“WRONG WAY” CORRIGAN

                Douglas Corrigan took a plane flight for $2.50 as a teenager, he instantly fell in love with flying.  He got into aviation and became a pilot.  He also worked as a mechanic.  He was one of the mechanics who worked on Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.  In 1938, he bought a 1929 Curtiss Robin off the scrap heap.  It cost him $325.  He named the plane Sunshine.  He made the national news for flying Sunshine from California to New York. Not because it was unusual at this point for someone to fly nonstop across the country, but because he did it in a rattle-trap plane.  For his next stunt, he planned to fly the Atlantic.  Unfortunately, when he filed his flight plans, he was turned down because the officials considered the flight to be suicidal considering the condition of his plane.  So, Corrigan proclaimed he would fly back to California. He took off on a foggy day and soon reversed course and headed out over the ocean.  He carried two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, and a quart of water.  Along the way, he noticed gasoline sloshing around his feet.  One of his gas tanks had sprung a leak.  He grabbed a screwdriver and poked a hole in the floor so the gas would drain out.  After 28 hours, he spied a green land and he landed in Ireland.  The first person he met he said:  “Just got in from New York.  Where am I?”  This was just the beginning of his cheeky ploy of claiming he had mistakenly flown east instead of west.  He told Irish officials (and then reporters) that the fog threw him off and he read the compass wrong.  It was his story and he stuck to it, with a twinkle in his eye.    The press ate it up and christened him “Wrong Way” Corrigan.

https://www.historynet.com/the-adventures-of-wrong-way-corrigan.htm

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wrong-way-corrigan-crosses-the-atlantic