Around the World in Eight Days: The Flight of the Winnie Mae

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
06/02/2020 at 14:23 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik

Wiley Post was one of the world’s great pioneers of aviation, but his name is largely unknown today outside of the aviation community. A giant of the Golden Age of aviation, Post took part in air races, experimented with high altitude flight, helped develop pressure suits for pilots, and discovered the jet stream along the way. In 1930, he teamed up with navigator Harold Gatty to fly a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! owned by Oklahoma oilman Florence Hall and named Winnie Mae , around the world, a voyage they completed in just eight days. The previous record of 21 days was set in 1929 by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Wiley Post, left, and Harold Gatty in Berlin

When Post and Gatty returned, they chronicled their journey in a book that took inspiration for it’s title from Jules Verne, who wrote about intrepid voyager Phileas Fogg who took ten times as long to circumnavigate the globe in 1872. Needless to say, much had changed in 58 years. First published in 1931, Around the World in Eight Days tells the story of Post’s and Gatty’s flight from New York to Newfoundland, across the Atlantic, then over Europe and Russia, and finally back to New York via Alaska and Canada. Each chapter covers a different leg of the journey, and alternates in the telling between Post and Gatty. There is also a facsimile of Gatty’s flight log.

Three years later, Post made the circumnavigation again, but this time he left Gatty at home and used an autopilot and compass rather than a navigator. Not only was Post the first to fly around the world solo, he also shaved nearly an entire day off his previous record. Sadly, Post died in 1935 at age 36 while flying in Alaska with his good friend, American humorist and author Will Rogers. Post was flying a floatplane he had cobbled together from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Lockheed refused to have any part in building the airplane). The travelers became lost, and Post landed to ask for directions. On takeoff, the engine failed, and the nose-heavy plane flipped over in the water, killing them both.

The Winnie Mae on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC (NASM)

Post is one of my Golden Age heroes. His exploits, and yes, his death, epitomize both the adventure and danger of aviation at that era, when the extraordinarily rapid development of the airplane was shrinking the world dramatically. Consider this: a mere 27 years had passed between the Wright Brothers’ first flight in their open frame, wood and cloth Wright Flyer, and Wiley Post’s circumnavigation with Harold Gatty in the powerful Vega monoplane. And in just 17 more years, Chuck Yeager would break the sound barrier. To say I’m looking forward to reading this book would be an understatement.

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DISCUSSION (5)

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn
06/02/2020 at 14:44

Oklahoma hasn’t forgotten! Wiley Post is the name of the airport.

While Wiley did own his own plane before his record-setting circ umnavigation, the Winnie Mae was owned by Florence Hall.

“With money from the accident settlement [from losing an eye in t he oilfield] Wiley Post bought a Canadian-built JN-4 “Canuck.” In June 1927 he married Edna Mae Laine. After damaging the Canuck, he sold the aircraft. Post was then hired as the pilot for oilman Florence C. Hall. In 1928 Hall bought a Lockheed Vega and christened the aircraft the Winnie Mae , after his daughter. Eventually, in 1930 he purchased a second Vega and also named it Winnie Mae .”

Wiley also developed a pressurized suit with B.F. Goodrich for his experiments with high-altitude flight which led to the suits pilots and astronauts wore.

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck
06/02/2020 at 14:48

Thanks for that correction. I was writing off the top of my head on this one, and had forgotten that Winnie Mae didn’t belong to him.

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn
06/02/2020 at 15:11

I had forgotten a lot of the tale and had to look it up to be sure. Y ou are doing much better than I.

f86sabre > ttyymmnn
06/02/2020 at 22:16

Wiley was a character and quite the innovator.

I always go say hello to the Winnie Mae when visiting the NASM.

ttyymmnn > f86sabre
06/02/2020 at 22:50

Have you read the book?