Continued, page two, East Days East.:
It was early 1931. Gatty was running a navigation school in San Diego. The lure of the adventure Post suggested was too much to ignore, and the Australian quickly began making arrangements for someone to run things while he was gone.
To accommodate a navigator's bridge, Winnie Mae's rear cabin was stripped out again. Two large fuel tanks would occupy the forward section. Gatty would sit in the rear with a radio and sending key, duplicate blind flying instruments, a master aperiodic compass and his specially-developed drift indicator.
Two extra hatches were cut in the plane's monocoque fuselage; one in the top, just at the wing's trailing edge, had a folding windshield so Gatty could get his head up for star sightings. The other hatch was in the right side to accommodate the drift indicator's optics.
Gatty's seat was not screwed down. To help trim the ship for landing, he would simply move his chair to the rear.
Up front, Post installed an easy chair to ease the long-distance strain. Because his feet actually straddled the engine's crankcase, there was a ventilation tube to cool them. A speaking tube was added for communications with Gatty, but the engine's noise usually deafened Post too much to use it, so messages were passed on a wire.
Post carefully grouped a turn-and-bank indicator, a rate-of-climb and an artificial horizon in the center of the instrument panel. As far as he was concerned, engine instruments could go just about anwhere since he had supreme confidence in Winnie Mae's power plant, having personally supervised all itsmaintenance.
The Pratt and Whitney Wasp had 245 hours at the time, so the airplane was taken to Transcontinental and Western Air in California for overhaul. Post felt that was all it would require. On the flight itself, he only allowed oil service and the change of four lower spark plugs. Mohler and Johnson say he told an agitated mechanic in Newfoundland, "I believe in letting well enough alone." The engine sounded good to him and that was that!
It took four months to get ready for the flight. Post and Gatty left California for New York on May 17th, 1931, stopping in Washington long enough to pick up official letters of permission for landing in the countries they planned to cross. Only Russia refused an official waiver, but the Soviets assured Post that they would not hinder his progress. As it turned out, they were very helpful.
Getting to New York's Roosevelt Field was the easy part. The "hard stuff" was the North Atlantic's weather, which kept them waiting a solid month for takeoff.
Word finally came on June 22 that the northern route was clear and that Winnie Mae had better get moving. She took to the leaden skies at 4:55 the next morning. In his book, Around The World In Eight Days, Post wrote: "It was a gloomy morning to be starting out to fulfill a great ambition." But they were off and pointed east.
Gatty gave Post his first heading, a course to Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, where they arrived six hours and 47 minutes later. Refueling was to cost them an average two hours at every stop and takeoff always came within minutes of closing the tanks, even though Winnie had to be hand-propped. Post had removed the electric starter to save weight.
The second stop was the Royal Air Force's Sealand Aerodome near Liverpool, England. Most of this leg was flown on instruments but they crossed the Atlantic in 16 hours and 17 minutes to complete the 28th transatlantic flight.
Ed: In what was perhaps the first recognition of what we now call "Jet Lag," Post realized that he would become increasingly tired as he passed through the time zones. He tried to condition himself beforehand by varying his sleeping hours every day, sitting still in the cockpit to practice flying, or just sitting for long periods with nothing on his mind. He felt that by keeping his mind relaxed and flying nearly on reflex he could keep adequately fresh for safe landings at the end of the long legs. He wrote that this "training" really upset his wife's household routine.
The aviators had lunch with the British airmen at Sealand and pressed on. The next stop was to be Berlin, but Post was more tired than he expected and had trouble holding a magnetic course. They landed at Hanover to ask directions, took off, and then found they were so tired they had forgotten to check their fuel. Winnie Mae returned to Hanover, had her tanks topped, and took off again for Berlin and a decent night's rest.
Next morning they were headed for Moscow, 994 miles away. There were stiff headwinds, a low ceiling and heavy rains, but they still managed to keep close to schedule. Of course, there was no way of getting around the huge banquet their Russian hosts had planned, but Post and Gatty were able to resist drinking anything but water during the numerous toasts and speeches. Post also managed to eat very lightly to minimize toilet problems and to keep himself awake.
But the Moscow stop brought the first real delay. The Russians fueled Winnie Mae with imperial instead of U.S. gallons. The imperial is 7.2 pounds of fuel compared to the U. S. 6 pound gallon. As a result Winnie Mae weighed 2,333 pounds instead of the 1,944 pounds the aviators had planned, making her too heavy for the next leg to Novosibirsk. Siphoning the excess fuel cost precious time.
