Douglas Corrigan (1/22/07 – 12/9/95) started taking flying lessons a week after seeing people paying for short plane rides. After 20 lessons, he first flew solo on March 25, 1926. He started working on airplanes by helping design and build Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis”.

In 1933, he bought a used plane and started modifying it for a trip across the Atlantic. In 1935, his application to fly non-stop from New York to Ireland was rejected. His plane, “Sunshine”, was deemed unfit.

Mr. Corrigan made more modifications and transatlantic applications, all to no avail, as regulations became increasingly stringent. In 1937, he lost permission for transcontinental flight in the plane.

In 1938, after further upgrading Sunshine, he obtained an experimental license to fly it from Long Beach, California to New York City and back. To fly back to California, he was instructed to fly east and loop around to the west on takeoff.

Mr. Corrigan continued flying east and landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome in County Dublin, Ireland, on July 18, after 28 hours in the air.

He used a 20-year-old compass and, because of the front-mounted extra fuel tanks, could look out only the side windows. Sunshine had no radio. There was heavy cloud cover.

Mr. Corrigan never admitted that his unauthorized, non-stop, transatlantic flight was deliberate. He said that he simply went the wrong way and failed to notice until he was past the point of no return.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org