Solo Flights around the World

As Joshua Slocum was famous for being the first to sail alone around the world on his sloop the Spray, from 1895 to 1898, Wiley Post was equally famous for being the first to fly solo around the world in his Lockheed Vega, Winnie Mae. Both men were pioneers in their field, opening the way for others, both at sea, and in the air, but unfortunately, both men met their death in their respective vessels.

Wiley Post was, like most pilots who flew solo around the world, an original, almost an eccentric, with very strong ideas, which was probably the reason he dared attempt this type of venture and succeeded. As an example, Post never dressed as an "aviator", with flying boots, leather helmet and flying suit, as most of his contemporaries did. He always wore a suit with white shirt and tie.

In 1924, from April 6th to September 28th, two of the four Douglas World Cruisers of the American Army were finishing the very first flight around the world. Four aircraft started, the Boston, Chicago, Seattle and New Orleans, but only the Chicago and New Orleans finished the flight. These land machines were able to be fitted with floats for the legs over water. In 1926, two Americans, Richard Byrd (1888-1957) and Floyd Bennet (1890-1928), flew over the North Pole with a three-engine Ford aircraft, Josephine Ford. In 1927, on May 8th, two Frenchmen, Charles Nungesser (1892-1927) and François Coli (1881-1927), disappeared between Paris and New York in their Levasseur l'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird ). On May 20th, American, Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974), flew solo across the Atlantic in a Ryan aircraft, The Spirit of Saint Louis. In 1929, the Graff Zeppelin, a German airship, flew around the world in 21 days 7 hours 34 minutes from August 8th to August 29th. Finally, in 1930, two Frenchmen, Dieudonné Costes (1892-1973) and Maurice Bellonte (1896-1984), flew non-stop between Paris and Dallas in a Bréguet, Le Point d'Interrogation. (The Question Mark). The competition between nations, aircraft manufacturers, and pilots, was enormous. Long flights followed long flights. Machines and techniques improved. Ambitious and daring pilots like Post were feeling the competition, and it was in this climate that Post decided to try his hand at a long and difficult flight.

Post was born on November 22nd, 1899, in Saline, which is in the Van Zandt County in Texas, 60 miles east of Dallas. Although he was born a Texan, he was always referred to as a son of the Sooner State. As a youth, he was more interested in mechanics than in school studies, and eventually earned his living as a mechanic. Post enlisted in the army during WW1, but the war ended as he was finishing his training.

Oklahoma and Texas were the scene for a rush to drill for oil, and Post joined a drilling team as a mechanic. It is during this period that Post discovered aviation in the form of barn storming. These flying circuses traveled from town to town doing aerobatic displays, and offering joy flights. One day Post volunteered to replace a parachutist who could not perform. He enjoyed the jumps and left his job to become a parachutist in these shows. However, when the barn storming shows became less of a novelty, and thus less in demand, Post returned to drilling. On October 1st, 1926, a piece of metal lodged in his left eye, and when it became badly infected, the eye had to be removed. Post became excellent at gauging distances with only one eye, checking his estimates by pacing out the distance. His accuracy in his estimations was better than when he had two eyes. Post had received $1800 insurance from his accident, and after paying all his medical expenses he still had $1200 left. He purchased an aeroplane with the balance of the money and started an aviation business. Post had always dreamed of owning his own aeroplane, and now, for the price of an eye, he had one. When it became necessary for Post to have a Pilot's Licence, he had to be granted dispensation because he had lost an eye.

Post eloped with Mae Laine in 1927. Soon after, he was hired by a rich oil prospector, Mr. F. C. Hall, to fly his personal aeroplane, a biplane 'Traveller'. In 1928, Hall decided to buy an aeroplane with an enclosed cockpit, which would provide more comfort. Post was sent to the Lockheed factory in Los Angeles to buy a Vega NC7954, which was the best available aircraft at the time. This aircraft was christened Winnie Mae after Hall's daughter, and was the first of three Vega aircraft Hall was to own throughout the years. This aeroplane was the first of four Vega to be named Winnie Mae. The name Mae was also to follow Post as his mother, his wife and two of his aircraft were called Mae. The purchase of a Vega by F. C. Hall would have been the equivalent of a company today buying a business jet.

