He flew planes with only one eye. He set a record for the fastest flight around the globe with a navigator, then, two years later, broke his own record with the first solo circumnavigation by air. He dabbled in high-altitude pioneering, built his own seaplane modifications, and was an early air-tourist of remote Alaska. All in the golden age of pre-war flight.
Post was born on November 22, 1898, near Grand Saline, Texas, to cotton farmers, and he grew up a restless soul. The family moved to Oklahoma when he was five and settled on a farm near Maysville, south of Oklahoma City. He dropped out of school after the seventh grade — he was a mechanical prodigy with no patience for books — and knew what he wanted from life the day he first saw an airplane, at the Lawton County Fair in 1913, when he was fifteen.
When the U.S. entered World War I, Post enlisted in the Army hoping to become a pilot. Instead, he was training
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