Posted on 07/19/2008 6:13:44 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
At 2:25 o’clock this afternoon [9:25 A. M. yesterday in New York] he made a perfect landing at Baldonnel Field with gasoline to spare out of the 320 gallons with which he took off from Floyd Bennett Field. His whole flight was illegal from beginning to end, but this did not appear to cost the flier a thought as he stepped out o his rather ancient machine. He was more concerned with the performance of his plane, of which he was proud.
He broke American regulations by taking off on the long-distance flight and he broke Irish regulations by landing at Baldonnel Field without a permit, but as for himself and the people who greeted him in Dublin this evening this disregard of international air conventions was only a minor detail against his remarkable achievement.
Among transatlantic fliers this adventurous and brave American must surely rank as one of the most modest and unassuming. Surrounded by a battery of cameramen and journalists at the United States Legation here this evening, this slim and small-set young man in his oil-stained gray pants, leather jacket and open-necked gray shirt had no idea of posing as a figure of world importance in the news. He regarded his hop from New York to Ireland as just another flight.
“I think my trip from California to New York was a bigger thing; it was much more dangerous,” he commented, minimizing by comparison his long, lone flight over the wastes of the Atlantic. [Corrigan flew nonstop from California to Roosevelt Field, L. I. on July 10, covering the 2,700 miles in 27 hours 50 minutes.]
He accounted for his presence in Dublin tonight by casually explaining that he had taken a wrong turning and had headed east instead of west because his compass played him false.
Some newspaper folk smiled dubiously, but Corrigan explained in detail how the pivot of one of his compasses stuck and did not come loose until near the end of the flight. He said this was the cause of his landing here instead of in California.
Describing his experience, this latest Atlantic hero, who said he was a part-time flying instructor and a part-time aircraft mechanic, explained:
“I left the flying fieled in New York at 5:15 yesterday morning with 320 gallons of gasoline in the tanks. The machine was heavy and I had to run about 2,500 feet to take off. It was a slow business, but I got off without a hitch. Then, flying by compass, I headed, as I thought, for California.
“I had no intention of flying to Ireland, although I had thought of a flight to this country and had studied maps. When up about 5,000 feet I came into a bank of clouds. For almost twenty-six hours I was in clouds all the time at an altitude of 5,000 to 6,000 feet and reckoned I must be well down toward California.
“It was impossible to try to get my bearings from anything around me, so I just flew by compass and only came down to 1,500 feet when I ran into rain. I caught a glimpse of the water then, but I rose back to 5,000 feet.
“The light was good when I came down again, and the first things I saw were fishing boats, but even then I thought I was off the Pacific Coast. About a half hour later I sighted the first land.
“Then, when I saw the layout of the country and the little white houses dotted here and there I realized it did not look like what it should look like to me. I kept on over the land and hit water again.
“Then I decided to hug the coast line until I struck some big town. The old bus was running fine and I had no worries, though I was feeling just a little sleepy and I was deaf in both ears from the noise of the engine. Along the coast I sighted several small towns, but I kept on until I came over the city.
“It took me some time coasting around to find the airfield. The ship came down nicely, and here I am in Dublin, far away from Los Angeles, to which I had planned to go.”
The only provisions Corrigan took with him were two boxes of fig biscuits, some bars of chocolate and a bottle of water. On the journey he ate one small box of fig biscuits and drank about a glass of water. When he stepped out of his plane he had only $15 in his pocket, and he carried a light waterproof coat.
His plane had no wireless and no special instruments or equipment, but he is very proud of its mechanical perfection despite its age.
“She was originally built to take a pilot and two passengers,” he said of the plane, “but I converted her into a single-seater and fitted bigger fuel tanks. Altogether she has done about a thousand flying hours.”
Asked if he would like to make a return trip by air, Corrigan replied:
“Sure. There is nothing wrong with the ship. Just give her a little grease and she will be ready for a hop back.”
But the flier announced later that he would return to the United States by steamship.
His machine was first sighted in Ireland as it passed over Belfast Harbor at 1:08 P. M. today. It was then flying at about 3,000 feet when noticed by Belfast Harbor airport officials. The plane was going well.
When Baldonnel military authorities notified the United States Legation here of Corrigan’s arrival, the legation sent a car to fetch him. United States Minister John Cudahy, who arrived back on horseback after a ride, greeted the flier as he drove up and offered him the hospitality of the legation, while legation officials dealt with the heavy rush of telephone calls from London for the flier.