The Lockheed Vega was probably the most advanced aeroplane of its time, of glued monocoque wood construction, having a high wing without struts, and a Wasp engine from Pratt and Whitney. This was the first successful aeroplane built by the Loughead brothers before they changed their name to 'Lockheed', and its design was very modern, at a time when biplanes were the norm. They built their first aeroplane in 1927 in Burbank, California. For a long time the brothers named their machines after stars and constellations, and in all, 131 Vegas were built. Amelia Erhart with her Little Red Bus and Sir Hubert Wilkins, are only two of many famous pilots who were renowned for their flights in Vega aircraft.

Hall's business was affected by the 1929-30 depression and he sold the Vega back to Lockheed, where Post now worked as a test pilot. It was while working for Lockheed, that Post met Amelia Erhart at their Californian plant. When Hall's business picked up again, he purchased a slightly improved 5B Vega aircraft, NC 105W, which was white with a purple trim. Post then returned to his old job with Hall, and it was in this aircraft, with Hall's blessing, that Post entered and won a National Air Race from Los Angeles to Chicago. Post covered the distance of 1760 miles in a time of 9 hours 9 minutes and 4 seconds, and collected $7500 in prize money. The aircraft to arrive second was no other that the first Winnie Mae.

Harold Gatty (1903-1957), an Australian who was living in the US, had invented several navigation instruments including Gatty's Ground Speed and Drift Indicator and a particular "method" of navigating. Post asked him to prepare the navigation for the Air Race. Gatty had a School of Navigation, and one of his students was Mrs. Anne Morrow-Lindberg, wife of the famous aviator. Later Gatty wrote a small survival book called The Raft Book (1943), that was issued to pilots and navy personnel during the Second World War. The book, in water proof paper, came with a map of the world covered by a map of the sky, and by relating the position of the stars to the map of the world, one was able to find a position. On the back of the map there were tables of sunrise and sunset, and using a watch in UTC, one could find a position, within a few miles, which was quite remarkable.

In 1931, Post was able to convince Hall to let him fly Winnie Mae around the world, with Gatty as navigator. Post wanted to break the speed record held by the Graf Zeppelin under the command of Dr. Hugo Eckener. Eckener flew around the world in 1929, from August 8th to August 29th, taking 21 days 7 hours and 34 minutes. This flight was the first of its kind made around the world in an airship.

After lengthy preparations, and the fitting of extra fuel tanks, Post and Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island near New York on June 23rd, 1933 (Lindberg departed from the same airfield on May 20th, 1927 in the Spirit of Saint Louis). Their stops were Harbor Grace in Newfoundland, Chester in England, Berlin, Novosibirisk, Blagovensk, Khabarosk, Nome in Alaska, Fairbanks, Edmonton in Canada, and back to Long Island, to finish at their starting point in New York on July 1st. This flight took a total of 8 days 15 hours 51 minutes, with 107 hours flying time, leaving Post and Gatty very tired and at the limit of their resistance. During these 8 days, Post had slept for only 15 hours. There were 10,000 people at the airport to welcome them. The two men were received with pomp and ceremony by the Mayor of New York, and were paraded through Broadway with a ticker tape parade bigger than that staged in New York for Lindberg in 1927. The publisher Rand McNally engaged Leo Kieran, a writer, to help Post and Gatty write a book on their flight, Around the World in Eight Days. Post was already thinking of his next goal, which was to fly around the world solo.

To stop any arguments from Hall, and to be able to do as he wished with the Vega, Post bought Winnie Mae for $21,000, more fuel tanks and installed a new Sperry Autopilot that Post called "Mechanical Mike". Hall purchased another Vega which he named Winnie Mae of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma registration NC905Y.

Post's hopes of flying around the world solo were nearly dashed, when, during a demonstration flight, the engine stopped on take off, due to fuel starvation, and the aircraft crashed. This may have been attributed to the fuel being stolen by youths the previous night. With some assistance, Post rebuilt the Vega, and in so doing, made some modifications, one of which, was to fill the cabin with fuel tanks. The total fuel capacity of the Vega was now 650 gallons. A pump was used to transfer fuel between tanks as it burned off, to maintain the balance of the aeroplane. Post also installed a propeller with adjustable pitch.

In 1932, Bennet Griffin and James Mattern tried to break the record set by Post and Gatty, also in a Vega, but failed. Then Mattern tried a solo flight in 1933, again with a Vega, which was named the Century of Progress. He departed Long Island on the 3rd June, but faced very bad weather in Siberia which delayed him for several days. Although this caused Mattern to exceed the time taken for the current record, he still hoped to be the first to fly solo around the world. However, this was not to be, as his aeroplane had to make a forced landing in the tundra after losing oil. The Vega was destroyed and Mattern was left with a broken ankle.

