Wiley Post and the First Pressure Suit Post was born in 1898 in Grand Saline, Texas, to farmers.

When he was five, they moved to Oklahoma. Post dropped out of school in the eighth grade. On the family farm, he started learning all he could about machines. His love for mechanical devices became apparent during a trip to a county fair in 1913. There he saw his first airplane and instantly knew that he wanted to become an aviator. Like other young men, though, Post was practical and began working as a mechanic in an oil field instead. Still, one day, when a plane flew overhead, he remembered his dream and started pursuing it. Post broke into aviation when a barnstorming troop came to Oklahoma in 1924. The troop's skydiver was injured and Post convinced the owner to let him fill in. Although Post had no experience, he made the jump. Over the next two years, he jumped 99 times, sometimes earning as much as $200 a fall. But Post wanted to be a pilot, not a skydiver, and decided to return to the oil fields to make enough money to buy his own aircraft. One day in 1926, though, a serious accident jeopardized his dream. A stray chip hit Post in his left eye. A massive infection developed and began to affect both his eyes. Post, fearing blindness, agreed to let doctors remove his left eye in the hope that the infection would recede and, fortunately, it did. With only one eye, Post had trouble with depth perception, but he trained himself to gauge distances through practice; he learned to land a plane by using the height of telephone poles and two-story buildings. Although the accident had cost him his eye, he used his $1,800 worker's compensation check to buy his own plane, a Curtiss Canuck (the Canadian version of the Jenny). Over the next few years, Post made a living teaching student pilots, flying oilmen to their rigs, and barnstorming on weekends.

In 1930, Post bought a Lockheed Vega that he named the Winnie Mae. At first, the Vega was considered state of the art and he won several air races. By 1934, however, the Winnie Mae was outclassed by newer airplanes so Post had to find a way to fly faster. He decided to try flying in the stratosphere, using the jet stream to boost his speed. Because the Winnie Mae was not pressurized, Post needed a pressure suit. B F Goodrich made a full pressure suit for Post, who used it to make ten stratospheric flights in 1934-1935. The suit was of double ply rubberized parachute fabric, with pigskin gloves, rubber boots, and an aluminum helmet. The pressure suit used a liquid oxygen source and had arm and leg joints that permitted easy operation of the flight controls and also enabled walking to and from the aircraft. Post wore his suit to set unofficial records up to 15 km altitude. In the process he proved the value of using the jet stream. Post's pioneering accomplishments were the first major practical advance in pressurized flight. Ten flights were made in the suit beginning on 5 September 1934. In March 1935, Post flew in the stratosphere using the jet stream from Burbank, California to Cleveland, Ohio. At times, his ground speed exceeded 550 kph in a 290 kph aircraft. Post's death in an air crash due to an engine failure shortly after takeoff on 15 August 1935.