Editing Wiley Post (section)

==Early flying career==
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2024}}
Post's aviation career began at age 26 as a parachutist for a flying circus, ''Burrell Tibbs and His Texas Topnotch Fliers,'' and he became well known on the [[barnstorming]] circuit. On October 1, 1926, he was badly injured in an oil-rig accident when a piece of metal pierced his left eye. An infection permanently blinded him in it, and he typically wore an eyepatch thereafter.<ref name="history.com">Maranzini, Barbara, "Wiley Post Makes History," History.com (July 22, 2013) https://www.history.com/news/wiley-post-makes-history</ref> He used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.<ref name="history.com"/>

Around this time, Post met fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers when he flew Rogers to a rodeo, and they eventually became close friends. Post was the personal pilot of wealthy Oklahoma oilmen Powell Briscoe and F.C. Hall in 1930, when Hall bought a high-wing, single-engine [[Lockheed Vega]], one of the most famous record-breaking aircraft of the early 1930s.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} The oilman nicknamed it the ''[[Winnie Mae]]''<ref>{{cite web |title=Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae |url=https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lockheed-vega-winnie-mae |website=Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum |access-date=20 February 2019 |archive-date=5 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160705214334/https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lockheed-vega-winnie-mae |url-status=dead }}</ref> after his daughter, and Post achieved his first national prominence in it by winning the National Air Race Derby, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The fuselage was inscribed "Los Angeles to Chicago 9 hrs. 8 min. 2 sec. August 27, 1930."{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Adam Charles Williams finished second with a time of 9 hrs. 9 min. 4 sec.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Gibbs |title=Oklahoma, Our Home |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9oVMPbbux40C&q=National+Air+Race+Derby+wiley+post&pg=PA224 |access-date=28 June 2019 |language=en |date=5 September 2006|publisher=Gibbs Smith |isbn=9781586854300 }}</ref> Post earned a prize of $7,500.<ref>''Around the World in Eight Days'' by Wiley Post and Harold Gatty (1989, p.10)</ref> The equivalent of $112,053 in 2020.

===Around the world===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-11928, Ozeanflieger Wiley Post und Harold Gatty.jpg|thumb|220px|Wiley Post with [[Harold Gatty]] in Germany, 1931]]

In 1930, [[Circumnavigation world record progression|the record]] for [[Circumnavigation#Aviation|flying around the world]] was not held by a fixed-wing aircraft, but by the [[LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin|''Graf Zeppelin'']], piloted by [[Hugo Eckener]] in 1929 with a time of 21&nbsp;days. On June 23, 1931, Post and the Australian navigator [[Harold Gatty]] left [[Roosevelt Field]] on [[Long Island, New York]], in the ''Winnie Mae'' with a flight plan that would take them around the world, stopping at [[Harbour Grace, Newfoundland and Labrador|Harbour Grace]], [[RAF Sealand|Flintshire]], [[Hanover]] twice, [[Berlin Tempelhof Airport|Berlin]], [[Khodynka Aerodrome|Moscow]], [[Novosibirsk]], [[Irkutsk]], [[Blagoveshchensk]], [[Khabarovsk]], [[Nome, Alaska|Nome]] (where his propeller had to be repaired), [[Fairbanks, Alaska|Fairbanks]] (where the propeller was replaced), [[Edmonton City Centre (Blatchford Field) Airport|Edmonton]], and [[Cleveland Hopkins International Airport|Cleveland]] before returning to Roosevelt Field.<ref name="Orion Books">{{Cite book | isbn=0-517-57352-0 | title=Around the World in Eight Days: The Flight of the Winnie Mae | last1=Post | first1=Wiley | last2=Gatty | first2=Harold | year=1989 | publisher=Orion Books }}</ref>

They arrived back on July 1, after traveling {{convert|15474|miles|km}} in the record time of 8&nbsp;days and 15 hours and 51 minutes, in the first successful aerial circumnavigation by a single-engined monoplane. The reception they received rivaled [[Charles Lindbergh]]'s everywhere they went. They had lunch at the [[White House]] on July 7, rode in a [[ticker-tape parade]] the next day in New York City, and were honored at a banquet given by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America at the [[Hotel Astor]]. After the flight, Post acquired the ''Winnie Mae'' from F.C. Hall. He and Gatty published an account of their journey, titled ''Around the World in Eight Days,'' with an introduction by Will Rogers.<ref name="Orion Books"/>

===First solo pilot===
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2024}}
After the record-setting flight, Post wanted to open his own aeronautical school, but could not raise enough financial support because of doubts many had about his rural background and limited formal education. Motivated by his detractors, he decided to attempt a solo flight around the world and to break his previous speed record. Over the next year, he improved his aircraft by installing an [[autopilot]] device and a [[radio direction finder]], that were in their final stages of development by the [[Sperry Corporation|Sperry Gyroscope Company]] and the [[United States Army]].{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}

In 1933, Post repeated his flight around the world, this time using the auto-pilot and [[compass]] in place of his navigator and becoming the first to accomplish the feat alone. He departed from [[Floyd Bennett Field]] and continued on to Berlin where repairs were attempted to his autopilot, stopped at [[Kaliningrad Devau Airport|Königsberg]] to replace some forgotten maps,{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Moscow for more repairs to his autopilot, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk for final repairs to the autopilot,{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} [[Skovorodino, Amur Oblast|Rukhlovo]], Khabarovsk, [[Flat, Alaska|Flat]] where his propeller had to be replaced, Fairbanks, Edmonton, and back to Floyd Bennett Field.  Fifty thousand people greeted him on his return on July 22 after 7&nbsp;days, 18 hours, 49 minutes.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160328182451/http://firstflight.org/wiley-h-post/ "Wiley H. Post"]. First Flight Society. Retrieved: June 23, 2020.</ref><ref>Meunier, Claude. [http://www.soloflights.org/post_data_e.html "WILEY POST"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110851/http://www.soloflights.org/post_data_e.html |date=2016-03-04 }}. ''Solo flights around the world''. October 15, 2007. Retrieved: December 6, 2012.</ref>