Aviation pioneer Wiley Post (left) and navigator Harold Gatty (right) roared down a New York runway on June 23, 1931, in their single-engine monoplane, the Winnie Mae. Exactly 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes later, the duo successfully completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe in a single-engine craft. Their historic flight proved that global air travel was entirely viable using standard commercial equipment.
The most incredible element of the flight was Post’s severe physical limitation. He flew the entire global route wearing an eyepatch over his left eye, which had been destroyed in a severe oilfield accident years prior. To compensate for his total lack of depth perception, Post spent years training his remaining eye to judge distance by memorizing the precise scale of geometric terrain features, relying on sheer mental mapping to navigate through blindness and storms.
