Winnie Mae - first aircraft to fly around the world

Prior to 1931, the record for flying around the world was held by the Graf Zeppelin, and not a fixed-wing aircraft. In June 1931, Wiley Post and navigator Harold Gatty set off from New York, and flew around the world, arriving back on 1st July back to where they set off from. It was the first circumnavigation on a fixed-wing aircraft, and they received a grand welcome.

In July 1933, Post repeated his flight around the world, this time solo. He had improved the aircraft with an auto-pilot and a radio direction finder, and took one day less this time to complete his flight. Apparently, a crowd of fifty thousand people greeted him on his return.

Though his record timing was broken fourteen years later in 1947, Wiley Post's flights, undertaken under very different circumstances, remains a pioneering and unique achievement. The Winnie Mae is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.