Welcome to One-Eyed Pilot Innovations

Welcome to One-Eyed Pilot Innovations. OEPI always has one eye looking to the past and one eye focused on what is to come. The company is named after Wiley Post, the son of owner and CEO Brad Post. Although Wiley is both too young to possess a pilot license and is in possession of both of his eyes, he is named after a distant relative, the famous aviator of the 1930s, Wiley Post. 

At a young age the original one-eyed pilot developed a keen interest in airplanes. After losing an eye in an oil rig accident Wiley Post purchased his first aircraft and relearned to fly airplanes without any depth perception. Wiley Post is most renowned as the first pilot to fly solo around the world. He did so with the aid of two technologically advanced devices in their final stages of development, the autopilot and the radio direction finder. In 1934, embodying the creative, advanced thought that defines OEPI, Wiley Post collaborated with B.F. Goodrich to develop the world’s first high altitude pressure suit, the predecessor of what is today recognized as an astronaut’s space suit. Wiley Post used the suit on a number of successively higher altitude flights to eventually climb up to the previously unimaginable altitude of 50,000 feet. During these test flights he discovered the jet stream. His pressure suit can still be viewed at the National Air and Space Museum. 

This innovative spirit has permeated generations of the Post family and is very present in OEPI’s founder, Brad Post. Brad excelled among his peers and escaped the bonds of a rural southeast Oklahoma community. He received R.O.T.C. scholarships for both the United States Navy and United States Air Force and was accepted to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Brad chose the US Air Force Academy and in 2002 graduated with a bachelor of science in history. This may seem contradictory, a bachelor of science in history, but it again it exemplifies having one eye on the past and one eye looking to the future. As a US Air Force officer and pilot Brad flew the KC-135 tanker and MC-12 intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. One-Eyed Pilot Innovations embraces this innovative, pioneering spirit remembering where we’ve come from but always looking toward the horizon.