With $1,800, received as compensation from an oil drilling accident, in 1926
Wiley Post bought an airplane.

Following World War I, he had joined the airplane barnstorming circuit as a
parachutist and stunt man and had learned to be a pilot.

In 1928 Post became the private pilot of an Oklahoma oil man, flying the Winnie
Mae. With that plane he won the Bendix Trophy race in 1930, and later in the
year flew around the world in 8 1/2 days with co-pilot Harold Getty.

Post soloed around the world in 1933.

In August 1935 with friend Will Rogers, Post set out in a new airplane to fly
from the West Coast to the Orient via Alaska and Siberia. They crashed on take
-off near Point Barrow, AK, killing both men.