Douglas Corrigan

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American pilot known as "Wrong Way Corrigan" due to the fact that he flew in the wrong direction and arrived in Ireland on 17 July 1938. He had left Brooklyn headed for California, but flew east instead of west for a 27-hour flight. For his misadventure, he earned about $85,000 in the form of lecture fees, articles and a movie, The Flying Irishman, 1939. His "accidental" flight made aviation history, but he is the only one who really knows if it was a fantastic feat or a monumental blunder. Corrigan had a rickety Curtis Robin single-seater that he bought for $325. His 1936 application to fly to Ireland was refused by U.S. authorities because his plane was so decrepit, and he now quips, "They told me to get lost. So I did." The money from the 1939 movie (in which he played himself) paid him enough to buy an orange grove in Santa Ana, California, where he lived until his death. After Roy, the youngest of his three sons, died in a plane crash, Douglas eventually gave up flying. Corrigan died on 9 December 1995, Orange, California. Link to Wikipedia biography