After dinner, the airman, who had set Dublin agog, was whisked away to face a microphone in a Dublin broadcasting station. From a Dublin studio tonight he spoke over the radio and to an uncle in Los Angeles. He also spoke to Howard Hughes in New York. Corrigan’s parents both died while he was young; he has a brother, who works in Baltimore. [The brother, Harry, now on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia, praised the flight and his brother Douglas, The Canadian Press reported from Halifax.]
Tonight the daredevil airman sleeps in the legation. What his future plans are he did not know. With little money and no wardrobe he retired weary but quietly happy, not so much over his own personal achievement as that of this plane. This quiet-spoken little man may have embarrassed officials both in the United States and here by flouting all the laws of air traffic, but he has stirred the imagination of the world by conquering the Atlantic in this old machine in which his faith reposed.
Douglas Corrigan’s flight to Ireland astounded his closest friends here, who had had no inkling that he was contemplating anything more than a return flight to California. No one among the handful of people who saw him take off from Floyd Bennett Field in the gray dawn Sunday morning realized that he was bound across the Atlantic.
The only persons who saw him lift his overloaded ship from the transatlantic runway were Kenneth Behr, airport manager; Neal Grignon, Dock Department inspector at the field; Rudy Arnold, the field photographer; an ambulance surgeon and the men of a police emergency squad and a fire truck, summoned, as is routine, at the take-off for a distance flight.
All week Corrigan had been maintaining his intention of flying non-stop to California by way of Atlanta. He had daily studied the weather maps in THE NEW YORK TIMES, which he borrowed each day for that purpose from John Drennan, a reporter at Roosevelt Field, where he landed July 9 after his non-stop flight from Long Beach, Calif. He made no inquiries at any time about the weather over the ocean.
Dr. James H. Kimball, director of the United States Weather Bureau in New York, who has been the patron saint of transatlantic fliers, said yesterday that his office had had no known contact with Corrigan.
“He might have found out the condition of weather over the Atlantic,” Dr. Kimball said, “without consulting us direct, however, or, at any rate, without making himself known. Many persons ask for weather conditions daily over the Atlantic, as they want to know what kind of conditions their friends at sea will encounter. Also the daily maps which we prepare of Atlantic weather are posted at the Custom House and are available to many shipping lines. I only hope that a lot of other young fliers will not try to emulate Mr. Corrigan’s lucky crossing.”
When the flier left the home of Stephen Reich, an old barnstorming companion with whom he had been staying at 102 Vat Cott Street, Hempstead, L. I., he remarked that he would be back in a week or so to pick up his clothing. Reich had intended to go to Floyd Bennett Field to see Corrigan take off, but overslept and missed the departure.
On reaching Floyd Bennett Field Saturday, Corrigan found he had 102 gallons of gasoline left in his tanks. He had 218 additional gallons put into his tanks, paying $62.26 for it in cash, including a city sales tax of $1.22. He did not bother to have the gasoline screened through chamois, as is usual on distance flights.
He put in five new sparkplugs, but decided not to replace the other five, although he remarked, casually, that they had done 700 hours of service. Corrigan, who services his ship himself, had told friends that he had decided it was unnecessary to take down his motor for a complete overhauling after the flight from the Coast and he made the flight across the ocean without having done so.
While he was waiting for dawn he was asked by William Miller, manager of the Hoey hanger, where he had stored his plane, how he kept awake on flights of long duration. Mr. Miller wanted to know whether he used ammonia tablets for that purpose, as some distance fliers do.
“No,” the quiet young pilot responded. “I just stick my head out of the window and let the air revive me when I feel sleepy.”
He revealed that he had been asked by a newsreel company to delay his departure until they could arrange to take pictures of it, but he said that he was not interested in publicity.
“Let Hughes get all the publicity,” he said. “He’s made a real flight.”
When he was ready to start he asked the driver of the gasoline truck that had fueled him to swing his propeller. The driver did so several times unsuccessfully, so Corrigan asked him to hold the ship’s throttle while the sandy-haired young flier got out and swung the propeller until the engine started.
He had torn two pages of maps from an atlas and pinned them to his instrument board, according to Mr. Grignon. As a last-minute precaution he took his flashlight and looked into his fuel tanks to make sure that they were full. Then he got into the plane, and as there was no latch on the door he fastened it with a piece of wire.
Mr. Behr wished him good luck, and without further ado Corrigan started his plane down the long transatlantic runway toward the northeast, with flares adding their light to that of the early dawn. The plane did not get off the ground until after it had covered about 3,000 feet of the 4,200-foot runway. It continued straight into the northeast until it vanished in the distance.
