uɐƃıɹɹoɔ ʎɐʍ ƃuoɹʍ

[slngsht]

In a strange way, this reminds me of Frankn7

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/Wrong_Way_Corrigan.jpg

In 1933, he spent $310 on a used 1929 Curtiss Robin OX-5 monoplane and flew it home, where he returned to work as an aircraft mechanic and began to modify the Robin for a transatlantic flight. Having installed an engine built from two old Wright Whirlwind J6-5 engines (affording 165 hp (123 kW) instead of the 90 hp (67 kW) of the original) and extra fuel tanks, Corrigan applied to the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1935, seeking permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland. The application was rejected; his plane was deemed unsound for a nonstop transatlantic trip, although it was certified to the lower standard for cross-country journeys.

Over the next two years, Corrigan made repeated modifications and reapplications for full certification, but none succeeded. Indeed, by 1937, after extensive modifications in the face of increasing regulation, his aircraft was refused renewal of its licence because it was deemed to be too unstable for safe flight. His autobiography expresses his exasperation with official resistance and he is widely thought to have responded by deciding that year to make an unofficial crossing.

Although he never admitted it, he apparently planned a late arrival at New York so that he could refill his tanks and leave for Ireland after airport officials had gone home from work. Mechanical problems extended his unapproved inbound flight to nine days, which delayed him beyond the Atlantic "safe weather window", and he returned to California. As a result of this trip, he named his plane Sunshine, however, federal officials notified Californian airfield officials that Sunshine was not airworthy and it was grounded for six months.

 

On 9 July 1938, Corrigan again left California for Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York. He had repaired the engine (taking his total spent on the aircraft to about $900), gained an experimental licence, and obtained permission for a transcontinental flight with conditional consent for a return trip. With the Robin cruising at 85 miles per hour (137 km/h) for maximum fuel efficiency, the outward journey took him 27 hours. Fuel efficiency became critical towards the end of the flight: a gasoline leak developed, filling the cockpit with fumes.

 

Upon his unannounced arrival at Floyd Bennett Field, in the midst of Howard Hughes' preparations for takeoff on a world tour, Corrigan decided repairing the leak would take too long if he was to meet his schedule. His logged flight plan had him returning to California on July 17. He wanted to take off from Floyd Bennett that same night, but the manager of Floyd Bennett Field, Kenneth P. Behr, persuaded Corrigan to wait until first light. Before take off, Corrigan asked Behr which runway to use, and Behr told him to use any runway as long as he didn't take off to the west, in the direction of the administration building where Behr had his office. As recorded in Corrigan's autobiography, Behr wished him "Bon Voyage" prior to take-off, perhaps in a nod to Corrigan's intentions to fly the Atlantic. Upon take off at 5:15 in the morning with 320 gallons of gasoline and 16 gallons of oil, Corrigan headed east from the 4,200-foot (1,300 m) runway of Floyd Bennett Field and kept going. (Behr later swore publicly he had no pre-knowledge of Corrigan's intentions.)

 

Corrigan claimed to have noticed his "error" after flying for about 26 hours. This is not entirely consistent with his claim that after 10 hours, he felt his feet go cold; the cockpit floor was awash with gasoline leaking from the unrepaired tank. He used a screwdriver to punch a hole through the cockpit floor so that the fuel would drain away on the opposite side to the hot exhaust pipe, reducing the risk of a midair explosion. Had he been truly unaware he was over ocean, it seems likely he would have descended at this point; instead, he claimed to have increased the engine speed by almost 20% in the hope of decreasing his flight time.

 

He landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome, County Dublin, on July 18, after a 28-hour, 13-minute flight. His provisions had been just two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, and a quart of water.

Corrigan's plane had fuel tanks mounted on the front, allowing him to see only out of the sides. He had no radio and his compass was 20 years old. As the journalist H. R. Knickerbocker reported:

"As I looked over it at the Dublin airdrome I really marveled that anyone should have been rash enough even to go in the air with it, much less try to fly the Atlantic. He built it, or rebuilt it, practically as a boy would build a scooter out of a soapbox and a pair of old roller skates. It looked it. The nose of the engine hood was a mass of patches soldered by Corrigan himself into a crazy-quilt design. The door behind which Corrigan crouched for twenty-eight hours was fastened together with a piece of baling wire. The reserve gasoline tanks put together by Corrigan, left him so little room that he had to sit hunched forward with his knees cramped, and not enough window space to see the ground when landing.”

Despite this he arrived in good shape.

Aviation officials took 600 words to list the regulations broken by his flight in a telegram (a medium that encourages brevity by charging at a rate per word). Despite the extent of Corrigan's illegality, he received only a mild punishment; his pilot's certificate was suspended for fourteen days.

He and his plane returned to New York on the steamship Manhattan and arrived on August 4, the last day of his suspension. His return was marked with great celebration. More people attended his Broadway ticker-tape parade than had honored Lindbergh after his triumph, but Corrigan was disappointed that his hero never acknowledged his achievement. He was also given a ticker tape parade in Chicago.

[solder_guy]

baling wire .. leaking fuel tank .. and cannot see the ground .. too bad this beauty is not in the Smithsonian.