{"id":19628521,"date":"2026-09-03T11:32:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wiley-post-solo-round-the-world-winnie-mae-pressure-suit\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T06:41:44","slug":"wiley-post-solo-round-the-world-winnie-mae-pressure-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wiley-post-solo-round-the-world-winnie-mae-pressure-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiley Post: The One-Eyed Pilot Who Flew Around the World Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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Seven years later, the same man flew around the world on his own in under eight days, and then went looking for the edge of the atmosphere.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Wiley Post had one eye, no formal education to speak of, and a habit of doing things nobody had done. He is the reason we know how to put a person in a pressure suit, and one of the first people to notice that there is a river of very fast air running around the top of the sky.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.8\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Born:<\/strong> Wiley Hardeman Post, 22 November 1898, near Grand Saline, Texas<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Lockheed Vega 5C, <em>Winnie Mae<\/em><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>1931, with navigator Harold Gatty:<\/strong> round the world in 8 days, 15 hours, 51 minutes, 15,474 miles, 14 stops<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>1933, solo:<\/strong> round the world in 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes, 11 stops<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Solo flight aids:<\/strong> a Sperry autopilot he called Mechanical Mike, and a prototype Army radio direction finder<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Pressure suit:<\/strong> built with Russell S. Colley at B.F. Goodrich; the third attempt was the one that worked<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Jet stream:<\/strong> 15 March 1935, Burbank to Cleveland, ground speed touching 340 mph on an airspeed of about 185<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Died:<\/strong> 15 August 1935, near Point Barrow, Alaska, with Will Rogers<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The eye, and the aeroplane that was not his<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The accident settlement bought Post his first aircraft. It did not buy the <em>Winnie Mae<\/em> &mdash; that belonged to an Oklahoma oilman named F. C. Hall, who bought the Lockheed Vega in 1930, named it after his daughter, and hired Post to fly it. Only after the 1931 circumnavigation did Hall hand the aeroplane over to him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Losing the eye cost him depth perception, which is a genuinely serious problem for a pilot judging a landing flare. He retrained himself to read distance from the relative size of familiar objects. It worked well enough that he then flew around the planet twice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/wiley-post-harold-gatty-1931.jpg\" alt=\"Wiley Post and Harold Gatty after their 1931 round-the-world flight\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Post, left, with his navigator Harold Gatty. Their 1931 circumnavigation took 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes, and was the first by a single-engined monoplane. Photo: public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Doing it alone<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The 1931 flight was a two-man job because somebody had to navigate. In 1933 Post removed the somebody and replaced him with hardware: a Sperry gyroscopic autopilot, which he nicknamed Mechanical Mike, and a prototype radio direction finder borrowed from the Army.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>He left Floyd Bennett Field on 15 July 1933 and was back on the 22nd, having gone round the world alone in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes &mdash; beating the time he and Gatty had set together, with one fewer person and one fewer set of eyes. It is fair to call it the first practical demonstration that automation could substitute for a crew member.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Wiley Post&rsquo;s flight remains the most remarkable flight in history. It can never be duplicated. He did it alone! &hellip; It&rsquo;s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat or sawing a woman in half.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Howard Hughes<\/strong> &mdash; Aviator, in 1938, asked how his own round-the-world flight compared with Post&rsquo;s<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The suit<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Post then wanted to fly high, where the air is thin and an aircraft goes faster for the same power. The <em>Winnie Mae<\/em> had a plywood monocoque fuselage that could not possibly be pressurised, so he did the obvious thing: pressurise the pilot instead.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Working with Russell S. Colley at B.F. Goodrich, he went through three suits. The first ruptured under test. The second had to be cut off him because he could not get out. The third worked: long underwear, an inner rubber bladder, an outer rubberised shell, and a bolted aluminium helmet with a faceplate he sealed at 17,000 feet, fed with liquid oxygen and held at seven pounds per square inch.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/wiley-post-first-pressure-suit-1934.jpg\" alt=\"Wiley Post in the first of his pressure suits, 1934\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The first suit, built at B.F. Goodrich in 1934. It had no restraint system, so once inflated Post could not bend his joints. Two more attempts followed before one worked. Photo: public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>It is the direct ancestor of every space suit that followed. Post wore it into the stratosphere, well above 30,000 feet, and on 15 March 1935 he ran from Burbank to Cleveland &mdash; 2,035 miles in 7 hours 19 minutes, with the ground sliding past at times at 340 mph while his airspeed indicator read about 185.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>He had climbed into the jet stream. Nobody had a name for it yet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Alaska<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In 1935 Post built himself a floatplane out of two other aeroplanes: the fuselage of a Lockheed Orion and the longer wings of a wrecked Lockheed Explorer. Lockheed declined to do the work, on the grounds that the two designs did not belong together. The floats he had ordered were late, so he fitted a set intended for a heavier aircraft, which made a nose-heavy machine more so.