The story of an over-water flight with an unexpected ending

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.
 

Douglas G. Corrigan

 

Lindbergh Throws Down the Gauntlet

In May 1927, Charles Lindbergh established the touchstone of long-distance aviation by flying solo from New York to Paris non-stop in a single-engine airplane named "The Spirit of St. Louis." (The news media called him "Lucky Lindy," a nickname that bordered on insult; Lindbergh prepared meticulously for his 33-1/2 hour, 3600-mile trip across the Atlantic. His flawless navigation—virtually all of which was deduced reckoning—enabled him to make landfall in Ireland less than three miles off course…Lindbergh knew exactly what he was doing.)
 

 

Lindbergh chose the Ryan Aeronautical Company in San Diego to build a suitable airplane for his transatlantic flight with the understanding that the airplane would be ready to fly in 60 days. The Ryan folks met the deadline and were so proud of their accomplishment they posed for a group photo before Lindbergh headed east.
 

Among the 33 Ryan workers was Douglas Corrigan, a 20-year old mechanic and pilot who had worked on the wing structure of the "Spirit" and installed the fuel tanks and the instrument panel. Corrigan moved from California to New York City in 1930, worked odd jobs at Roosevelt Field and spent some time as a barnstormer.

He returned to California in 1933 on the wings of a well-used 1929 Curtiss Robin he had purchased in New York for $325, intending to refurbish the airplane and fulfill his Lindbergh-inspired dream of flying across the Atlantic.

Among the Corrigan changes were a rebuilt 5-cylinder, 165-hp engine (the original engine developed only 90 horse power) and interior tanks for the extra fuel a long-distance flight would require. A standard Curtiss Robin's wing tanks held 50 gallons of gasoline…but a flight that might last 30 hours would require six times that much fuel, so Corrigan installed cabin tanks that increased the total capacity to 320 gallons (1920 pounds) of gasoline. The tanks ran from wall to wall and occupied about 75 percent of the cabin volume; Corrigan was crammed into the remaining space and could not see anything straight ahead.
 

 



Fuel tanks in forward portion of the cabin

 

Corrigan's flight would be similar to Lindbergh's except for the destination…this Irish-American with Gaelic ancestors was determined to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic to Dublin, Ireland.  

Uncle Sam Gets in the Way

In 1936 the government denied Corrigan's request to conduct a transatlantic flight. He renewed his application in 1937 but was told to wait another year. After the third denial Corrigan obtained an experimental certificate for his airplane and was cleared for a test flight from California to New York and return.



Corrigan and his Curtiss Robin
  

Corrigan left Long Beach, California on July 7, 1938 and flew non-stop to Roosevelt Field in Mineola, NY. Nine days later he flew the Robin to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, topped off the tanks and prepared to leave for Long Beach, California the next morning in accordance with the flight plan he had filed.

At 5:15 a.m. on July 18 Corrigan took off on Floyd Bennett Field's eastbound runway and vanished into the clouds…he would not be heard from for the next 28 hours. The magnetic compass and a clock were his only tools for navigation; nearly the entire flight was in instrument conditions.

After flying for 26 hours the weather cleared and Corrigan found himself over open water. Two hours later he saw an airport and landed; it was the Baldonnel Aerodrome in Dublin and his first words on arrival were "I left New York yesterday morning headed for California…where am I?" When told he was in Ireland he said "I got mixed up in the clouds and I must have flown the wrong way." From that moment on he was known as "Wrong Way Corrigan," a nickname that became part of aviation history.

"Wrong Way" may have winked when he insisted he had misread the compass and thought he was headed for California. His "mistake" notwithstanding, he was hailed as a hero and returned to the U.S. on the ocean liner Manhattan. The captain joked with Corrigan on the bridge:

 



Captain: "California is that way."
Corrigan: "No, that is the wrong way!"

The New York Post welcomed Corrigan home with a unique headline:
 

 

When Corrigan returned to California he wrote a book about his adventure, starred as himself in a movie and eventually drifted into reclusion. He died in 1995 at age 88, having never admitted publicly that he intended to fly to Ireland in 1938.

"Wrong Way Corrigan" is buried in the Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California...but does anyone know what has happened to NX9243, his famous Curtiss Robin?