He was born on November 22, 1899 on a farm near Grand Plain, Texas, United States, fourth son and child of the seven children of William Francis and May (Quinlan) Post.
About 1907 the family moved to a farm near Chickasha, and later to one near Maysville. At fourteen he saw his first airplane, at a county fair, and spent the greater part of a day in staring at it. On the way home he had his first ride in an automobile. In another year or so he helped his father install a gasoline engine on the farm for pumping water; but the boy rigged it also to run a corn-sheller, a circular saw, a grindstone, and other conveniences.
Education
He had some common schooling, which he disliked, much preferring to tinker on his father's farm machinery.
At seventeen he took a seven-months course in an automobile school at Kansas City. In 1917 he studied radio at the students' army training camp at Norman.
Career
Wiley began doing jobs for neighbors in Maysville when a mere boy - repairing sewing machines and farm implements - and at thirteen had saved enough money to buy a bicycle. At seventeen he found employment driving and grading for a construction company in Lawton, Oklahoma.
After the war, the only work he could find was that of tool-dresser in the oil fields; from this he advanced to the job of driller. After four or five years the oil boom waned, and Post joined three aviators who were exhibiting in Oklahoma, his stunt being to make parachute descents from a plane.
In 1924 he began an independent career as a featured parachute jumper at fairs, meanwhile taking lessons in piloting a plane. After two years the airplane was becoming less of a novelty, and Post was compelled to return to oil drilling. On his first day of work, a flying chip of metal injured his left eye, which had to be removed when infection occurred. He received $1, 800 in compensation, of which he spent $600 in buying and reconditioning an old plane. With this he began giving exhibitions and carrying passengers in the backwoods country where planes were still uncommon.
He began work as a plane pilot for F. C. Hall, an Oklahoma oil man in 1928; but Hall presently sold his machine, and Post worked for a time as demonstrator and test flyer for the Lockheed factory, Los Angeles, California. In June 1930, Hall purchased another airplane and called Post back as pilot. He permitted him to use the plane (the Winnie Mae, so named for Hall's daughter) that year in the Bendix Trophy race from Los Angeles to Chicago, which he won in competition with some of the best pilots in America.
Most of the $7, 500 prize he used in preparation for a flight around the world with Harold Gatty, though Hall contributed still more to the venture and permitted Post to use the Winnie Mae. Going eastward by way of the British Isles, Russia, Siberia, and Alaska, Post and Gatty circumnavigated the globe in the record-breaking time of eight days, fifteen hours, and fifty-one minutes (June 23 - July 1, 1931). Post was at the controls all the way, Gatty acting only as navigator.
In 1933 Post bought the Winnie Mae from Hall, and in July flew alone over the same course, circling from New York to New York in seven days, eighteen hours, and forty-nine and a half minutes.
He and the comedian Will Rogers had become close friends, and in August 1935 they started for the Orient by the way of Siberia by plane. After a forced landing in northern Alaska to inquire the way to Point Barrow, Post made some repairs to the plane and attempted to start again. The plane rose about fifty feet, fell, and both men were instantly killed.
Achievements
Connections
In Sweetwater, Texas, he met seventeen-year-old Mae Laine: they eloped in his machine on June 27, 1927, and were married. They had a daughter.