By Alan Smith

In October of 1925 when 18-year-old Douglas Corrigan went for a ride in a Curtiss Jenny, he had no idea that in thirteen years he would be both famous and notorious. What the ride did was change his goal in life from being an architect to living in the growing world of aviation. He started taking flying lessons every Sunday and after twenty Sundays he soloed. The government rules and regulations of aviation were still forming and Corrigan soon had a pilot’s license in hand. He also had good mechanical talent gained from a few years in the construction business. When his parents divorced, he had quit school and gone to work to earn money.  His father was a construction engineer and Douglas had learned a lot from him.

Claude Ryan and his partner B.F Mahoney were building airplanes as the Ryan Aeronautical Company at the California airfield where Corrigan learned to fly and also had a shop in San Diego. They offered Corrigan a job as a mechanic at their San Diego operation when they decided to shut down their factory near Los Angeles and move south. It was 1927 and Corrigan saw about a half dozen partially built airplanes in Ryan’s San Diego plant. They just sat there because of cancelled orders.  Corrigan went to work wondering how long this job would last.