Wiley Hardeman Post was born on November 22, 1898, Van Zandt County, Texas. Post’s family moved to Oklahoma when he was five. It was in Oklahoma that Post first saw an airplane (a Curtiss-Wright Pusher-type), at the county fair in Lawton. That event inspired in him a love of flight, leading Post to enroll in the Sweeney Automobile and Aviation School in Kansas City. After seven months at the school, Post returned to Oklahoma and worked at a construction company. When World War I broke out, he wanted to become a pilot in the US Army Air Service. He joined a training camp at the University of Oklahoma and studied radio technology. However, the war ended before he completed his training. After that, Post worked in an oilfield, but the work was irregular and he briefly resorted to armed robbery. Post was arrested and spent over a year in jail, before being released in 1922. Post began his flying career as a parachutist for a flying circus at age 26. In 1926, he lost his eye in an oilfield accident, but used the money to buy his first plane. It was around this time that Post met fellow Oklahoma native Will Rogers when he flew him to a rodeo. They developed a close friendship that lasted a lifetime. Post piloted a Lockheed Vega airplane for a wealthy oilman. In 1930, Post flew the plane, nicknamed Winnie Mae, in the National Air Race Derby from Los Angeles to Chicago and won the race. He gained national attention and fixed his sights on bigger feats. On June 23, 1931, Post and his navigator Harold Gatty took off from Long Island, New York, for a flight around the world. They finished their 15,474-mile trip in less than nine days. The previous flight in a Graf Zeppelin airship took 21 days.