Finally underway, the globe-girdlers faced a trip of some 1,579 miles. In Novosibirsk, they were taken to a hotel for another banquet and some rest, but neither man slept really well. Gatty complained about bedbugs. Three hours after bedding down they were headed back to the airfield. Winnie Mae sped into the Russian skies in good order, headed for Irkutsk, another six hours off. While refueling there, Wiley sent his wife a cable. Typical of the man, it just said: "Feeling fine." After all, the world's press was keeping the flight on the front pages and any more information didn't seem necessary..at least, not to Wiley Post.
Then, seven more hours to Blagoveshchensk, where Gatty's fears of an after-dark landing were realized. To prepare for them, the Russians lit oil drum fires along the runway's edge.
Idling for a "backside of the power curve" landing (Winnie Mae had no flaps and used a tail skid), Post settled onto soft turf, rolling a scant 400 feet before the wheels sank to their hubs. It took a pair of Russian plow-horses five hoursto get the plane on to solid ground, allowing the fliers to get some much-needed sleep.
The next jump was to Khabarovsk, 363 miles away and five and a half days east of New York. From there, they faced 2,441 miles of tundra, mountains and water before a landing in Solomon, Alaska, so Post changed his four spark plugs and checked each cylinder's compression.
Contrary winds kept them on the ground, but it was probably for the best since they got some real rest before beginning that gigantic leg.
Fighting head winds most of the way, they finally broke out of the clouds over the Alaskan coast, to land on a sandy beach at Solomon on an almost-empty tank. Planning to go on to Fairbanks for the night, they added 100 gallons of gas. Taking off, soft sand caught the Vega and a nose-over on the beach bent her propeller tips. Post managed to straight them with a hammer, a wrench and a stone, but the "fix" wasn't very good. It held them till they got to Fairbanks where they had to borrow a new prop from Alaska Airlines. Six hours later, they were on their way to Edmonton, Canada.
By this time, Post was especially "tender" about soft runways. Even before he braked his airplane to a stop in Edmonton he was trying to figure a way to avoid a takeoff from the town's rain-soaked airfield. When he saw the problems, Edmonton's Mayor agreed to help.
While Post and Gatty slept, maintenance crews removed all the overhead telephone and powerlines from Edmonton's paved main street, Portage Avenue. Meanwhile, a crew groomed Winnie Mae so she'd look her best when for arrival in New York City the next day.
The barrel-chested airplane was rolled to the end of Portage Avenue and run up to a full-throated roar. Oldtimers there still talk about the day the Winnie Mae raced right "down the middle of town." Off and away, she waggled her wings in thanks and farewell; next stop was Cleveland.
Wiley dropped into Cleveland at 5:15 pm, Eastern Daylight Time. There was a huge crowd to greet the airmen, but they stayed only 30 minutes, racing away to save every possible second.
Post came in high over Roosevelt Field's hangars, after taking one extra turn for the photoplanes that came up to meet him. Safely on the ground, he and Gatty were surrounded by no fewer than 10,000 people. Winnie had to be rolled into a hangar to protect her from souvenir hunters who wanted a piece of her skin for their memory books.
Hauled up to the radio microphones, the weary Post was so numb that all he could say was: "We had a great time."
And they had.
Wiley Post never undertook an experimental flight without a specific goal. First of all, he was interested in the progress of aviation, but it's necessary to understand that each experiment was costly. Post had to tailor his programs to an event which could pay back some kind of prize. He developed the pressure suit because he wanted to enter Winnie Mae in a race to Australia. But he realized that newer planes would outspeed her unless he could fly her in the jet stream where he expected to get speeds of as much as 300 miles an hour. It's interesting to note that Post was one of the first to predict the existence of the jet streams and then set out to use them. As it developed, he did not enter the Australian race, but Phillips Oil Company sponsored research on the suit and his subsequent high-altitude work. Using the new equipment, Post later set cross-country record flights in the jet stream.
Post had only an eighth grade education, but his contributions to aerospace science were among the most valuable of their day. It's ironic that he died on a vacation with a friend and in an airplane he probably should not have been flying (not the Winnie Mae). The Lockheed Orion-Explorer hybrid they were using was extremely nose heavy. Extra-large floats added to its problems. Engine failure on takeoff from a small lake near Nome, Alaska was fatal for Wiley Post and his friend, Will Rogers.
