary wing, and one test pilot's honest memo.
TaildraggerHow Bob Reeve built Alaska's air supply network from a tidal mud flat and glacier landings, guided by one enduring rule: go home slow.
TaildraggerHow one man's obsession with flying WWI-era aircraft kept the first generation of flight alive at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully blind flight at Mitchel Field, NY, proving instrument flying could make commercial aviation viable in all weather.
TaildraggerRichard Bong shot down 40 Japanese aircraft over the Pacific - a record no American fighter pilot has matched in over 80 years - and died the same morning the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.
TaildraggerThe F4U Corsair compiled an 11-to-1 kill ratio over Japanese fighters despite being rejected for carrier ops - the full story of the bent-wing bird.
TaildraggerThe Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was the fastest piston-engine fighter of World War Two, and the only surviving example is on display at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
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