Wiley Post, famous aviator, set around the world records in a Lockheed 5C Vega called the “Winnie Mae.” Records:

Wiley Post and the famous “Winnie Mae” at Floyd Bennett Field

This airplane has been the inspiration of countless young boys who built models of the “Winnie Mae”. The article below was printed in the AARP newsletter Oct.2008.

Out on the subway free edge of Brooklyn, where Flatbush Avenue meets the ocean breezes, sits New York City’s first municipal airport, Floyd Bennett Field. Though the decommissioned airstrip is cracked and weedy, rusting Hanger B is alive with the sounds of aircraft assembly. There, for the past three years, Dante Dimille and a few friends have been building the model of his dreams: a life-size duplicate of the “Winnie Mae”, the snub-nose Lockheed Vega 5C that in 1933 lifted off from Floyd Bennett Field and carried Wiley Post on his record-setting solo flight around the world.

Dimille, 76, said that his parents arrived in Brooklyn when he was a boy, and he has lived near the field ever since. “I just fell in love with that plane”.” I built replicas of it when I was a kid”. The project was set in motion in 2004 when Dimille and Tony Yellen received a $4000 grant from the National Park Foundation grant.

So far the 27 foot skeleton, landing gear, and tail section are complete and both wings are nearly finished, representing 10,000 hours of work by Yellen, Dimille, and their crew of retired shop teachers and mechanics. By spring, the team hopes to have completed the project , with an aviation grade paint job in white and blue. The crowning touch for a flightless bird.

Joshua M. Bernstein

D.L.Horn

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© 2008 The Long Island Early Fliers Club, P.O. Box 221, Bethpage, NY 11714-0221 • info@longislandearlyfliers.org