Windows of Flight: Weekly Aviation History

Eric W. Ristau
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  • AVIATION
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Every week in aviation history holds a story worth telling. Windows of Flight explores the moments that shaped human flight — from the first machines to leave the ground, to the pilots and dreamers who pushed every boundary they found. Aviation thriller author Eric W. Ristau brings you weekly episodes covering the milestones, the firsts, the record-breakers, and the remarkable people behind them. Made for pilots, aviation history enthusiasts, and anyone who loves a great story. From the earliest aviators, the World War I and World War II to the jet age. New episodes every week.

Episodes

  1. 2D AGO

    May 24, 2026 - This Week in Aviation History through the Windows of Flight

    The history of aviation is full of men and women who looked at the sky and refused to accept what was possible yesterday as the limit of what was possible today. The fourth week of May gives us two stories that sit at the very heart of that history — and both of them are about wanting more than you have, and going after it anyway. The first takes us to Huffman Prairie, Ohio, on May 25th, 1910. For seven years, Bishop Milton Wright had enforced an absolute rule: his sons Orville and Wilbur would never fly together. If something went wrong, he would lose both of them at once. The rule held from Kitty Hawk through every exhibition flight, every military demonstration, every milestone. Seven years. Then on this May morning, the eighty-two-year-old bishop finally gave his permission — and the two brothers who invented powered flight were airborne together for the first and only time. Six minutes and four seconds. And then the bishop climbed in beside Orville himself, looked down at the Ohio prairie he had known all his life from the ground, and shouted above the engine noise: "Higher, Orville. Higher." The second story begins on May 31st, 1928, at Oakland, California, where a blue-and-gold Fokker trimotor called the Southern Cross pointed its nose toward Hawaii — and kept going. Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his three-man crew were attempting something that had never been done: fly from California to Australia across the Pacific Ocean. More than 7,400 miles. Three legs. One of them over 3,000 miles of open ocean with no landmarks, no alternate fields, and propeller tips flickering with St. Elmo's fire in the middle of the night. The story of how they got to Brisbane — and what happened to Smithy afterward — is one of the great adventure stories in all of aviation history. Two stories. One week. Both of them about looking at the horizon and asking for just a little more. Windows of Flight is brought to you by the Border Series — aviation thriller novels by host Eric Ristau. Old bold pilots, vintage aircraft, and plots ripped straight from today's headlines. Find the Border Series wherever books are sold, and learn more at www.ericristau.com.

    10 min

  2. MAY 8

    May 14, 2026 - This Week in Aviation History through the Windows of Flight

    The third week of May spans nine remarkable years in aviation history — and every one of them involves the Atlantic Ocean, a desperate gamble, and someone refusing to quit. We start on May 15th, 1918, when the United States Post Office launched its first regular airmail service with a presidential send-off, a crowd of dignitaries — and a pilot who flew twenty miles in the wrong direction. Lieutenant George Boyle's legendary wrong-way departure is one of aviation's great comedy-of-errors moments, and the story of how the mail eventually got through anyway is worth telling in full. Then we go to May 18th, 1919, and a modified Sopwith biplane lifting off from Newfoundland with Harry Hawker and Kenneth Mackenzie-Grieve at the controls. Their attempt to cross the Atlantic ended in an ocean ditching alongside a Danish cargo ship with no radio — and for eight days, the world mourned them as dead. The story of how they came back is one of the least-known and most purely human moments in the whole history of transatlantic flight. And then — May 20th, 1927. Roosevelt Field, Long Island. A silver monoplane loaded with 450 gallons of fuel, no radio, no parachute, and a twenty-five-year-old airmail pilot from the Midwest that the press was calling "The Flying Fool." Thirty-three and a half hours later, Charles Lindbergh touched down at Le Bourget and a hundred thousand people broke through the barriers to reach him. Three stories. Nine years. The Atlantic, again and again, until someone finally got across. Windows of Flight is brought to you by the Border Series — aviation thriller novels by host Eric W. Ristau. Old bold pilots, vintage aircraft, and plots ripped straight from today's headlines. Find the Border Series wherever books are sold, and learn more at www.ericristau.com.

    14 min
  • 2 Episodes

About

Every week in aviation history holds a story worth telling. Windows of Flight explores the moments that shaped human flight — from the first machines to leave the ground, to the pilots and dreamers who pushed every boundary they found. Aviation thriller author Eric W. Ristau brings you weekly episodes covering the milestones, the firsts, the record-breakers, and the remarkable people behind them. Made for pilots, aviation history enthusiasts, and anyone who loves a great story. From the earliest aviators, the World War I and World War II to the jet age. New episodes every week.

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