Only then, when Corrigan failed to bank around and head for the west, did the first suspicion arise that he was determined to fly the Atlantic. Mr. Behr turned to a neighbor and remarked, “I’ve got a hunch this fellow is on his way to Europe.
“I’m Douglas Corrigan. Just got in from New York. Where am I? I intended to fly to California.
He didn’t have a passport, landing papers or maps. He didn’t have a radio or any fancy instruments. But he had an incorrigible grin and his story of a flight in the wrong direction.
It was the most sensational “wrong way run” since the dash of Roy Riegels, University of California football player, sixty yards in the wrong direction in the Jan. 1, 1929, Rose bowl game with Georgia Tech.
Airport officials took a look at the American’s single-engined plane and shuddered. Hundreds of persons flocked to the airport to see the flier and his craft.
Corrigan landed his monoplane near a new type, twin-engined plane of the Irish Sea Airways, which was just about to hoop to London. Passengers clambered out to look. They whistled and one remarked: “It’s a curious looking affair.”
But the American didn’t think so. He patted his ship.
Astonished officials asked so many questions they almost forgot to ask him for his landing papers.
“Forget it,” he grinned when they did get around to that. “Really, I thought I was going to California.”
No one took seriously his story that he had flown in the wrong direction, but nevertheless he repeated it time and again. He told United States Minister John Cudahy:
“I had intended to fly across the Atlantic to Ireland and had studied maps – but this time I was heading back to Los Angeles, honestly.”
At these words there was a sparkle in the airman’s eyes. There was another in Mr. Cudahy’s.
“Come on and have a bath and dinner,” the Minister said.
The report spread quickly in Dublin that there was “a crazy flier” in town, and it reached newspaper headlines just like that. Corrigan was munching sandwiches as airport officials pressed him to produce his landing papers.
“Really now, I thought I was heading for California,” he beamed. “It was not until I saw your mountains here that I realized it was not California.”
It is expected he will be the guest of the Minister for several days. Technically Corrigan is under detention because of his lack of papers.
He said he circled around the northern coast of Ireland after reaching the western coast and finally picked out Dublin’s Baldonnel airport for his landing.
Veteran fliers said Corrigan’s feat was accomplished against odds of 100 to 1. It amazed Baldonnel airport officials. He apparently had aimed straight and unerringly for the goal he long had cherished.
That’s what the airport gang called Douglas G. Corrigan’s rejuvenated 1929 “crate” in which he crossed the Atlantic.
“Why, it took Doug thirteen days to fly the ship back from New York where he bought it in 1935,” said Larry Connor, 27-year-old mechanic, who helped rebuild the ship.
“He landed in cow pastures all along the route and had to work on the crate all night so he could fly it the next day.”
Connor described Corrigan as a “depression aviator,” a quiet chap who “flies by the seat of his trousers and puts every dime he’s got into his plane.”
“When he got the clipper back to San Diego where he worked as a welder for the Ryan factory, Doug disassembled the ship, trimmed it up and recovered it at night,” Connor explained.
“He pulled out the ninety-horse-power Ox-5 motor for which the plane was built, traded some stuff for two used Wright engines, and put the best parts of each into the power plant which hauled him across the continent and the Atlantic.
“He used to take us up at night, and we’d test fly the Clipper all over San Diego, landing at an abandoned airport on Camp Kearney mesa with the aid of a flashlight.
“Doug never spoke more than five words all day, but we did learn he had the Atlantic hop in mind,” Connor continued. “To save money for the flight he would eat a half pecan roll and drink a half bottle of milk for breakfast and finish the remainder off for supper.”
“Corrigan made six flights across the country in the antiquated Curtiss Robin monoplane to practice the navigation principles he’d been studying at home in books,” the mechanic said.
The ship carries an experimental license that must be renewed every thirty days, according to Connor, who said that Corrigan at times found it difficult to provide Department of Commerce examiners with sufficient reasons for a renewal.
Once before, he said the pilot had applied for a permit to fly the Atlantic and he failed to receive permission because of insufficient equipment.
“Why, they wouldn’t even let him take off at night,” the mechanic grinned.
His most vivid impression of Corrigan came during a forced landing which the flier had to make in Marguerita Canyon near Oceanside when the weather closed in on the 1929 “crate” and it s two occupants.
