BROOKLYN, NY (WHTM) — Aviator Wiley Mail service was itching to gear up a new world record. The 1920s and 1930s were a prime menstruation for testing the limits of aircraft, and functioning records were set up, smashed, and then smashed again.

  • Aviator Wiley Post. Post lost his left eye in an accident, and wore either a glass eye or an eyepatch. (Library of Congress)
  • The Lockheed Vega aeroplane that was christened by Winnie Mae Fain, and named Winnie Mae in her accolade, is shown following the ceremony at Roosevelt Field in Long Island, Northward.Y., May xxx, 1931. Wiley Post and Harold Gatty will fly the Winnie Mae effectually the world in seven days. (AP Photograph)
  • Pilot Wiley Mail, left, with his navigator Harold Gatty in forepart of the plane in which they are to effort to fly around the world in 10 days in June 1931. They have left Roosevelt Field for Harbour Grace, Newfoundland in their first stage. (AP Photo)
  • Harold Gatty navigator of the plane Winnie Mae, being escorted by law from Roosevelt Field in New York, USA after the completion of the earth record flight in which he encircles the globe with pilot Wiley Postal service, around July 1, 1931. (AP Photo)
  • Wiley Post takes his aeroplane Winnie Mae of Oklahoma on a exam flight over New York Urban center, July 4, 1933. Post is preparing for his transatlantic flight. The Chrysler Building is at right of the plane. The Empire State Building is in groundwork at left. (AP Photo)
  • Wiley Post climbs out of the cockpit of his Lockheed Vega monoplane, Winnie Mae, later completing the showtime solo flying around the earth at Floyd Bennet Field, Long Island, North.Y., midnight, July 22, 1933. Wiley set a new record with the distance of 15,596 miles, 25,099 kilometer, in 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes. (AP Photo)
  • Wiley Post waves from an open auto during a tickertape parade in his honour upwards Broadway from Battery Park to Urban center Hall, where he will exist greeted past the mayor, in New York City on July 26, 1933. Post fabricated the first solo flight around the world, from July fifteen to 22, setting a new record with a distance of xv,596 miles, 25,099 kilometer, in vii days, 18 hours, 49 minutes. (AP Photo)
  • Wiley Postal service poses in his high altitude pressure level suit nearly his airplane "Winnie Mae" prior to takeoff in an try to break the distance record in New York, 1934. Post, who helped pattern the arrange with B.F. Goodrich engineers, holds his helmet that will brand it possible for him to breath at high altitude. The record he wants to beat is 44,819 feet, fix by the French pilot Lemoine. (AP Photograph)
  • Wiley Postal service tests his high altitude pressure suit as engineers inflate the conform before his flight on his plane, "Winnie Mae", in New York, 1934. Post, who helped pattern the accommodate with B.F. Goodrich engineers, wants to interruption the record for aeroplane altitude of 44,819 anxiety gear up last yr. (AP Photo)
  • Wiley Post checks the propeller of his airplane Winnie Mae before an altitude flight at Bartlesville, Okla., Lord's day, December. 2, 1934. Weather atmospheric condition prevented Post from completing his attempt to fly to whatever unusual distance. (AP Photo)
  • Humorist Volition Rogers gives his final interview at Fairbanks, Ala., Aug. 19, 1935, when he stopped here on the way to Bespeak Barrow on the flight which ended in his death and that of Wiley Post. From left: Bernie Stone, editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner; Rogers and Joe Crosson, noted Alaska pilot who flew the bodies of Post and Rogers out from Indicate Barrow. (AP Photograph)
  • Humorist Will Rogers boards the aeroplane of aviator Wiley Post presently before take-off from Lake Washington, most Seattle, for a leisurely aerial tour of Alaska, on Baronial 7, 1935. One week subsequently, on Baronial 15, 1935, the noted humorist and the famed aviator were killed when this powerful pontooned-equipped shipping crashed about fifteen miles south of Signal Barrow in Alaska. (AP Photo)
  • A plane, carrying aviator Wiley Postal service and humorist Volition Rogers, takes off from Lake Washington, nearly Seattle, for a leisurely aeriform tour of Alaska, on August 7, 1935. 1 calendar week after, on August xv, 1935, both men were killed when this powerful pontooned-equipped aircraft crashed virtually 15 miles south of Bespeak Barrow in Alaska. (AP Photograph)
  • Will Rogers – Wiley Post plane crash at Bespeak Barrow, Alaska on Aug. fifteen, 1935. (AP Photo)

One of those records: the fastest time for flying effectually the world. In 1930 the record was held by a dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin, which made the trip in 21 days. Then in 1931 Wiley Post, accompanied by Australian navigator Harold Getty, took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island in Mail service's unmarried-engine Lockheed Vega, Winnie Mae. Eight days, 15 hours, 51 minutes, and 14 stops later, they returned to Roosevelt Field. Not only did they smash the previous record for flying around the globe, but they were also the offset to exercise it in a single-engine monoplane. The ii were celebrated equally heroes wherever they went.

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Post and so set up his sights on a new goal: get the first pilot to fly effectually the earth solo. Advances in technology made this possible. When he left for this flight, the Winnie Mae carried some new devices — an autopilot and a radio management finder — which, forth with a compass, would allow him to make the trip without a man navigator.

He departed from Floyd Bennett Field on July 15, 1933. He made stops along the way at Berlin, Königsberg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Rukhlovo, Khabarovsk, Apartment, Fairbanks, and Edmonton, before returning to Floyd Bennett Fieldon on July 22. He fabricated the trip in seven days, 18 hours, 49 minutes, making him the first pilot to fly solo around the earth.

Having set not 1, only two records for going around, Mail so turned his attention to going up. In 1934, he worked with the B.F. Goodrich Visitor to develop the globe's first pressure arrange, the antecedent to the suits worn past high-distance pilots and spacesuits used by astronauts. With it, he was able to fly upwardly to 50,000 feet, where he discovered the beingness of the jet stream.

Ironically, later on ii tape-setting trips effectually the globe, and breaking barriers to high-altitude flight, he would lose his life making a simple takeoff. He and his friend, comedian, and columnist Volition Rogers, were traveling in Alaska using a pontoon airplane. Post was investigating a possible mail and rider air road, and Rogers was finding cloth for his paper column. On Baronial 15, nearly Indicate Barrow, Alaska, they were taking off from a lake when the engine failed. They crashed into the h2o and died instantly. Rogers is remembered as one of America'south most beloved humorists, and Post is remembered for his record-setting contributions to early aviation. Both his airplane Winnie Mae and his force per unit area suit are in the collection of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.