Aviation history and storytelling with Taildragger. Warbird restorations, legendary pilots, famous flights, and the stories that shaped aviation from the Wright Brothers to the Space Shuttle.
The Memphis Belle completed 25 combat missions over occupied Europe in 1943, then spent four decades deteriorating outdoors before a 13-year restoration saved her.
On September 16, 1979, two East German families crossed the Iron Curtain in a homemade hot air balloon, covering 28 km to freedom in Bavaria in under 30 minutes.
On September 15, 1940, Keith Park committed Fighter Command's last reserve and held the sky over Britain - the day Hitler's invasion plan effectively died.
The Flying Tigers flew combat against Japan before America entered WWII, led by a tactical genius the Army had discarded and proven right.
Don Sheldon pioneered glacier landings on Denali for over two decades, building the techniques and standards that Alaska mountain aviation still relies on today.
On November 22, 1935, Edwin Musick flew the Martin M-130 China Clipper from California to Manila, completing the first scheduled transpacific air crossing in history.
Flak-Bait, a Martin B-26 Marauder, flew 207 combat missions in WWII - more than any other American aircraft - and now sits at the Smithsonian bearing every mark it earned.
Frank Luke Jr. scored 18 aerial victories in 17 days in 1918, making him the second-highest American ace of WWI through the most dangerous attack runs of the war.
Ivan Gates built America's most famous flying circus in the 1920s without ever piloting a plane - transforming surplus WWI Jennys into a nationwide spectacle.
Lincoln Beachey was the most famous aviator in America before his death at 28 - his flying redefined what aircraft could do and built public trust in aviation.
On 16 May 1943, RAF 617 Squadron flew nineteen modified Lancasters at 60 feet to breach the Ruhr dams in one of aviation's most precisely engineered raids.
The Lady Be Good, a WWII B-24 Liberator, was found intact in the Sahara 16 years after a faulty radio compass led its crew to bail out 240 miles inside the desert.
The XB-70 Valkyrie - America's only Mach-3 strategic bomber - was cancelled by McNamara, lost one airframe in a midair collision, and survives today in Dayton.
The F4U Corsair was rejected by the U.S. Navy for carrier operations in 1942, then became one of WWII's most lethal fighters - and stayed in combat through Korea.
Wiley Post flew solo around the world in 1933 with one eye, a mechanical autopilot, and an elastic cord - then built the first pressure suit in aviation history.
Bessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 by crossing the Atlantic to train in France after every American flight school refused her admission.
On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person to exceed Mach 1 in the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis - with two cracked ribs and a piece of broomstick.
Doc the B-29 Superfortress spent 44 years in the Mojave Desert before volunteers restored her to flight in 2016 - one of only two airworthy examples of the Pacific War's decisive bomber.
Harold Gillam was Alaska's most feared bad-weather pilot - until a January 1943 mountain in southeastern Alaska ended his legendary career and stranded five survivors for 32 days.
On September 14, 1939, Igor Sikorsky flew the VS-300 in Stratford, Connecticut, proving the single-main-rotor design that defines nearly every helicopter built since.