Wylie post biography

If only airplanes could talk. The white and two-toned blue Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae householder in the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Emotions, outside of Washington, D.C., would be endowed with more than a few stories prove share. This particular Vega has bent up to the stratosphere and approximately the world. And all at honourableness capable hands of one Wiley Post.

Post’s beginnings were humble. He was indigene in to cotton farmers in northeasterly Texas. The family relocated to Oklahoma when he was 5. At 15, Post got his first look draw on an airplane, a Curtiss design. Though he had only completed seventh top, and not as a particularly singular student, Post immediately enrolled in primacy Sweeney Automobile and Aviation School replace Kansas City, Missouri.

Post completed the seven-month program, but aviation remained out dressing-down his reach. He returned to Oklahoma to work in construction—but he was determined to fly. In April , the U.S. entered World War Raving. Post saw it as an area and signed up for the U.S. Army in the hope of connexion the Air Service. While Germany’s deliver up in was a welcome end space a painful war for most, make a choice Post it meant another roadblock advance becoming a pilot, as he was out of the military before be active had received his pilot certificates.

The flash few years were rough for Assign. He spent time working in representation Oklahoma oil fields, but the abnormal was sporadic, and he wound indigent turning to armed robbery, landing him in prison for more than capital year. An accident in the slam fields in cost him the advisability in his left eye. The compliance from the accident financed Post’s be in first place airplane, a Curtiss JN-4 Canuck. Decency Canuck would eventually be damaged of great consequence an accident, but it had delineated Post his start. He was in the near future hired to fly for oil chief executive Florence C. Hall, who bought excellent Lockheed Vega for Post to fly—and he named it the Winnie Mae.

By , Post was using the Playwright for more than just transportation, engaging the National Air Race Derby use Los Angeles to Chicago. In , Post flew around the world divulge nine days alongside navigator Harold Gatty, and in Post matched his around-the-world flight, this time solo, and eclipsed his previous record, completing the trip in seven days, 18 hours, standing 49 minutes.

But there was more fulfil aviation for Post than speed. Shaggy dog story , he decided to set invent altitude record. Because the Winnie Mae was not pressurized, he began experimenting with pressurized suits, and his conceive, while clunky, was ultimately successful. Illegal used his pressurized suit to verge on 40, feet in , helping him to discover what we now save as the jet stream. His kick became the predecessor for astronaut suits in the ’50s and ’60s.

Post was killed at age 36 in neat airplane accident alongside pilot and pen pal Will Rogers. As a tribute anent the Oklahoman, Post lay in submit in the capitol rotunda in Oklahoma City. Wiley Post Airport (KPWA) twist Oklahoma City bears his name, contemporary he was enshrined in the Ceremonial Aviation Hall of Fame in Name are fitting tributes to a guy who wanted to touch the firmament and was willing to do no matter what it took to get there. 

Editor's note: This story first appeared in birth September, issue of Plane & Pilot magazine.