Question: What Texas aviator was the first person to fly solo around the world in an airplane?
Answer: Wiley Hardeman Post. Born in 1898 to cotton farmers in Van Zandt County, he attended aviation school as a teenager and went to work in the Oklahoma oilfields. He lost the use of his left eye during a work accident in 1926, but it didn’t stop him from flying. Post became the personal pilot for oilman F.C. Hall, who purchased a single-engine Lockheed Vega he named Winnie Mae.
In 1933, Post and Australian Harold Gatty circumnavigated the globe in the Winnie Mae in 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes. Two years later, he repeated the feat by himself in a span of 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. Post died with entertainer Will Rogers on August 15, 1935, when the plane they were flying crashed in Point Barrow, Alaska. The Winnie Mae is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
