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From: Miloch <Miloch_member@newsguy.com>
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Subject: Wrong Way Corrigan
Date: 12 Jun 2017 07:02:36 -0700
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more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Corrigan
...Corrigan moved from job to job as an aircraft mechanic, using his employers'
planes to develop his flying skills. He gained his transport pilot's certificate
in October 1929, and in 1930, started a passenger service between small East
Coast towns, with his friend Steve Reich. The most lucrative part of the
business turned out to be barnstorming displays promoting short recreational
plane rides. Despite business success, after a few years, Corrigan decided to
return to the West Coast. In 1933, he spent $310 on a used 1929 Curtiss Robin
OX-5 monoplane and flew it home, where he returned to work as an aircraft
mechanic and began to modify the Robin for a transatlantic flight.
Having installed an engine built from two old Wright Whirlwind J6-5 engines
(affording 165 hp (123 kW) instead of the 90 hp (67 kW) of the original) and
extra fuel tanks, Corrigan applied to the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1935,
seeking permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland. The
application was rejected; his plane was deemed unsound for a nonstop
transatlantic trip, although it was certified to the lower standard for
cross-country journeys.
Over the next two years, Corrigan made repeated modifications and reapplications
for full certification, but none succeeded. Indeed, by 1937, after extensive
modifications in the face of increasing regulation, his aircraft was refused
renewal of its licence because it was deemed to be too unstable for safe flight.
His autobiography expresses his exasperation with official resistance and he is
widely thought to have responded by deciding that year to make an unofficial
crossing.
Although he never admitted it, he apparently planned a late arrival at New York
so that he could refill his tanks and leave for Ireland after airport officials
had gone home from work. Mechanical problems extended his unapproved inbound
flight to nine days, which delayed him beyond the Atlantic "safe weather
window", and he returned to California. As a result of this trip, he named his
plane Sunshine, however, federal officials notified Californian airfield
officials that Sunshine was not airworthy and it was grounded for six months.
On 9 July 1938, Corrigan again left California for Floyd Bennett Field,
Brooklyn, New York. He had repaired the engine, taking his total spent on the
aircraft to about $900 (equal to $15,313 today),[5] gained an experimental
license, and obtained permission for a transcontinental flight with conditional
consent for a return trip. With the Robin cruising at 85 miles per hour (137
km/h) for maximum fuel efficiency, the outward journey took him 27 hours. Fuel
efficiency became critical towards the end of the flight: a gasoline leak
developed, filling the cockpit with fumes.
Upon his unannounced arrival at Floyd Bennett Field, in the midst of Howard
Hughes's preparations for takeoff on a world tour, Corrigan decided repairing
the leak would take too long if he was to meet his schedule. His logged flight
plan had him returning to California on July 17. Before take off, Corrigan asked
the manager of Floyd Bennett Field, Kenneth P. Behr, which runway to use, and
Behr told him to use any runway as long as he didn't take off to the west, in
the direction of the administration building where Behr had his office. As
recorded in Corrigan's autobiography, Behr wished him "Bon Voyage" prior to
take-off, perhaps in a nod to Corrigan's intentions to fly the Atlantic. Upon
take off at 5:15 in the morning with 320 US gallons (1,200 L) of gasoline and 16
US gallons (61 L) of oil, Corrigan headed east from the 4,200-foot (1,300 m)
runway of Floyd Bennett Field and kept going. (Behr later swore publicly he had
no foreknowledge of Corrigan's intentions.)
Corrigan claimed to have noticed his "error" after flying for about 26 hours.
This is not entirely consistent with his claim that after 10 hours, he felt his
feet go cold; the cockpit floor was awash with gasoline leaking from the
unrepaired tank. He used a screwdriver to punch a hole through the cockpit floor
so that the fuel would drain away on the side opposite the hot exhaust pipe,
reducing the risk of a midair explosion. Had he been truly unaware he was over
ocean, it seems likely he would have descended at this point; instead, he
claimed to have increased the engine speed by almost 20% in the hope of
decreasing his flight time.
He landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome, County Dublin, on July 18, after a 28-hour,
13-minute flight. His provisions had been just two chocolate bars, two boxes of
fig bars, and 25 US gal (94.64 L) of water.
Corrigan's plane had fuel tanks mounted on the front, allowing him to see only
out of the sides. He had no radio and his compass was 20 years old. The
journalist H. R. Knickerbocker, who met Corrigan in Ireland after his arrival,
wrote in 1941:
"You may say that Corrigan's flight could not be compared to Lindbergh's in its
sensational appeal as the first solo flight across the ocean. Yes, but in
another way the obscure little Irishman's flight was the more audacious of the
two. Lindbergh had a plane specially constructed, the finest money could buy. He
had lavish financial backing, friends to help him at every turn. Corrigan had
nothing but his own ambition, courage, and ability. His plane, a nine-year-old
Curtiss Robin, was the most wretched-looking jalopy.
"As I looked over it at the Dublin airdrome I really marveled that anyone should
have been rash enough even to go in the air with it, much less try to fly the
Atlantic. He built it, or rebuilt it, practically as a boy would build a scooter
out of a soapbox and a pair of old roller skates. It looked it. The nose of the
engine hood was a mass of patches soldered by Corrigan himself into a
crazy-quilt design. The door behind which Corrigan crouched for twentyeight
hours was fastened together with a piece of baling wire. The reserve gasoline
tanks put together by Corrigan, left him so little room that he had to sit
hunched forward with his knees cramped, and not enough window space to see the
ground when landing.[6]
Aviation officials took 600 words to list the regulations broken by his flight
in a telegram (a medium that encourages brevity by charging at a rate per word).
Despite the extent of Corrigan's illegality, he received only a mild punishment;
his pilot's certificate was suspended for 14 days. He and his plane returned to
New York on the steamship Manhattan and arrived on August 4, the last day of his
suspension. His return was marked with great celebration. More people attended
his Broadway ticker-tape parade than had honored Lindbergh after his triumph. He
was also given a ticker tape parade in Chicago.
He appeared as a contestant on the July 16, 1957 episode of To Tell the Truth.
*
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