The first four decades of the 20th century witnessed
exponential growth in aviation, both civilian and military. Following the Wright
brothers' breakthrough flights in 1903 (eat your heart out, Gustav Whitehead) aeronautical
inventions were piled one upon the other in a virtual flood of flying machines; some
of them flew quite well but many of them never got off the ground.
The pilots who flew these aircraft played leading roles in the development of manned flight; without people who were willing to explore the limits of altitude, distance, speed, duration etc., aviation would have died on the vine. These pilots were record-setters and tested new aircraft (Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager et al come to mind) but most amateur pilots flew just for fun…and some of them made aviation history in the process. Douglas Corrigan was a pilot who fit comfortably into the latter category.
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| Douglas G. Corrigan |
