The Winnie Mae, Wiley Post, and the One-Eyed Oklahoma Pilot Who Flew a Wooden Lockheed Vega Around the World Twice and Then Went Looking for the Stratosphere

The Winnie Mae is a Lockheed Vega flown by Wiley Post, a one-eyed Oklahoma pilot who circled the globe twice in the 1930s and pioneered high-altitude flight. In 1931 he set a round-the-world speed record with navigator Harold Gatty, then broke it flying solo in 1933 using an early autopilot. He later developed the first practical full pressure suit and helped confirm the existence of the jet stream. Today the actual airplane is preserved at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

What is the Winnie Mae and why is it in the Smithsonian?

The Winnie Mae is a Lockheed Vega, a single-engine, high-wing monoplane that broke the mold when it appeared in the 1920s. Instead of the steel tube, fabric, and bracing wire everyone else used, Lockheed molded the fuselage out of plywood - two halves laid up in a concrete mold and glued together like a giant model airplane. The result was a clean cantilever wing with no struts or wires and a smooth, rounded hull that looked fast standing still.

The Vega was genuinely quick and slippery for its era. Amelia Earhart flew one across the Atlantic. This particular Vega belonged to an Oklahoma oilman named F.C. Hall, who named her after his daughter, Winnie Mae.

The airplane earned its museum spot through a string of records, all set by one pilot: Wiley Post.

Who was Wiley Post, the one-eyed pilot?

Wiley Post grew up dirt poor in Texas and Oklahoma with little formal schooling. As a young man he served time for a crime, and by his own account that stretch is where he resolved to change his life. He found work in the Oklahoma oil fields - and it was there, on a drilling rig, that a metal chip struck his left eye. Infection set in, and doctors removed the eye to save his life.

Here is the remarkable part. In an era when depth perception and hand-eye coordination were everything - long before instruments could substitute for them - a one-eyed man decided to become a pilot.

Post used his injury settlement money to buy his first airplane. He then spent months teaching himself to judge distance with one eye, staring down fence posts and learning to read the height of an object by how it grew in the window. He turned a handicap into a discipline, and by all accounts could land better than many pilots with two good eyes and twice the flight time.

How fast did Wiley Post fly around the world?

In the summer of 1931, Post and navigator Harold Gatty set out to circle the globe for speed. They were not the first around the world - the U.S. Army had done it in 1924 with four Douglas World Cruiser biplanes over the better part of half a year - but those crews took their time. Post and Gatty were racing the clock.

Their route ran over the top of the world: New York to Newfoundland, across the North Atlantic to England, then Germany, Russia, the full width of Siberia, over to Alaska, down through Canada, and home.

Their time: 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes.

Consider what that meant in a single-engine wooden airplane with only a magnetic compass, paper charts, and a navigator using a drift sight and dead reckoning to find Siberia. There was no real autopilot and no modern radio navigation - just two men and a Pratt & Whitney Wasp, a nine-cylinder radial engine hammering away up front.

Inside the small wooden cabin, that Wasp was a physical presence - noise you felt in your chest, plus oil, hot metal, and gasoline fumes for eight straight days. The crew lashed themselves in and slept in shifts. Post reportedly prepared by deliberately scrambling his sleep schedule beforehand, so his body would have no rhythm to lose. He understood early that the real enemy on a long flight isn’t weather - it’s fatigue, and the tired mind making a small mistake.

They came home to a ticker-tape parade and a meeting with the President.

How did a one-eyed pilot fly around the world alone?

Most people would have stopped there. Post didn’t. In 1933 he took the same Winnie Mae around the world again - this time solo, with no navigator.

Flying and navigating alone across the planet was possible because Post carried two pieces of gear most working pilots had never touched:

• An early Sperry gyroscopic autopilot that could hold the airplane straight and level while he worked his charts or rested his one good eye. He nicknamed it “Mechanical Mike.”
• A radio direction finder that let him home in on ground stations.

A pilot, an autopilot, and a radio compass - that is the seed of every modern long-haul cockpit crossing an ocean tonight. Post flew single-pilot over the top of the world, leaning on automation, in 1933.

He came around in 7 days, 18 hours and change, beating his own record by nearly a full day - while flying alone.

What was Wiley Post’s pressure suit, and how does it connect to space suits?

Post grew curious about flying very high. On his long flights he’d noticed that at altitude the airplane sometimes made better time than the math predicted, as if something up there was pushing him along. He had brushed against what we now call the jet stream, and he wanted to climb into it and ride it.

The problem: the Winnie Mae’s molded plywood hull could never hold cabin pressure. So Post took the only path left - if you can’t pressurize the airplane, pressurize the man.

Working with an engineer at the B.F. Goodrich company, he built a full pressure suit: a rubber bladder with canvas over it and a metal-and-plastic helmet like a diver’s, with a viewing port and an oxygen valve. Pumped up, it held pressure around his body even as the outside air thinned to almost nothing. It was designed to keep a man alive in the near-vacuum near 50,000 feet.

It worked - and it is the direct ancestor of the modern space suit. The line runs straight from that Goodrich shop to the X-15 pilots and the Mercury astronauts.

What did Wiley Post discover about the jet stream?

Wearing the suit, Post took the Winnie Mae above 40,000 feet, into the region where the sky darkens overhead, and confirmed his suspicion: a west-to-east wind blows steadily up there, and a smart pilot can hitch a ride.

Airlines build their schedules around that fact today. Every time an eastbound flight across the country lands early, it’s cashing in on the discovery this wooden airplane and rubber suit helped nail down.

How did Wiley Post die?

Post did not get the long retirement he’d earned. In 1935 he took a float-equipped hybrid airplane on a trip through Alaska with his friend, the humorist Will Rogers - at the time one of the most beloved men in America. Near Point Barrow, they set down on a lagoon to ask directions. On takeoff the engine quit low over the water, the airplane went in, and both men were killed.

The country lost two national treasures on the same afternoon.

Where is the Winnie Mae today?

After the records, the U.S. government bought the Winnie Mae for the nation, and she passed into the care of the Smithsonian. She has been preserved, not restored to fly - kept as she was at the end of her working life.

That means when you stand in front of her at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, you’re looking at the genuine article: the same plywood Wiley Post sweated inside for eight days over Siberia. Not a replica - the real airplane.

Key Takeaways

• Wiley Post lost his left eye in an oil-field accident, used the settlement to buy his first airplane, and taught himself to judge distance with one eye.
• He set a round-the-world speed record with Harold Gatty in 1931 (8 days, 15 hours, 51 minutes), then broke it flying solo in 1933 (7 days, 18 hours) using an early Sperry autopilot he called “Mechanical Mike.”
• Post developed the first practical full pressure suit with B.F. Goodrich - the direct ancestor of modern space suits - after realizing the plywood Winnie Mae could never be pressurized.
• Flying above 40,000 feet, he helped confirm the jet stream, the west-to-east wind airlines still ride today.
• Post died in a 1935 Alaska crash alongside humorist Will Rogers; the actual Winnie Mae is preserved at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.