“We came in fast, chase cows ahead of us down the canyon and settled down perfectly on a clearing about as big as a handkerchief,” he recalled. “Knowing that cows like the taste of airplane ‘dope,’ Doug refused to leave the ship and slept in the tiny cabin all night to keep the bovines form wrecking the fabric.”
“I’m not surprised he made it, though,” Connor concluded. “He’s a swell pilot – no show off about him - no braggadocio; just quiet determination.”
The “old-fashioned” plane that Douglas P. Corrigan used to fly the Atlantic from Floyd Bennett Field was a Curtiss Robin, high-wing monoplane, originally delivered to the Curtiss Wright Flying Service at Garden City, L. I., on Aug. 17, 1929.
A four-place, externally braced cabin plane, fabric covered, it has a span of 41 feet, a length of 26 feet 6 inches and a wing area of 224 square feet. How much it was over-loaded when Corrigan pulled it from the long runway at Floyd Bennett at dawn on Sunday may be realized from the fact that its gross normal weight is 2,523 pounds, while its take-off weight, not counting Corrigan himself or the sheet metal tanks which he installed, was 3,595 pounds.
The maximum normal speed of the Robin is 118 miles an hour and the cruising speed between 90 and 100 miles an hour. Normal cruising range is only 338 miles. This, however, had been stretched by the young aviator sufficiently to bring him from Los Angeles to Roosevelt Field nonstop and from Floyd Bennett Field to Dublin by installing extra fuel capacity in the form of sheet metal tanks which he welded himself.
The tanks were so placed that the pilot had no forward vision when the plane was flying in a normal level attitude. He had to bank about 40 degrees and look out of the side windows in order to see ahead. Corrigan had provided some overhead vision by letting a small window about 6x6 inches into the wing above the pilot’s seat.
The engine of the plane is a Wright Whirlwind five cylinder J-6, air-cooled radial, with 165 horse-power, smallest of this series. Its normal gasoline consumption is about nine gallons an hour, although this was, of course, greatly exceeded in the early stages of the transatlantic hop because of the great overload. The engine burns about three pints of oil an hour and for his flight to Dublin Corrigan took along sixteen gallons of oil.
Before the take-off, it was learned yesterday, he removed the covers of the rocker boxes that house the valve mechanism and stuffed them with grease, a procedure contrasting sharply with the lubrication of the valves of Howard Hughes’s round-the-world plane, which are automatically oiled by the engine itself.
The Corrigan plane, without radio of any kind, had only the barest complement of necessary instrument. On an old radio panel the pilot had fixed a small compass, an altimeter, an air-speed indicator and a turn-and-bank indicator. After his unheralded trip East he had patched the wings of his plane. He gave them only one coat of “dope” so, he said, as “not to make the plane too heavy.”
Corrigan, who had failed to receive permission last year from the Bureau of Air Commerce to attempt an Atlantic flight, carried an experimental license on this plane which was issued in California for the cross-country flight from Los Angeles to New York. This was number NX-9243, serial 305.
Officials of Pan American Airways said yesterday that they had instructed their Dublin representatives to do all they could for the young flier and furnish him with some money and clothing, both of which he apparently needed.
“Gosh, I hope Mr. Gentry heard about that,” was his first comment. “That just goes to show what the hedge-hoppers can do when they have faith in themselves and their ships.”
Schapansky is a butter and egg farmer who built himself a “crate” out of materials picked up on the farm and in junk shops. Two weeks ago he cracked up for the “steenth” time and was “grounded “ by J. M. Gentry, State Public Safety Commissioner, who warned him that the next time he took “that damn fool thing” off the ground he would be fined $100 and probably thrown into jail.
Thus far the Federal air officials have just smiled at the farmer’s antics, although he has been warned about trying to get into the air lines with his “flying coffin.”
“I’m not bragging a bit about this thing of mine that they call a ‘crate’,” Herman said. “I know it will fly – why, I’ve been hopping hedges around here for about a year. Those little crack-ups haven’t hurt any one. I’ve got a couple of scratches and have scared the devil out of some cows, but look what happened to some of the smart boys with all those new-fangled flying gadgets they’ve got.
“Now that Corrigan has shown the world that these old ‘crates’ will fly, aviation is getting a new start. It will give people a new confidence in aviation. Anyway, ain’t the highways full of ‘jalopies,’ and do they have the most accidents?
“I’d try the Atlantic myself, I guess, if I could get enough money to buy a license and enough gasoline.”
Mayor La Guardia declared yesterday that the solo flight of Douglas G. Corrigan was “another indication of the advancement of aviation and the way in which we have learned from the experiences of other fliers.”
