Evening star., 1935-08-18
BY BENNIE TURNER.
Written for the Associated Press.


OKLAHOMA CITY, August IL
Wiley Post died as he wanted to
doing what he wanted to debut he
was not ready to die. That fatal
crash in Alaska caught him with dis
appointment in his heart.
1t was the kind Of disappointment
that kept him up nights, made him
being disturbed, scratch on table
cloths while delicious steak became
cold and talk to other flyers about
his problems.
The disappointment was inability
to see stratosphere flying completely
conquered. He found out nearly all
there was to know about sub-strato-
sphere flying, but he considered real
stratosphere flying in an embryo stage.
That was disappointment No. l..
Disappointment No. was failure to
have lived and worked in the land
that claimed his life, Alaska.
Had Gun to Hunt Wolves.
For years Post has dreamed of
Alaska. He recently showed Billy
Parker, head Of the Phillips Petroleum
Co., aviation division. and myself a
design for his Arctic hunting plane,
pusher type plane equipped with skids
and swivel high-powered gun In the
front cockpit. He had bought the
plane. designed the gun.
IT'S cinch," he said. you just
sit up there until you see a pack of
wolves and then pick 'em of. They
will scatter from a plane and all you
have to do is land on the snow and
pick up the pelts. 1t would be lots
of fun. profitable and you would re-
duce those hounds"
Post liked to work out problems like
that. That is one of the reasons he
was first attracted to substratosphere
flying and why he kept on.
Didn't Know Calculus, But.
He had a practical mind, yet one
that would go scientific for no appar-
ent reason and with no background
to make it do the tricks it did.
do you know calculus?" he was
asked.
"Calculus?" he queried. What's
that?"
Yet he sat with maps Of numerous
foreign countries, reducing their
measurement of distance into Ameri-
can miles in his head.
Posts story of his doodle bug" was
a gem he reserved
Il got sold on an idea Of making
a machine that would discover oil
without drilling for it. I had a mag
netic principle based on oils rating
as conductor. I worked and worked
over it," he said, going into detail
on how he got the money and built
the machine by his own design.
Then I took it out in q field to
test. The needle showed Oil. It
worked. I kept tracing the oil-it
was in the crankcaSe of my automo-
bile. Oh, found out the machine
would work, too damned well; it would
show oil, any place, any time"
Was Sensitive About Deafness.
Post was sensitive about being hard
of hearing, would pretend he heard
when he did not. Yet in an airplane
he could understand every word of
q remark normal person could not
detect.
Before Post started around the
world he trained by eating at odd
hours, going for days without sleep,
walking long distances with his eye
on given point. He developed a rep
utation for being superhuman. He
came out Of rigors as fresh looking as
when he went in.
Yet some time after his return he
went fishing at Ardmore. He had o
new car and insisted On driving it at
less than 80 miles an hour. On the
way back he went to sleep three times
at the wheel, and had to nave an
other drive to Oklahoma City.
Was Popular Among Aviators.
The reason Post was popular among
the flying fraternity and was never
shown any jealousy is easy to under
stand. Post always remembered names
and little incidents about every one
from the grease monkey to the high
est, and never landed at a port with
out rushing into the recess of the dim
hangar Ito see old Bill for a min
ute
He never broke airport rules on the
theory that he was Wiley Post and
could get away with it, and was a
stickler for traffic regulations when
driving an automobile.
Some gifted writer viii probably
pen a tribute to Wiley Post, out he
would not like it. He liked things ex-
pressed as briefly and directly as they
could be.