Douglas Corrigan became internationally famous when in 1938 he set out
for a flight in his second-hand plane from New York to California and
instead wound up in Ireland, earning himself the nickname he would
carry for the rest of his life: "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
Flying in a 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane, on July 17, 1938 he loaded
320 gallons of gasoline (enough for 40 hours) into the tiny,
single-engine plane. He had announced he was heading west to Long
Beach, but when he took off from Floyd Bennett Field, the plane's nose
was heading east. He was previously denied permission to fly the
Atlantic by the Department of Commerce because of the condition of his
plane. Nearly 29 hours later he landed in Baldonnel near Dublin. He
returned to the US a hero and the ticker-tape parade for him in New
York was larger than
Charles A. Lindbergh's. He even
starred in a movie about his flight
(The Flying Irishman (1939).
A shy, private man, Corrigan became a test pilot for Douglass Aircraft
during World War II. He later grew oranges in Santa Monica, CA, where
he had lived since 1951.