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>On 15 August, flying with the humorist Will Rogers, he got lost in fog near Point Barrow and put down in a lagoon to ask the way. On the take-off that followed, the engine failed at very low altitude. The aeroplane went in nose-first and the right wing tore off. Both men were killed instantly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Rogers had been the one to sum up the 1931 flight, in the way only he could.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;[Harold Gatty] is the only back seat driver that ever made good.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Will Rogers<\/strong> &mdash; Humorist and Post&rsquo;s friend, on navigator Harold Gatty after the 1931 flight<\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>The <em>Winnie Mae<\/em> was bought from Post&rsquo;s widow by the Smithsonian in 1936 for $25,000. It is still there.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Newsreel footage of the Vega and the flights, from the Smithsonian&rsquo;s own archive:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BeeX-gOHeGE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>British Pathe on the 1933 solo attempt:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kiY-Si3pF0Q\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>And contemporary coverage of the Alaska crash:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z3Nt3_h7QKU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Who was Wiley Post?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">An American aviator, born 1898, who lost his left eye in an oilfield accident in 1926 and went on to fly around the world twice, help invent the pressure suit, and discover the jet stream. He was killed in Alaska in 1935.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did Wiley Post fly with one eye?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Losing the eye cost him depth perception, which matters for judging a landing. He retrained himself to read distance from the relative size of familiar objects, and it worked well enough that he then circumnavigated the globe twice.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How long did Wiley Post&rsquo;s solo round-the-world flight take?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, with eleven stops, leaving Floyd Bennett Field on 15 July 1933 and returning on the 22nd. That beat the time he and navigator Harold Gatty had set together in 1931, which was 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did he navigate alone?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">He replaced his navigator with hardware: a Sperry gyroscopic autopilot he nicknamed Mechanical Mike, and a prototype radio direction finder borrowed from the Army. It is fair to call it the first practical demonstration that automation could substitute for a crew member.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did Wiley Post invent the pressure suit?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">He co-developed the first practical one, working with Russell S. Colley at B.F. Goodrich. Three suits were built: the first ruptured, the second had to be cut off him, and the third worked. It is the direct ancestor of every space suit that followed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did Wiley Post discover the jet stream?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">He was among the first to encounter and document it. On 15 March 1935 he flew from Burbank to Cleveland, 2,035 miles in 7 hours 19 minutes, with a ground speed touching 340 mph on an airspeed of about 185. Nobody had a name for it yet.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did Wiley Post die?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 15 August 1935, flying a hybrid floatplane he had assembled from a Lockheed Orion fuselage and Lockheed Explorer wings, with the humorist Will Rogers aboard. Lost in fog near Point Barrow, he landed in a lagoon to ask directions; the engine failed at low altitude on take-off and the nose-heavy aircraft went in. Both men died instantly.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Wiley Post?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"An American aviator, born 1898, who lost his left eye in an oilfield accident in 1926 and went on to fly around the world twice, help invent the pressure suit, and discover the jet stream. He was killed in Alaska in 1935.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How did Wiley Post fly with one eye?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Losing the eye cost him depth perception, which matters for judging a landing. He retrained himself to read distance from the relative size of familiar objects, and it worked well enough that he then circumnavigated the globe twice.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How long did Wiley Post\u2019s solo round-the-world flight take?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, with eleven stops, leaving Floyd Bennett Field on 15 July 1933 and returning on the 22nd. That beat the time he and navigator Harold Gatty had set together in 1931, which was 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How did he navigate alone?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"He replaced his navigator with hardware: a Sperry gyroscopic autopilot he nicknamed Mechanical Mike, and a prototype radio direction finder borrowed from the Army. It is fair to call it the first practical demonstration that automation could substitute for a crew member.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did Wiley Post invent the pressure suit?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"He co-developed the first practical one, working with Russell S. Colley at B.F. Goodrich. Three suits were built: the first ruptured, the second had to be cut off him, and the third worked. 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Both men died instantly.\"}}]}<\/script><p><em>Sources: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Winnie Mae collection record and Time and Navigation gallery; Library of Congress.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/hughes-h-1-racer-worlds-fastest-1935\/\">The Racer That Redrew the Airplane<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/airship-italia-amundsen-last-flight\/\">Airship Italia and Amundsen&rsquo;s Last Flight<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/spruce-goose-1947-senate-showdown-flight\/\">The Spruce Goose Flew Once To Win An Argument<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wiley Post lost an eye in an oilfield, flew solo around the world in under eight days, invented the pressure suit with B.F. Goodrich, and found the jet stream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":19628104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19628521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wiley Post: The One-Eyed Pilot Who Flew Solo | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wiley Post lost an eye in an oilfield, flew solo around the world in under eight days, helped invent the pressure suit, and discovered the jet stream.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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