The pilot who flew the wrong way

Transcribed from the audio; small errors are possible.

In the summer of 1938, a young mechanic named Douglas Corrigan climbed into a plane he had rebuilt with his own hands. The officials had told him no. Ireland was too far, and his little plane was not safe. So he filed a flight plan for California. He took off from Brooklyn and turned east. No radio, no window ahead, only fuel tanks, chocolate bars, fig bars, and one quart of water. Twenty-eight hours later, he landed in Ireland. Where am I, he asked. His excuse, clouds and a compass read backwards. Nobody believed him. New York gave him a parade bigger than Lindbergh's, and he never admitted it. Not once.