ATLANTIC FLIGHT

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1938, Page 8

ATLANTIC FLIGHT

CORRIGAN’S AL)VENTURIS, AMAZING CONDITIONS. LONDON, July 30. Douglas Corrigan, the 31-year-old Californian airman, who flew the Atlantic to Ireland in 28 hours 13 minutes, m “mistake”—-he said he wished really to go to Los Angeles from New York —lias won everybody’s admiration for a daring, if somewhat foolhardy flight. Coming immediately after the immaculate success of Howard Hughes' flight round the world, it provided something in the nature ot an anti-climax.

Hughes planned his flight, for, two years, and had every assistance that money could 'buy/;': (Corrigan paid for It is expenses'out of li is savings, anil he had only just enough funds to make the flight. He even slept beside his aeroplane—a. “terrible ship” it was called in America —to save hotel expenses.

•Corrigan bought his nine-year-old machine five years ago, paid £55 for it, and spent £lls on “improvements,” which included a bicycle wheel foi the undercarriage. The flight cost him 2d a mile (Hughes’ was estimated at £4 a mile), and be landed in Ireland without official permission, without passport or visa, and with about £2 in his pockets.

The airman\ no luggage, no charts, no radio, no parachute, and few instrunverits. These were restricted to a “bifhk and turn” indicator, an altimeter, , a simple compass, and a speed indicator. His ,map was a page torn from a school atlas; a four- shilling watch was his chronometer. The cabin was so cluttered up with extra petrol tanks : that, lie, could not see straight, ahead, and to do so he had to turrr the aeroplane and look out of a side window. The, door of h’s cabin was loose when/ lie left New York, and would not close, so he fixed it with a piece of wire hooked round a nail and tied round his waist.

For food Corrigan lmd only a few bars of chocolate, a gallon of water, and some fruit. His clothes were a leather jacket over his shirt, md a 'pair of oil-staineft, brrpvn' check trousers. Officials wore bewildered when he landed at tlm Raldonnel irnort, 10 miles from Dublin, and said, “Say is this Los Angeles?” For two hours he Had to explain to them why he had ,no miners, and the American in Dublin eventually helped him to straighten out matters, '