Wiley Post

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Wiley Post
Aviator
SpouseMae Laine (m. June 27, 1927)
Winnie Mae, Wiley Post's Lockheed Vega when it was on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was a famed American aviator during the

crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska
.

Post's Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae, was on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center from 2003 to 2011. It is now featured in the "Time and Navigation" gallery on the second floor of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Early life

Post was born to parents who cultivated cotton on a farm near Grand Saline, Texas. His father was William Francis and his mother was Mae Quinlan Post, a person of mixed Cherokee heritage. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was five. He was an indifferent student, but managed to complete the sixth grade. By 1920, his family settled on a farm near Maysville, Oklahoma.[1][a]

Young Wiley's first view of an aircraft in flight came in 1913 at the county fair in

Kansas City. Seven months later, he returned to Oklahoma and went to work at the Chickasaw and Lawton Construction Company.[1]

During World War I Post wanted to become a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service (USAS). Joining the training camp at the University of Oklahoma, he learned radio technology. Germany agreed to an armistice before he completed his training, the war ended, and he went to work as a "roughneck" in the Oklahoma oilfields. The work was also unsteady, and he turned briefly to armed robbery. He was arrested in 1921 and sent to the Oklahoma State Reformatory, serving more than a year there, and was paroled in summer 1922.[1]

Early flying career

Post's aviation career began at age 26 as a parachutist for a flying circus, Burrell Tibbs and His Texas Topnotch Fliers, and he became well known on the barnstorming circuit. On October 1, 1926, Post was badly injured in an oil-rig accident when a piece of metal pierced his left eye (an infection permanently blinded him in that eye, and he typically wore an eyepatch thereafter[4]), but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft. 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 aircraft of the early 1930s.[citation needed] The oilman nicknamed it the Winnie Mae[5] 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 fuselage was inscribed "Los Angeles to Chicago 9 hrs. 8 min. 2 sec. August 27, 1930."[citation needed] Adam Charles Williams finished second with a time of 9 hrs. 9 min. 4 sec.[6] Post earned a prize of $7,500.[7] (The equivalent of $112,053 in 2020).

Around the world

Wiley Post with Harold Gatty in Germany, 1931

In 1930,

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.[8]

First solo pilot

After the record-setting flight, Post wanted to open his own aeronautical school, but could not raise enough financial support because of doubts many had about his rural background and limited formal education. Motivated by his detractors, Post decided to attempt a solo flight around the world and to break his previous speed record. Over the next year, Post improved his aircraft by installing an

radio direction finder that were in their final stages of development by the Sperry Gyroscope Company and the United States Army.[citation needed
]

In 1933, he repeated his flight around the world, this time using the auto-pilot and compass in place of his navigator and becoming the first to accomplish the feat alone. He departed from Floyd Bennett Field and continued on to Berlin where repairs were attempted to his autopilot, stopped at Königsberg to replace some forgotten maps,[citation needed] Moscow for more repairs to his autopilot, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk for final repairs to the autopilot,[citation needed] Rukhlovo, Khabarovsk, Flat where his propeller had to be replaced, Fairbanks, Edmonton, and back to Floyd Bennett Field. Fifty thousand people greeted him on his return on July 22 after 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes.[9][10]

Pressure suit

Wiley Post in his third pressure suit

In 1934, with financial support from

B.F. Goodrich Company to develop what became the world's first practical pressure suit. Three pressure suits were fabricated for Wiley Post; only the final version proved successful. The first suit ruptured during a pressure test. The redesigned second suit used the same helmet as the first but when tested was too tight and they were unable to remove it from Post, so they had to cut him out, thus destroying the suit. The third suit was redesigned from the previous two.[11][12]

The body of the suit had three layers: long underwear, an inner black rubber air pressure bladder, and an outer layer made of rubberized parachute fabric. The outer layer was glued to a frame with arm and leg joints that allowed him to operate the flight controls and to walk to and from the aircraft. Attached to the frame were pigskin gloves, rubber boots, and an aluminum-and-plastic diver's helmet. The helmet had a removable faceplate that could be sealed at a height of 17,000 ft (5,200 m), and could accommodate

earphones and a throat microphone. The helmet was cylinder-shaped with a circular window. In the first flight using the suit on September 5, 1934, Post reached an altitude of 40,000 ft (12,000 m) above Chicago. Eventually flying as high as 50,000 ft (15,000 m), Post discovered the jet stream and made the first major practical advances in pressurized flight.[13] As of 2022 the suit is on display.

Attempted high altitude non-stop transcontinental flights

Cover flown by Wiley Post on all four of his attempts to make the first high altitude non-stop transcontinental flight from Los Angeles to New York. February–June 1935

Between February 22 and June 15, 1935, Post made four unsuccessful attempts to complete the first high altitude non-stop flight from Los Angeles to New York, all of which failed for various mechanical reasons. The first attempt on February 22 ended just 57.5 miles north of Los Angeles at Muroc Field, CA (Now

Edwards AFB
). This was followed by attempts on March 15 (Cleveland, Ohio; 2,035 miles), April 14 (Lafayette, Indiana; 1,760 miles), and June 15 (Wichita, KS; 1,188 miles).

