Douglas Bader, the Tin-Legged Ace Who Flew the Battle of Britain on Two Artificial Legs
How RAF ace Douglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash and still flew the Battle of Britain on two artificial legs.
Taildraggeraviation history
Glacier Girl and the Lost Squadron - The P Thirty-Eight Pulled From Two Hundred Sixty-Eight Feet of Greenland Ice
How a P-38 Lightning buried under 268 feet of Greenland ice for 50 years was recovered and flew again as Glacier Girl.
TaildraggerNeil Armstrong the Aviator - The Navy Panther, the X-15, and the Pilot Behind Tranquility Base
Before Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong was a Navy combat pilot and X-15 test pilot - and that flying is what got him to the moon.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear, King of the Wing Walkers, and the Night Dive Over DeMille Field
The story of Ormer Locklear, the first wing walker, who invented aerial stunting in barnstorming's golden age before dying at age 28.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 and the Gooney Bird That Outlived Every Airplane Built to Replace It
The Douglas DC-3 first flew in 1935, made airlines profitable, helped win WWII as the C-47, and still flies today.
TaildraggerThe Night Witches - How the Soviet 588th Flew Canvas Biplanes to War in the Dark
How the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - the 'Night Witches' - flew obsolete canvas biplanes on 23,000+ night raids in WWII.
TaildraggerThe Wooden Wonder Reborn - How Glyn Powell's Molds and the Avspecs Team Brought the de Havilland Mosquito Back to the Sky
How Glyn Powell's hand-built molds and New Zealand's Avspecs team returned the de Havilland Mosquito to flight after 16 years grounded.
TaildraggerWrong Way Corrigan and the Flight to Ireland He Swore He Never Meant to Make
How Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan flew a patched-up Curtiss Robin from New York to Ireland in 1938 and blamed his compass.
TaildraggerBeryl 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.
TaildraggerGlenn 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.
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