It was 1933. Just six years earlier, Charles Lindbergh had become world-famous as the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, a young pilot was attempting to fly across Russia. He had left Moscow several hours earlier. All he could hear was the sound of the engine powering his plane. Hour after hour, it was the same sound.
The weather was bad now. He could not see much ahead; only fog. Flying in fog is very dangerous. Yet the sound of the engine made everything seem warm and safe. Then, suddenly, he saw a mountain through the fog. He had only seconds to climb the aeroplane. It was a narrow escape, one of many he would experience during his long flight.
The young pilot was Wiley Post. He was attempting to fly around the world alone. He completed the journey in less than eight days. He stopped eleven times to refuel, get food and sleep a little.
Wiley Post completed his famous flight in July 1933. There were not many flight instruments that could help him find his way. He was alone and fighting against sleep. If he fell asleep, he would die.
Nothing in Wiley Post’s early years suggested that he would become a famous pilot. He was born in Grand Saline, Texas, in 1898. His family were farmers. In 1913, Wiley saw something that would change his life forever — an aeroplane. After watching it fly, the young man waited until most people had left the area. He then began to inspect and study the aircraft. He measured different parts of the aircraft with his hands. Many years later, Wiley Post said that the first aeroplane he had seen was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.
Wiley Post started studying everything he could find about flying. He educated himself in subjects such as mathematics, radio and machinery. This self-education would continue for the rest of his life. Post finally rode in an aeroplane in 1919. At the time, many people believed that pilots were a special breed. They thought that flying an aeroplane required special skills and courage. However, after his first flight, Wiley Post realised that flying was something he could learn to do.
He began his flying career not as a pilot, but as a parachute jumper. He performed with a group that did flying tricks to earn money. He jumped ninety-nine times in two years with the flying show. When he wasn’t jumping with a parachute, he was being taught to fly by the air show’s pilots. However, he could not fly as often as he would have liked.
Post then decided that the only way to become a good pilot was to buy his own aeroplane. He needed to earn more than he was earning from the flying show. So he went to work in the oil-producing areas of Texas. However, he damaged his left eye in an accident. Doctors had to remove it. At first, Post thought his days as a pilot were over. After all, a pilot needs to be able to judge distance. This is difficult without two eyes. It is hard to tell how big objects are and how far away they are. However, Wiley Post began teaching himself to judge distance with only one eye. He worked hard to train his remaining eye and brain to judge distances correctly. It took a long time, but he succeeded. He continued to fly and soon became a very good pilot.
In 1928, he got a job flying a plane belonging to a wealthy oil producer from Oklahoma. The man’s name was F.C. Hall. He bought a new aeroplane for Post to fly. Mr Hall named the aeroplane the ‘Winnie Mae’ after one of his daughters.
F.C. Hall told the Post that he could use the plane to enter flight competitions. He did just that. In 1930, he entered the National Air Races. This race involved flying non-stop from Los Angeles in California to Chicago in Illinois. Post won the race. He defeated several well-known pilots. This was the first time the public had heard of Wiley Post.
However, Post was not really interested in racing aeroplanes. His ambition was to be the first person to fly around the world. Many pilots had talked about attempting such a feat. But no one had succeeded.
Post believed that he would need help to achieve this goal. He chose Harold Gatty, an Australian man, to calculate the plane’s direction. Post would fly the plane. On 23 June 1931, Post and Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field in New York. They returned eight days, fifteen hours and fifty-one minutes later. They had flown around the world.
Initially, everyone was very happy. Wiley Post and Harold Gatty were heroes. However, many people then began to say that Post was nothing more than an aeroplane driver because he had no real education. They said that Gatty was the real hero. He had guided the flight. However, both men knew that they had completed the flight as a team. Others did not recognise this. This hurt Post. Wiley Post began planning another solo around-the-world flight. This time, he would go alone.
He knew that any effort had a good chance of success if the person planning the task was well prepared. So he worked hard to prepare thoroughly. He used the most modern equipment available. He made sure that the engine on the ‘Winnie Mae’ was in perfect condition. To prepare himself, he went without sleep for long periods of time.
On 15 July 1933, Post took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York. His first stop was Berlin, Germany. He landed there twenty-six hours later. He was the first person to fly non-stop from New York to Berlin.
After stocking up on food and fuel for the ‘Winnie Mae’, Post was once again in the air. This time, he was heading for Russia. He flew for hours on end, listening only to the sound of his engine. Often, the weather was so bad that he could not see where he was. At one point, he came so close to running out of fuel that he considered using his parachute. However, at the last moment, he found a place to land and refuel. Flying across the vast expanse of Russia was difficult. He stopped several times to refuel and rest for a few hours before flying across the Bering Sea to Alaska.
By this time, he was extremely tired. To keep himself awake while flying east during the long night, he tied a piece of string to one of his fingers. The other end was tied to a heavy aircraft tool. He held the tool in his hand. If he started to fall asleep, the tool would fall from his hand. The string would then pull on his finger and wake him up.
He flew from Fairbanks, Alaska to Edmonton, Canada, and then on towards New York. More than fifty thousand people were waiting at Floyd Bennett Field. Wiley Post gently landed the ‘Winnie Mae’ long after dark. He had flown around the world in seven days, eighteen hours and forty-nine minutes.
Thousands of excited people rushed towards the plane. Wiley Post was a hero. He had become the most famous pilot in America.
However, in 1935, only two years after setting this record, he was killed in a flying accident in Alaska. He and the renowned American humorist Will Rogers died when his plane crashed during take-off near Point Barrow.
Before Post’s death, the United States government had purchased the ‘Winnie Mae’. The plane is now owned by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It is on display at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Since Wiley Post’s famous flight, many pilots have flown around the world. His record was broken just a few years after his death. Since then, many records for the trip have been set and surpassed. However, Wiley Post was the first person to fly around the world alone.