As the attempts were also meant to be the "First Air Mail Stratosphere Flight" over U.S. Air Mail Route #2 (AM-2) from Los Angeles to New York, Post also carried a quantity of 'cacheted' covers sponsored by Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc on all four flights. When Post was killed on August 15, 1935, thus ending the possibility of any more attempts to complete the AM-2 stratosphere flight, the covers were finally cancelled in Los Angeles on August 20, 1935, and forwarded to their addressees.[citation needed]

Final flight and death

Post with Will Rogers, August 1935

In 1935, Post became interested in surveying a mail-and-passenger air route from the West Coast of the United States to Russia. Short on cash, he built a hybrid using parts salvaged from two different aircraft: the fuselage of an airworthy Lockheed Orion and the wings of a wrecked experimental Lockheed Explorer. The Explorer wing was six feet longer in span than the Orion's original wing, an advantage that extended the range of the hybrid aircraft. As the Explorer wing did not have retractable landing gear, it also lent itself to the fitting of floats for landing in the lakes of Alaska and Siberia. Lockheed refused to make the modifications Post requested on the grounds that the two designs were incompatible and potentially a dangerous mix, so Wiley made the changes himself.[14]

Post's friend Will Rogers visited him often at the airport in Burbank, California, while Pacific Airmotive Ltd. was modifying the aircraft,[15] and asked Post to fly him through Alaska in search of new material for his newspaper column. When the floats Post had ordered were delayed, he used a set designed for a larger type, making the aircraft more nose-heavy than it already was.[16] According to the research of Bryan Sterling, however, the floats were the correct type for the aircraft.[14]

Gravestone of Wiley Post

After making a test flight in July, Post and Rogers left

Fairbanks, Alaska, for Point Barrow. They were a few miles from there when they became uncertain of their position in bad weather and landed in a lagoon to ask for directions. On takeoff, the engine failed at low altitude, and the aircraft, uncontrollably nose-heavy at low speed, plunged into the lagoon, shearing off the right wing, and ended up inverted in the shallow part. Both men died instantly.[17]
Post is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery (section 48),

Honors and tributes

In 1936, the

crash site commemorate the death of the two men and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[19] The nearby Wiley Post–Will Rogers Memorial Airport located in Utqiagvik, Alaska
bears their names.

Will Rogers – Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base is a seaplane base located on Lake Washington, at the north end of the Renton Municipal Airport in Renton, Washington
.

The U.S.

Army Air Forces (later United States Air Force) named a street on the former Maywood Army Air Forces Specialized Storage Depot (later Cheli Air Force Station), after Post. No longer owned by the federal government, Wiley Post Road remains, connecting Bandini Boulevard and Lindbergh Lane in Bell, California
.

Post received the

Distinguished Flying Cross (1932), the Gold Medal of Belgium (1934), and the International Harmon Trophy (1934). He was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1969.[20] Post was inducted into the First Flight Society's First Flight Shrine, located at the Wright Brothers National Memorial
, on December 17, 1970.

In 1997, he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.[21]

In 1979, the United States Postal Service honored Post with two airmail stamps.[22]

Post was inducted posthumously into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2004.[23]

For many years, The Wiley Post Commission, based in Oklahoma City, presented the annual Wiley Post Spirit Award to "an individual in general aviation who best exemplifies the innovative and pioneering spirit of Wiley Post."[24]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ There is disagreement about Wiley Post's birthplace. Some sources say it was Grand Saline, Texas.[2] This is what Post says in his chapter on his early history in "Around the World in Eight Days".[1] others claim he was born in Corinth, Van Zandt County, Texas.[1] An old edition of the World Book claims it was Grand Plain, Texas. Even Maysville, Oklahoma has claimed the honor.[3]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Carlson. Erik D. "Post, Wiley Hardeman (1898–1935)." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved: April 10, 2015.
  2. ^ Johnson, Bobby H. "Post, Wiley Hardeman." The Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved: April 3, 2009.
  3. ^ "Festival Celebrates Wiley Post's Birthplace." Oklahoman. June 10, 1999. Accessed January 19, 2017.
  4. ^ Maranzini, Barbara, "Wiley Post Makes History," History.com (July 22, 2013) https://www.history.com/news/wiley-post-makes-history
  5. ^ "Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae". Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Archived from the original on 5 July 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  6. . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  7. ^ Around the World in Eight Days by Wiley Post and Harold Gatty (1989, p.10)
  8. .
  9. ^ "Wiley H. Post". First Flight Society. Retrieved: June 23, 2020.
  10. ^ Meunier, Claude. "WILEY POST" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Solo flights around the world. October 15, 2007. Retrieved: December 6, 2012.
  11. ^ Young 2009, pp. 13–16.
  12. ^ Kozloski 1994, pp. 11–14.
  13. ^ Mallan 1971, p. 31.
  14. ^ a b Sterling 2001, p. 164.
  15. ^ Sterling 2001, pp. 167–169.
  16. ^ Johnson and Mohler. Wiley Post, His Winnie Mae, and the World's First Pressure Suit. p. 112. Retrieved: 3 April 2009.
  17. ^ Sterling 2001, p. 246.
  18. ^ History Ahead
  19. ^ "Rogers-Post". Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms. U.S. National Park Service. September 3, 2017. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  20. ^ "Wiley Post: Dare Devil". National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF). Dayton, OH. 2006. Archived from the original on October 5, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
  21. .
  22. .
  23. ^ "Post, Wiley | 2004". Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  24. ^ "Wiley Post Spirit Award presented to international aviator for the first time". General Aviation News. January 5, 2007. Retrieved April 10, 2015.

Bibliography

External links