Biographical Sketches

DOUGLAS CORRIGAN

Born: January 22, 1907    In: Galveston, TX
Died: December 9, 1995    In: Santa Ana, CA

Popularly known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan because of his flight from New York’s Floyd Bennett Field to Dublin, Ireland, instead of Los Angeles, in 1938. Whether this was intentional or truly a navigational error was never admitted by Douglas Corrigan, but he was a skilled pilot and navigator, holding a Transport Pilot’s license at the time, so hitting Dublin right on the nose after a 28-hour flight in mostly IFR conditions using only a magnetic compass and needle-and-ball and airspeed indicators smacks of more than plain luck. Additionally, Sunshine, his Curtiss Robin that the press described as "a worn-out relic" was far from that, barely nine years old, completely rebuilt, and with a freshly-majored 165hp Wright J-6... plus some extra fuel tanks.

Corrigan soloed a Jenny in 1926. As a mechanic at Ryan, he helped in the building of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis,and through the late ’20s and early ’30s he worked around the country as a mechanic and barnstorming pilot. Like so many others, his hero was Lindbergh, and it was his dream to some day do something equally noteworthy. This plan took shape as a transatlantic flight, but his proposals were rejected by the DoC in light of Earhart’s disappearance in 1937 and dismissed as foolhardy. Corrigan then revised the plans as a two-way, non-stop, transcontinental flight from Los Angeles to New York. These were accepted, and he received his Robin’s experimental license. The first leg of that trip came on June 9, 1938, when he arrived at New York, but bad weather kept him grounded until July 17. That morning, he departed without fanfare, ostensibly heading back to the west coast. Knowing he could lose his license for an unauthorized flight to Ireland, he pled guilty to "reading his compass backwards," and happily accepted the "Wrong-Way" nickname, which earned him his ticker-tape parade down Broadway, and instant acclaim by a public caught up in the humor of the event.

He made nationwide public appearances, wrote an autobiography and even starred as himself in a minor film, "The Flying Irishman." Thereafter he worked for Douglas as a test pilot, ferried planes overseas during WW2, and finally retired from aviation as an orange grower in Southern California after marrying his childhood sweetheart. ( K O Eckland)

REFERENCES:
That’s My Story; Douglas Corrigan (DuSMALL 1938)

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.