Bob Reeve arrived in Alaska in 1932 with $11 and a wheel-equipped plane, pioneered systematic glacier landings, and built Reeve Aleutian Airways into a 50-year institution.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis past Mach 1 over the Mojave Desert - with two broken ribs and a piece of broomstick in the cockpit.
TaildraggerOn September 30, 1929, Fritz von Opel flew a 16-rocket delta-wing glider for 75 controlled seconds over Frankfurt - the forgotten flight that seeded modern rocketry and jet combat aircraft.
TaildraggerOn April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the English Channel - then lost her moment in history to the Titanic disaster the night before.
TaildraggerJacqueline Cochran rose from poverty in the Florida Panhandle to become the first woman to break the sound barrier and hold more aviation records than any pilot in history.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey invented the American airshow before the term existed, pioneering the Death Dip and inverted flight before dying at 27 in 1915.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito proved that speed alone could replace defensive armament, flying over 36,000 wartime sorties with loss rates far below the heavy bomber force.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 revolutionized air travel in 1936, then became the C-47 that carried paratroopers into Normandy and earned Eisenhower's designation as one of four weapons that won WWII.
TaildraggerOn July 23, 1983, a metric unit conversion error left Air Canada Flight 143 with less than half its required fuel, forcing a dead-stick landing in a Boeing 767.
TaildraggerThe Hawker Hurricane destroyed roughly 55% of Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain - more than the iconic Spitfire - yet history has largely forgotten it.
TaildraggerThe North American X-15 flew 199 research missions from 1959 to 1968, setting records that still stand and building the engineering foundation for every U.S. crewed spacecraft that followed.
VectorOn July 4, 1989, a pilotless Soviet MiG-23 flew itself across five countries before crashing into a Belgian home - a Cold War incident with lasting lessons for pilots.
TowerJohn Alcock and Arthur Brown flew nonstop across the Atlantic in 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, in an open cockpit with primitive instruments.
TaildraggerDon Sheldon pioneered high-altitude glacier landings on Denali that transformed mountaineering expeditions and made survival rescues possible where no pilot had gone before.
TaildraggerEddie Rickenbacker earned 26 aerial victories in WWI then survived 24 days adrift in the Pacific - the defining story of the Ace of Aces.
TaildraggerThe first flight around the world was completed on September 28, 1924, by three U.S. Army Air Service crews in Douglas World Cruisers - 26,345 miles in 175 days.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus barnstormed America with war-surplus biplanes in the 1920s, turning curious farmers into the next generation of pilots.
TaildraggerThe Vought F4U Corsair was too fast and too difficult for carrier operations - so the Navy gave it to the Marines, who turned it into one of the most effective fighters of World War II.
TaildraggerWiley Post flew around the world twice, discovered the jet stream, and built the first pressure suit - all with one eye and no high school diploma.
TaildraggerIn July 1938, Douglas Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Dublin in a leaking, fuel-soaked Curtiss Robin - then claimed he misread his compass.
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