Gatty and Post, American Aviators
1933 photograph of pilot Post and navigator Gatty with their plane. Harold Charles Gatty (January 5, 1903 - August 30, 1957) was an Australian navigator, inventor, and aviation pioneer. Charles Lindbergh called Gatty the "Prince of Navigators." Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 - August 15, 1935) was a famed American aviator during the period known as the Golden Age of Aviation. He helped develop one of the first pressure suits and discovered the jet stream. In 1931, Gatty served as navigator, along with pilot Wiley Post, on the flight which set the record for aerial circumnavigation of the world, flying a distance of 15,747 miles in a Lockheed Vega named the Winnie Mae, in 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. In 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska. Gatty is credited with inventing an air sextant which used a spirit level to provide an artificial horizon. He also invented the aerochronometer, which offset inaccuracies introduced into observations taken in a moving plane. The most important invention of his career was the Gatty drift sight. This optical device was directed at the ground, or the tops of clouds, and used to determine the rate and direction of an aircraft's drift, or movement away from its heading. The device was also used as a ground speed indicator. He died from a stroke in 1957 at the age of 54.
Size: 4877px × 3584px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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