Others who commented on the flight declared themselves amazed at the audacity of the pilot who would attempt such a a flight “on the spur of the moment.”
Commander George F. Chapline, vice president of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation in Paterson, N. J., builders of the 165-horsepower engine in Corrigan’s plane, said he could see nothing foolish in the flight but that its suddenness had taken away the breaths of more experienced pilots. Commander Chapline was formerly one of the leading pilots of the Naval Air Service.
Harry P. M. Connor, navigator of Howard Hughes’s round-the-world plane, said that the flight to Ireland was “just plain crazy but damned good flying.” He went on to say that for years those seriously interested in the furtherance of aviation had been striving to dispel just such impressions as the Corrigan flight typifies, the mental picture of pilots as drunken or devil-may-care fellows with no regard for safety.
“Very, very remarkable,” was the only comment of Hughes.
Captain Haldeman, Department of Commerce inspector at the Wayne County airport, said he thought it was foolhardy of Corrigan to fly the ocean in a plane so poorly equipped.
“It has been proved time and again that the Atlantic can be crossed,” he said. “Why should any one risk the flight in a jalopy? The outcome might have been different if he had encountered bad flying weather.”
Corrigan’s first statement that he might fly back to California is printed. The Lokalanzeiger states that after years of pioneering, brought to a climax by Howard Hughes’s scientific flight, “along comes a boy from California, buys himself an old ‘kiste’ [box, or crate] at an airplane graveyard for laughingly little money, gets in and flies over the North Atlantic as though that was the easiest thing in the world.”
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, July 18 (AP).-Three Argentine naval fliers were injured today at Quilmes, near here, in an airplane crash. They were taking aerial photographs.
His application for a co-pilot’s position has been on file with American Airlines since 1937, it was disclosed here today. Corrigan, who holds a transport pilot’s certificate, has been studying instrument flying to qualify himself for such a job.
The Los Angeles office of American Airlines tonight stated that its five West Coast 1,000,000 milers, Johnny Martin, H. B. (Hap) Russell, Joe Glass, Leland Andrews and Ted Lewis have only praise for Corrigan’s feat.
It was rumored that when Corrigan returned to the United States, he might step into his long-awaited position with the airline.
GLENDALE, Calif. July 18 (AP).-It certainly was a great day for the Corrigans.
Douglas flew the Atlantic solo and his sister, Mrs. Stanton McGlish, gave birth to an eight-pound four-ounce daughter at Glendale Research Hospital.
“I’m glad the baby’s a girl and glad Douglas is safe,” the mother said.
“After the one he pulled,” Mr. Hulett said, “I think he deserves it. Anyway it’s a good story.”
Corrigan, when he landed in Ireland, said, “I thought it was California all the time until I saw your mountains here.”
Mr. Hulett declared Corrigan was automatically qualified as an entrant for the 1939 liars’ marathon, decided next New Year’s Day. “I’ll settle for the membership for a shillelagh or if Corrigan will kiss the blarney stone for me,” Mr. Hulett asserted.
In modern transport and distance planes the end of the Venturi tube is heated to prevent ice from forming on it and closing the opening, through which air is carried from outside the cabin to the air speed indicator on the instrument board.
Wrong Way Corrigan is one of my role models.
Sidebars:
FLIGHT ASTOUNDS EVEN HIS FRIENDS
“Just in From New York”
PLANE WAS DUBBED ‘CORRIGAN CLIPPER’
Butter-and-Egg ‘Hedge-Hopper’ is Elated; Defends ‘Crates’ and ‘Jalopies’ Against Law
COMMENT IS VARIED ON CORRIGAN’S FEAT
REICH PRESS DERIDES HOP
3 Argentine Naval Fliers Hurt
MAY GET JOB AS PILOT
CORRIGAN NIECE ARRIVES
Corrigan Made Member Of Wisconsin Liars’ Club
Stick Replaced Heating As Weapon Against Ice
Ready for Flight to Bucharest
He seems like a really cool guy. During his lifetime (which lasted until 1995) he never copped to flying across the Atlantic on purpose. The statement by the manager at Floyd Bennett Field is the only hint in the story that the trip was planned. That, and the fact that a pilot as capable as Corrigan probably wouldn't leave the airport pointed in the wrong direction.
He knew what he was doing. He was thumbing his nose at the man.
What a funny guy. I had only heard bits and pieces of this before. Thanks for posting it.
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