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.
On November 14, 1910, Eugene Ely became the first person to launch an aircraft from a ship, proving the concept that would eventually produce the modern aircraft carrier.
Flak-Bait flew 207 WWII combat missions over Europe - more than any other American aircraft in the theater - and its conservation at the Smithsonian preserves every scar.
The 1948 Berlin Airlift flew 278,000 sorties to sustain a blockaded city - and one pilot's candy drops from handkerchief parachutes became its defining symbol.
Ormer Locklear invented wing walking in 1919 and launched the barnstorming era that shaped how a generation of Americans - including Lindbergh - came to love flight.
In 1924, eight U.S. Army airmen completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the Earth in 175 days across more than 26,000 miles.
The Aichi M6A Seiran at Udvar-Hazy is the last surviving submarine-launched floatplane, engineered to attack the Panama Canal from beneath the Pacific.
On July 23, 1983, a unit conversion error left Air Canada Flight 143 with half its fuel, forcing a dead-stick landing of a Boeing 767 onto a runway occupied by drag-racing spectators.
The 1934 MacRobertson Trophy Race sent 20 aircraft across 11,300 miles from England to Australia, producing two of aviation history's most remarkable stories.
The P-47 Thunderbolt was the largest, heaviest single-engine fighter of WWII - and the airplane that bore the worst of the air war over Germany.
The Corsair achieved an 11-to-1 kill ratio in WWII and 13 years of front-line service - all because one engineer bent a wing down and back up.
Wiley Post flew solo around the world in 1933, built the first pressure suit, and discovered the jet stream - then died at 36, largely forgotten.
Ben Eielson opened Alaska's airways and made the first aerial crossing of the Arctic Ocean - until a November 1929 blizzard over the Bering Sea ended his life at 31.
How Doc the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was rescued from the Mojave Desert and restored to flight after sixteen years of work in Wichita.
Frank Luke downed 14 balloons and 4 aircraft in just 17 days in 1918, making him the most lethal American pilot of the First World War.
In July 1938, Howard Hughes circled the globe in under 4 days - cutting Wiley Post's record nearly in half and previewing how professional aviation would work.
Jimmy Angel, a Missouri-born barnstormer, crash-landed atop a Venezuelan mesa in 1937 and left both his airplane and his name on the world's tallest waterfall.
On the night of May 16, 1943, nineteen modified Lancasters flew at treetop height into Nazi Germany to destroy the Ruhr Valley dams using Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb.
The SR-71 Blackbird flew at Mach 3.2 on Soviet titanium, outran over 4,000 missiles, and remains the fastest air-breathing crewed aircraft ever flown.
The Mynarski Memorial Lancaster FM213 in Hamilton, Ontario is one of two airworthy Lancasters on Earth, carrying the story of Andrew Mynarski's Victoria Cross earned over France in 1944.
On December 14, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first nonstop unrefueled circumnavigation of Earth in the Voyager, landing with just 18 gallons to spare.