✈️ The Golden Age of American Flight — July 24, 2026

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright made the first powered airplane flight in history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But three days earlier, it had been his older brother Wilbur lying at the controls for the very first attempt. How did the brothers decide who would fly first?

When Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris in May 1927, his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, had one famously strange feature: no front windshield. A giant fuel tank sat directly in front of the cockpit. How did Lindbergh see straight ahead?

After World War I, the government sold off thousands of surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" training biplanes — the machines that launched the barnstorming craze of the 1920s. A Jenny cost roughly $5,000 to build during the war. What could a would-be barnstormer pick one up for at surplus prices?

In May 1930, Boeing Air Transport put the world's first female flight attendants — eight women called "sky girls" — aboard its airliners. The whole idea came from Ellen Church, who became the first of them. What profession was required of every single one?

Starting in 1918, the U.S. Post Office hired a corps of pilots to fly the mail across the country in open-cockpit biplanes — no radios, no reliable weather reports, navigating by railroad tracks and river bends. Of the first 40 pilots hired, how many died flying the mail?

Stumper. The airplane that finally made passenger flying profitable was the legendary Douglas DC-3, which entered service in 1936 and revolutionized air travel. But the very first version American Airlines flew wasn't badged DC-3 — it was called the DST. What did those letters stand for?