WILEY POST - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH CO-SIGNED BY: HAROLD GATTY - HFSID 295438

WILEY POST and HAROLD GATTY
8x10 image of the first men to circumnavigate the world in a fixed-wing aircraft, inscribed by Gatty and signed both aviators. From the collection of fellow aviator Richard Blythe.
Photograph inscribed and signed: "To Dick/very sincerely/Harold Gatty", "Wiley Post". B/w, 8x10. Post is shown standing in front of Gatty, and has signed below Gatty's inscription but above the latter's signature. In 1931, Australian HAROLD GATTY (1903-1957) was the navigator for American pilot WILEY POST (1898-1935) on their record-setting flight around the world in eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes, the first circumnavigation of the world by a fixed-wing aircraft. The eastward flight of the single-engine Winnie Mae began at Roosevelt Field, Long Island on June 23, 1931 and ended there on July 1, 1931 after ten stops en route. This flight of 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes easily bested the 21-day mark set by the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin. For this flight, Gatty and Post became the first civilians to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross. Lindbergh once called Gatty "the best navigator in the country if not in the whole world." During World War II, Gatty served with the US and Australian air forces in the Southwest Pacific, and wrote a survival guide for airmen downed at sea, which was subsequently included in flyers' survival kits. Post, a barnstorming pilot in the 1920s, lost his left eye in an oil field accident in 1926, but used the settlement money to buy his own aircraft. (Post did not wear his famous eye patch in this portrait photo.) In July 1933, after installing prototype autopilot and radio direction finder, Post became the first to fly solo around the world! On August 15, 1935, however, Post and his close friend, beloved actor, writer and humorist Will Rogers, were killed in the crash of their plane near Point Barrow, Alaska. This photo is from the collection of Canadian collector Richard Blythe (1894-1941), an infantry and aviation veteran of World War I with a distinguished flying record of his own. Blythe handled press relations for Charles Lindbergh's solo trans-Atlantic flight (1927), and collected many mementos from his aviator friends. Lightly toned. Corners lightly worn. Signatures in poor contrast but legible. Minor unknown stains on verso. Otherwise, fine condition.