Bob Hoover escaped a German POW camp by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190, became the greatest airshow pilot of his generation, and fought the FAA to keep flying into his seventies.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wingwalking by accident in 1918 and became Hollywood's first aerial stuntman before dying on camera before 100,000 witnesses.
TaildraggerOn September 28, 1924, three U.S. Army biplanes completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe - three years before Lindbergh's solo Atlantic crossing.
TaildraggerHow Pan American's Martin M-130 flying boats and Captain Edwin Musick conquered 8,000 miles of open Pacific to launch the first scheduled transoceanic air service in 1935.
TaildraggerThe Lockheed Constellation cut New York-to-Paris travel to 13 hours in 1946, redefining transatlantic flight through pressurization, range, and a design born from Howard Hughes's audacious 1939 spec.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person confirmed to fly faster than sound, reaching Mach 1.06 at 43,000 feet over the Mojave Desert.
TaildraggerJacqueline Cochran was the most decorated aviator of the 20th century - over 200 records, the first woman to break the sound barrier, and architect of the WASP program.
TaildraggerOn January 2, 1967, Colonel Robin Olds destroyed seven North Vietnamese MiG-21s in twelve minutes by making his F-4 Phantoms look like easy prey.
TaildraggerThe Schneider Trophy seaplane races of the 1920s–30s produced the aerodynamic knowledge that built the Spitfire - and one woman's £100,000 kept that chain unbroken.
TaildraggerOn July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan departed Brooklyn bound for Los Angeles and landed in Dublin, Ireland - the wrong-way Atlantic crossing nobody could prove was intentional.
TaildraggerAn airworthy Wright Model B replica - America's first mass-produced airplane - is currently listed on Aircraft For Sale and featured by Flying Magazine as a top pick.
TowerThe B-29 'Doc' spent over 40 years abandoned at China Lake before volunteers flew her home to Wichita and restored her to flight in 2016.
TaildraggerThe Boeing 307 Stratoliner was aviation's first pressurized airliner - and its sole survivor had to sink in Elliott Bay before it could reach the Smithsonian.
TaildraggerThe 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia pitted purpose-built racers against a commercial airliner - and the result reshaped the future of aviation.
TaildraggerHow Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew the Rutan Voyager around the world nonstop in December 1986, landing with just 18 gallons to spare.
TaildraggerIn 1911, Cal Rodgers flew a grape-soda-sponsored biplane from Brooklyn to the Pacific in 84 days, surviving 15+ crashes to complete the first transcontinental flight in history.
TaildraggerBefore crossing the Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh spent years as a barnstorming wing walker - the unforgiving apprenticeship that built the most famous pilot in history.
TaildraggerHurricane R4118 is the only Battle of Britain combat veteran still airworthy - found in a field in India after decades and restored to flight in 2004.
TaildraggerOn October 9, 1937, American aviator Jimmy Angel landed his Flamingo monoplane atop Venezuela's Auyán-tepui mesa - and couldn't get it back off for 33 years.
TaildraggerThe Bristol Beaufighter was WWII's radar-equipped night hunter - combining airborne interception technology with devastating firepower to change the mathematics of nocturnal air war.
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