Bob Hoover escaped a WWII German POW camp by stealing a Focke-Wulf 190 and became the airshow pilot Neil Armstrong called the greatest he ever saw.
TaildraggerBob Reeve invented glacier flying in 1932 from necessity - broke and resourceful in Valdez, Alaska - and built an airline that ran for nearly six decades.
TaildraggerCal Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight in 1911, surviving 84 days, 16 crashes, and near-total aircraft rebuilding to reach the Pacific.
TaildraggerHow barnstormer Clyde Pangborn went from inverted flight at county fairs to completing the first nonstop transpacific flight in 1931.
TaildraggerDoc, a 1944 B-29 Superfortress rescued from the Mojave Desert, flew again over Wichita on July 17, 2016, after a decade of volunteer restoration work.
TaildraggerNorth American's XB-70 Valkyrie flew at Mach 3 riding its own shockwave, was cancelled before combat, and only one of two airframes survives today.
TaildraggerPurdue University is backing a new deep-sea expedition to investigate potential wreckage from Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra, nearly 89 years after her 1937 disappearance over the Pacific.
TowerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt overcame deep skepticism about its size to become the top-scoring fighter in the entire European theater of World War II.
TaildraggerHow a pre-war floatplane racing series - saved by a private widow's check - became the crucible that produced the Spitfire and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew around the world twice, discovered the polar jet stream, and invented the pressure suit that made space travel possible - all on $1,800 and one eye.
TaildraggerOn July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Dublin after filing a flight plan for Los Angeles - then blamed a faulty compass for the detour.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black woman to earn an international pilot's license in 1921, after crossing the Atlantic when every American flight school refused her.
TaildraggerOn December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed aviation's last great first - a nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in the Voyager aircraft.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear invented wing walking from a loose radiator cap in 1918 and became America's most famous aviator - until a Hollywood night flight killed him at 28.
TaildraggerOn January 2, 1967, Colonel Robin Olds led 78 F-4 Phantoms in a deception mission that destroyed seven MiG-21s in twelve minutes without a single American loss.
TaildraggerRAF roundels over Oshkosh represent over a century of Anglo-American aviation history, from Eagle Squadron volunteers to shared fifth-generation fighter technology.
TowerOn February 2, 1970, an F-106 Delta Dart recovered from an unrecoverable flat spin without its pilot and belly-landed itself in a Montana cornfield.
TaildraggerThe 1927 Dole Air Race sent 8 aircraft 2,400 miles across the open Pacific to Hawaii - only 2 arrived, and 7 crew members were never found.
TaildraggerThe Lady Be Good vanished into the Libyan desert in 1943 and sat undisturbed for 16 years - a navigation failure that still instructs pilots today.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle B-17F completed 25 combat missions over Nazi Germany in 1943, survived decades of outdoor neglect, and was fully restored at Wright-Patterson in 2018.
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