Self-styled ‘shootist’ dies under wagon wheels

by Bartee Hailie

Wiley Post and his Australian navigator landed in New York City on Jul. 1, 1931 completing an epic around-the-world flight in record-breaking time. Two states claimed Wiley Hardeman Post as a native son. Texas had birth going for it since the intrepid aviator began his short life in Van Zandt County a couple of years shy of the twentieth century. Oklahoma, however, had residency on its side because the Posts relocated north of the Red River when Wiley was nine. The simple pleasures of farm life never appealed to the youngster, whose head always seemed to be in the clouds. Wiley regularly skipped his chores to whittle model planes out of scrap wood and to dream of the day when he would defy the law of gravity. Post’s first fling into the wild blue yonder came in 1919 courtesy of a gypsy barnstormer. Five years later at an Oklahoma air show, he did such a fine job of filling in for the injured parachutist that the dangerous job became his permanently. During his two-year stint as a sky diver, Post made 99 jumps. His father objected so strongly to the hazardous occupation that he hid his son’s parachute. Post finally found it and from then on kept his silks in a safety deposit box at the local bank. In 1926 he turned personal tragedy into the opportunity of a lifetime. While working as a roughneck in the Oklahoma oilfields, a metal sliver destroyed the sight in his left eye. Paid $2,000 in compensation for the accident, he bought a glass substitute and a used airplane. A wealthy oilman soon hired Post as a test pilot and cloud-hopping chauffeur. When the Department of Commerce started licensing pilots in 1927, only his perfect flying record kept the one-eyed applicant from being grounded. In the “Winnie Mae,” a craft named after the boss’ daughter, Post won a Los Angeles-Chicago air race against the best flyboys in the business. The jubilant sponsor gladly invested $50,000 in their next joint venture -- a highly publicized challenge of the around-the-world record. The best time belonged to the German dirigible “Graf Zepplin,” which in 1929 circled the globe in a breathtaking 21 days. Post and his traveling companion easily shattered that mark by returning to their point of departure in just eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. The amazing feat made Post an instant hero. But the standing ovation for the modest daredevil detracted from the practical importance of his headline-grabbing odyssey. As one newspaper explained, if Wiley Post could conquer the world in eight days, “thousands of people at home will feel safer in venturing, say, from Boston to New York by air.” Post bought the “Winnie Mae” and began painstaking preparations for a solo jaunt. In the early hours of Jul. 15, 1933, he left Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field with only his private demons for company. The adventure was no cakewalk. He rested by putting the plane on automatic pilot and holding a wrench attached to his finger by a string. If he dozed off, the falling wrench would wake him, or at least that was the idea. Post not only achieved his goal of circumnavigating the planet but eclipsed his previous time by 21 hours. This record stood for five years until surpassed by another high-flying Texan, Howard Hughes. Post spent the next few months proving the feasibility of high-altitude flight. Wearing a special rubber suit fashioned by tire manufacturer B.F. Goodrich, he coaxed the remodeled “Winnie Mae” into the stratosphere reaching an unimaginable 40,000 feet on Sep. 5, 1934. Selling the “Winnie Mae” to the Smithsonian Museum, Post purchased a new plane and made new plans. His destination was Siberia, and humorist Will Rogers, a close friend, decided to go along for the ride. Rogers wanted to visit an acquaintance at Point Barrow, Alaska, but Post was disoriented by the snowcovered terrain and had to stop at an Eskimo village to ask for directions. Told they had missed Point Barrow by 16 miles, the internationally renowned Okies shared a meal with the hospitable natives, who nicknamed the visitors “Man with Rag over Sore Eye” and “Big Man with Boots.” Always in a hurry, Post refused to wait for the right pontoons and instead bought a set that made the airplane nose heavy. He reasoned that the stocky Rogers, who sat behind him, would balance the craft. Experts later deduced that the weight problem prevented him from making a safe emergency landing. On the evening of Aug. 15, 1935, the pilot who twice flew around the world failed to finish a 16-mile hop. Wiley Post and Will Rogers were barely airborne when the engine sputtered and quit. The Eskimo eyewitnesses watched in horror, as the plane crashed killing both pilot and passenger on impact. Autographed copies of “Murder Most Texan,” Bartee’s latest book, are still available. Order yours in the “General Store” at barteehaile.com or by mailing a check for $26.65 to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.