On October 21, 1928, seventeen-year-old Elinor Smith flew a Waco biplane under all four East River bridges, launching one of American aviation's most celebrated careers.
TaildraggerHarriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel on April 16, 1912 - a milestone nearly erased by the Titanic sinking the night before.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wing-walking in 1917 as a mechanical fix, not a stunt, and died on camera at 28 performing a night dive for a Hollywood film in 1920.
TaildraggerOn August 27, 1939, test pilot Erich Warsitz flew the Heinkel He 178 for six minutes - the first turbojet-powered flight in history - five days before World War II began.
TaildraggerHow a five-paragraph memo by an RAF test pilot led to the engine swap that transformed the P-51 Mustang into the war-winning fighter of World War II.
TaildraggerHow Howard Hughes built a 320-foot wooden flying boat, silenced Congress with a single 26-second flight, and created the most ambitious aircraft ever constructed.
TaildraggerWiley Post, a one-eyed Oklahoma oilfield worker, flew solo around the world in 1933 and pioneered pressure suit technology that became the foundation for modern spacesuits.
TaildraggerBeryl Markham made the first solo east-to-west Atlantic crossing in 1936, flying 21 hours against the prevailing winds in a single-engine Percival Vega Gull.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 with two broken ribs and a broom handle - the complete story of how it happened.
TaildraggerHow Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew 26,366 miles around the Earth without landing or refueling - nine days in a cockpit two feet wide.
TaildraggerOn September 24, 1929, Jimmy Doolittle completed the first fully instrument-guided flight under a canvas hood at Mitchel Field, proving blind flight could be a system, not a stunt.
TaildraggerNASA's Shuttle Training Aircraft - a modified Gulfstream II - prepared shuttle commanders for the orbiter's 22-degree, no-go-around final approach using real aerodynamics in real airspace.
VectorAfter WWI, the U.S. Army auctioned thousands of surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jennies for as little as $200, launching the barnstorming era that brought flight to rural America.
TaildraggerRejected by the Navy and handed to the Marines, the Vought F4U Corsair became the Pacific War's most feared fighter with an 11-to-1 kill ratio.
TaildraggerOn August 25, 1919, a passenger boarded a converted WWI bomber at Hounslow Heath and flew to Paris, launching scheduled international commercial aviation.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black woman to earn an internationally recognized pilot's license in 1921 after every American flight school refused to train her.
TaildraggerBob Hoover escaped a German POW camp in 1945 by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190 he had never flown, launching the career of aviation's greatest airshow pilot.
TaildraggerThe complete story of Glacier Girl - the P-38 Lightning buried 268 feet under the Greenland ice cap in 1942 and restored to flight in 2002.
TaildraggerKatherine Stinson set cross-country distance records, performed night aerobatics with Roman candles, barnstormed Japan and China, and was still rejected by the Army in WWI.
TaildraggerOn September 28, 1924, two U.S. Army Air Service biplanes completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the Earth - 27,553 miles in 175 days.
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