Reporter Nicholas Ranson is jubilant when, on 17 Dec 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright take their first airplane flight. Back home in Underwood, Maryland, however, his uncle Hiram F. Jenkins, owner and editor of the local newspaper, refuses to print the story. Nicholas quits and continues to work on his own airplane, with the devoted help of his little daughter Peggy. Peggy is actually the first in her family to fly when her friends, Patrick Falconer and Scott Barnes, induce her to get inside a large kite they have made, and run with it in a field until she is airborne. The kite is caught in a tree, however, and Peggy gets a black eye. Later, Nicholas dies when his experimental airplane crashes, leaving his wife and children alone. By Peggy's adulthood, planes are capable of flying at an altitude of 11,000 feet, and speeds of nearly 100 m.p.h. Peggy continues her father's obsession with flight by helping Scott and Pat to build a plane.

A kidnapping, three airplane crashes and several fist-fights adds speed to the plot in which the plans of a new, faster airplane motor invented by brothers Tim and Jerry are stolen and suspicion falls on their office secretary Mary Stuart. But she can pilot an airplane with the best of them and she risks her life to save Tim. And when she gets kidnapped, Jerry regains his lost nerve in rescuing her.

A sculptor who doesn't want to have any part of World War I is shamed by his girlfriend into joining the army. He becomes a fighter pilot, and undergoes a complete personality change.

When World War I breaks out, brothers Roy and Monte Rutledge, each attending Oxford university, enlist with the Royal Flying Corps.

Nearly 7,000 Curtiss Jennies were built and they had a long and distinguished career in the movies. In this load of garbage, a Swahili village (somewhere in the sierras behind Hollywood) is affected by disease. The nearby diamond mine is using this as an excuse not to ship diamonds back to HQ in South Africa. The mine president has sent a doctor, his beautiful daughter and her duenna to find out what is going on and to cure the natives. They are travelling on foot. To speed things up the president sends his ace flyer up...

Special agent Al Langdon pursues elusive gem smuggler Michael Revere. Going undercover, Langdon joins Revere's gang, and in this capacity is obliged to rescue their beautiful hostage, Mary Lacy.

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

Bruce Torrence is an aviator and member of the secret service. His rival for the hand of Zella Wingate is Juan Lascelles, a drug smuggler. To get rid of Torrence, Lascelles loosens a wheel on one of his planes, but Zella is the one who goes up in it. Torrence goes up in another plane and attaches a fresh wheel to Zella's plane. In spite of his efforts he later finds her in Lascelles' arms.