Wiley Post

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 - August 15, 1935) gained international fame as the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits. His plywood airplane, the Winnie Mae, and his pressure suit are displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's plane crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska.

Early flying career

Post was born in Van Zandt County, Texas, but his family moved to Oklahoma when he was five. His aviation career began at age 26 as a parachutist for a flying circus, Burell Tobbs and His Texas Topnotch Fliers, and he became well known on the barnstorming circuit. In 1926, an oil field accident cost him his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first airplane. Around this time, he met fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers when he flew Rogers to a rodeo, and the two eventually became close friends.

Post was the personal pilot of wealthy Oklahoma oilmen Powell Briscoe and F.C. Hall in 1930 when Hall bought a high-wing, single-engine Lockheed Vega, one of the most famous record-breaking planes of the early 1930s. The oilman nicknamed the plane Winnie Mae, after his daughter, and Post achieved his first national prominence in it by winning the National Air Race Derby, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The plane's fuselage was inscribed, "Los Angeles to Chicago 9 hrs. 9 min. 4 sec. Aug. 27, 1930."

Around the world

With Harold Gatty

Like many pilots at the time, Post disliked the fact that the speed record for flying around the world was not held by an airplane, but by the Graf Zeppelin, piloted by Hugo Eckener in 1929 with a time of 21 days. On June 23, 1931, Post and his navigator, Harold Gatty left Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York in the Winnie Mae with a flight plan that would take them around the world, making fourteen stops along the way in Newfoundland, England, Germany, the Soviet Union, Alaska, Alberta (Canada) and Cleveland, Ohio before returning to Roosevelt Field.

They arrived back on July 1 after travelling 15,474 miles in the record time of 8 days and 15 hours and 51 minutes. The reception they received rivalled Charles Lindbergh's everywhere they went. They had lunch at the White House on July 6, rode in a ticker-tape parade the next day in New York City, and were honored at a banquet given by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America at the Hotel Astor. After the flight, Post acquired the Winnie Mae from F.C. Hall, and he and Gatty published an account of their journey titled, Around the World in Eight Days with an introduction by Will Rogers.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.