Ryan later became a photographer, graphic designer, private pilot, and skydiver, as well as an avid aviation history buff. “He set me on a path,” he says of the time he spent with his granddad.

One of his early photos is of the 1937 M-156 flying boat, which Glenn Martin offered to Pan American World Airways. Instead, Aeroflot took one — the only one. Howard Levy Howard Levy took his ...