The de Havilland Mosquito was rejected by the Air Ministry twice before becoming WWII's most versatile combat aircraft - built almost entirely from wood.
TaildraggerThe 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.
TaildraggerOn 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.
TaildraggerOn 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.
TaildraggerOn November 22, 1935, Edwin Musick flew the Martin M-130 China Clipper from California to Manila, completing the first scheduled transpacific air crossing in history.
TaildraggerFrank Luke Jr. scored 18 aerial victories in 17 days in 1918, making him the second-highest American ace of WWI through the most dangerous attack runs of the war.
TaildraggerIvan Gates built America's most famous flying circus in the 1920s without ever piloting a plane - transforming surplus WWI Jennys into a nationwide spectacle.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was the most famous aviator in America before his death at 28 - his flying redefined what aircraft could do and built public trust in aviation.
TaildraggerThe XB-70 Valkyrie - America's only Mach-3 strategic bomber - was cancelled by McNamara, lost one airframe in a midair collision, and survives today in Dayton.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew solo around the world in 1933 with one eye, a mechanical autopilot, and an elastic cord - then built the first pressure suit in aviation history.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 by crossing the Atlantic to train in France after every American flight school refused her admission.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person to exceed Mach 1 in the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis - with two cracked ribs and a piece of broomstick.
TaildraggerDoc the B-29 Superfortress spent 44 years in the Mojave Desert before volunteers restored her to flight in 2016 - one of only two airworthy examples of the Pacific War's decisive bomber.
TaildraggerOn September 14, 1939, Igor Sikorsky flew the VS-300 in Stratford, Connecticut, proving the single-main-rotor design that defines nearly every helicopter built since.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully hooded instrument flight at Mitchel Field, proving pilots could navigate safely without any visual reference to the outside world.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear was barnstorming's greatest showman - a Fort Worth carpenter who turned wing walking into art before dying on camera in 1920.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston rolled a prototype 707 twice over Lake Washington - a moment that became one of aviation's most legendary stories.
TaildraggerThe 1927 Dole Air Race sent eight planes from Oakland to Hawaii across 2,400 miles of open Pacific - only two finished, and seven people never came home.
TaildraggerThe solo shirt-cut tradition traces directly to open-cockpit biplanes of the early 1900s - here's the real history behind the ceremony happening on ramps across America.
RampThe Hughes H-4 Hercules - the largest flying boat ever built - made one 26-second flight in November 1947 and now stands preserved in McMinnville, Oregon.
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