Tag: wiley post

Oklahoma’s Favorite Sons Die Together

Today in History, August 15, 1935:

“When I die, my epitaph, or whatever you call those signs on gravestones, is going to read:

“I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like.”

I am so proud of that, I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved.” –Will Rogers.

Oklahoma’s two most favorite sons die together in Fort Barrow, Alaska.

Will Rogers and Wiley Post were good friends, and both proponents of advances in aviation.

Rogers started out as a cowboy doing rope tricks and became an actor, journalist and humorist, becoming world famous and loved by the world.

Post was an aviation pioneer, being the first to fly around the world solo, pioneering the “pressure suit” that would lead to pressurized suits for future pilots and astronauts, and the first to suggest using the jet stream and high altitude flight for commercial aviation.

Rogers was accompanying his friend Post on another around the world flight when they took off from a lake in Fort Barrow…the aircraft’s engine failed and they crashed, and both died.

The entire world mourned, but especially Oklahoma. The aircraft that Post flew to set so many records, the “Winnie Mae” is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and there are memorials to both men from coast to coast. Proud to be an Okie. One has to wonder what impact either of them would have had in the decades that followed (WWII, jet age, politics) had they survived.

Wiley Post Circumnavigates the Earth

Today in History, July 22, 1933:

We all know that Wiley Post died with his more famous Oklahoma brother Will Rogers at Point Barrow, Alaska in a plane crash. Will was a favorite Oklahoma son and a national hero as a humorist.

But on this date in 1933 Will’s friend Wiley, born in Texas but raised in Oklahoma, was the first man to circumnavigate the Earth by air in the Winnie Mae.

He also was an original innovator of the pressurized suit to allow high altitude flight, and made several attempts at cross country high altitude flight. He also discovered the Jet Stream, which has become so important to weather and aviation history.

Wiley Post and Winnie Mae


Today in History, July 22: 1933 – After a 7 day, 18 hour, 49 minute flight, Wiley Post completes the first SOLO around the world flight in his already famous Lockheed Vega, Winnie Mae, greeted by a crowd of 50,000 at New York’s Floyd Bennett Field. He beat his own time from an earlier non-solo around the world flight in the same airplane. He was honored with his second New York ticker tape parade. 

Post also used Winnie Mae to set high altitude flight records, designing a pressurized flight suit to do so. He also made use of the Jet Stream in his flight tests. 

 In 1935 he and another of Oklahoma’s favorite sons, Will Rogers, would die together in a plane crash at Point Barrow, Alaska. 

Winnie Mae can be visited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.