A few days after Mattern's accident, on the 15rd July, 1933, Post departed from Floyd Bennet Field (now J.F. Kennedy Airport), and followed almost the same route he took with Gatty two years previously. The first stops were at Harbor Grace in Newfoundland, and onto Berlin, where Post arrived after a record breaking flight of 25 hours and 45 minutes, covering 3.942 miles at an average speed of 135 miles per hour. This leg across the Atlantic between America and Europe, was the longest, and also the first non-stop flight between these two countries. Post stayed only a few hours, and soon left for Novosibirsk, only to be forced to divert to Köenigsberg in East Prussia to avoid bad weather, and because he had lost his maps. Post also made a short stop in Moscow, where he had the autopilot repaired. A young American aviatrix, Miss Fay Gillis, who was living in Russia, organised the refueling en route at Novosibirsk, Blagovensk and Khabarosk. Post landed at Novosibirsk after a flight of 13 hours 13 minutes, and was met by Fay Gillis who had a new set of maps for him. He departed almost immediately, but had to stop at Irkusk for another repair to the autopilot. Post had been following the Transiberian railway line, but lost it during heavy rain and was forced to land at Skokorodino after flying for six and a half hours. Here, when Post requested some drinking water, he was offered vodka! The leg to Khabarosk took another four and a half hours. Mattern, who was still in Anadyr after his accident, helped Post with weather forecasts and radio communications.

During the crossing of the Bering Strait, a long leg of some 3100 miles, with the radio and direction finder out of action, Post became very tired and got lost. Finally he spotted a landing field at the small mining settlement of Flat, in Alaska. However, the field was too short and ended in a ditch, and despite all Post's skill, the Winnie Mae ran off the end of the runway and into the ditch, badly damaging the propeller and bending the right leg of the landing gear. The miners of Flat made a temporary repair on the leg, and while Post rested, a pilot flew in a replacement propeller from Fairbanks. Post then flew Winnie Mae the short leg to Fairbanks where she was finally repaired. The next leg was to Edmonton. Post was so tired that he tied a spanner to one of his fingers, and every time he fell asleep, the spanner would fall and wake him up. Finally Post arrived in New York on the 22nd July, 1933, after having flown around the world in 7 days, 18 hours 49 minutes, of which 115 hours 36 minutes was flying time. Post had beaten his flying time with Gatty by 21 hours, and he had done it alone.

Post had not only made the first solo flight around the world, but also the fastest, as well as holding the record for being the only pilot to have flown around the world twice. Fifty thousand people were waiting for him on his return, and six hundred policeman had difficulty controlling the crowd. Post was the hero of the day, with his wife and friends there to greet him, among them Amelia Earhart and Gatty. He was given a ticker tape parade bigger than the first, two years ago. He flew to Washington to meet president F.D. Roosevelt.

Post's flight could not be classed as a World Record, being much shorter than the distance set by the FAI, that being the length of the Tropic of Cancer (22 849 miles). It would be five years on before Howard Hughes and his crew of four beat Post's time, and 14 years for a solo pilot. Hughes, in a Lockheed Cyclone, The New York World's Fair 1939, took 3 days 19 hours and 1 minute to fly around the world, from New York and back, arriving on July 14th, 1938.

During his many flights, Post had noted the advantages of flying at high altitude, and later experimented with stratospheric flights, inventing the very first pressure suit. Winnie Mae could not be pressurized because of its wooden construction. Its landing gear could be jettisoned after take off to reduce the drag by pulling a lever in the cockpit. The landing was made on a skid and the engine was fitted with a compressor. Post had discovered the "jet stream", a fast stream of air at high altitude.

Post and his friend Will Rogers, were killed on the 15th August, 1935, at Point Barrow in Alaska. Rogers, a journalist, actor, and stage cow boy, had been very popular with the American public who mourned his loss more than that of Post. The float plane, an hybrid, had been built by Post, who joined the wings of a Lockheed Sirius to a Lockheed Explorer fuselage. The aircraft crashed on take off killing both men instantly. Post was buried in the Oklahoma City Memorial Park cemetery on August 24, 1935. Mrs Post sold Winnie Mae to the Smithsonian Institute in 1936. She never remarried, and died in 1986 .

Post received many awards: the FAI Gold Medal, the prestigious Harmon Trophy and the Distinguished Flying Cross of the Congress. Airports and buildings were named after him, and later, a monument was erected at Barrow Point.

Winnie Mae can be seen at the Museum of Air and Space in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.