Wiley Post lost an eye but became a world-beating pilot
One-eyed pilot Wiley Post not only broke the record for flying around the world, he was the first to do it solo
The one-eyed pilot climbed into the cockpit of his Lockheed Vega 5C named Winnie Mae. American Wiley Post was about to attempt something that would challenge most people with two good eyes — fly solo around the world.
Just to make it a little bit more challenging he was out to beat his own record for an around-the-world flight, set in 1931. That time it was with help from his Australian navigator William Gatty. This time he would do it alone, the first solo around the world flight, albeit with some help from some special equipment.
He had recently installed two devices still in development, an autopilot and a radio direction finder, the latter still classified secret by the US military. After waiting patiently for the weather conditions to be favourable he decided to risk it and took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on July 15.
The previous record was eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes, which he had hoped to reduce to just six days. That goal was thwarted by bad weather and problems with oil supply to the autopilot, but he still managed to cut the time by 21 hours, setting a record of seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes.
A crowd of 50,000 people had gathered at Floyd Bennett Field to welcome him. Already a celebrity, the solo flight brought him even more fame.
Born 120 years ago today, the eyepatch-wearing Post was one of the greats of aviation in the 1930s, winning races, setting records, testing new technology and contributing to designs for safety equipment. But like many others who wrote their name across the skies as a pioneering flyer his career was cut tragically short.
He was born Wiley Hardeman Post on November 22, 1898, the son of a Texan farmer, who later moved his family to Oklahoma. Post was only five years old when the Wright brothers made their pioneering flight in 1903. But it was not until he was 15 that Post saw his first aircraft. It was a Curtiss-Wright “pusher” plane, one with the propellers mounted behind the engines.
He saw it at the local county fair at Lawton, Oklahoma, and was so mesmerised he went home and began saving money to enrol for a seven-month course at the Sweeney Automobile and Aviation School in Kansas City.
When the US entered World War I, Post volunteered for the US Army Air Service, but the war ended before his training was completed. After the war he took work on the Oklahoma oilfields, trying to earn money to buy his own plane.
But in 1921, in between jobs, he
took to robbery to make money, was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Paroled in 1922 he returned to the oil industry. In 1926 while
working on an oil rig a piece of metal flew off a machine and lodged in his left eye. It became infected and the eye had to be removed.
It could have ended his dream of being a pilot, but with the compensation money he received he bought his own plane and devised ways of overcoming his disability. In 1927 he married his first cousin Mae Laine, after falling for her on a trip to visit family in Texas.
Post was granted a transport licence in 1928 and got a job flying for millionaire oilman F.C. Hall, who owned a Lockheed Vega named Winnie Mae. Hall allowed Post to use the plane when he wasn’t flying the oilman around, which included competing in air races.
In 1930 Post came to national prominence winning the National Air Derby, from Los Angeles to Chicago.
In 1931 he set out with Gatty to grab the around-the-world flight record from the Graf Zeppelin, which did the flight in 21 days. Gatty and Post cut the record to just over eight-and-a-half days. When Gatty later commented that Post was “just the driver” Post became determined to do the flight alone. In 1933 he flew Winnie Mae, which he had bought from Hall, and cut the record to under eight days.
Looking for new challenges in 1934 he set out to break the altitude record. Since the cabin of his aircraft couldn’t be pressurised he helped design a pressure suit, a precursor of the space suit. He reached an estimated height
of more than 50,000ft (15.24km), but was denied the record because the instruments froze at 35,000ft so it couldn’t be verified.
Post was at the top of his game and planning more achievements when, in 1935, he decided to survey a route for flying passengers and cargo from the US to Russia, flying over Alaska.
Joining him on the flight was comedian and rope spinner Will Rogers, looking for material for his newspaper column.
During the trip their seaplane crashed after taking off from a lagoon in Alaska killing both instantly.
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