Aviation History – July 22, 1933. 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes exactly, this is the time that will have been necessary for the aviator of American nationality Wiley Post to complete a circumnavigation of the globe by taking the path of the sky. This is the very first time that such an air raid has been carried out alone! A magnificent journey therefore to the credit of the pilot who, on July 22, 1933, returned to the United States.
This magnificent performance signed alone at the controls of his airplane follows another world tour that Wiley Post had this time completed from June 23 to July 1, 1931 with the navigator Harold Gatty at his side in his aircraft. The two men had needed 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes to make this long journey.
Leaving on July 15, 1933, for his world tour alone, Wiley Post took off from Floyd Bennett Field to fly to the city of Berlin, an unprecedented raid until then, to continue towards the USSR and Alaska. But his raid, with his Lockheed Vega 5B autopilot monoplane called “Winnie Mae”, was not an easy task, mechanical problems and bad weather conditions having come to spoil the party.
