Tom Danagher arriving at Shannon, 1954

arubex

In August 1954 Texan pilot Tom Danagher [ correction: Danaher ] flew his Beechcraft Bonanza solo from Newfoundland to Shannon in 13.5 hours. Pretty impressive given the state of navigation and weather forecasting at the time.

Archive footage of him arriving:

http://www.efootage.com/stock-footage/77109/Texan_Flies_Atlantic/

... taxying in past a TWA Constellation.

The aircraft was blessed named Saint Brendan before continuing on to Europe.

I wonder what became of him and it.

arubex

Found him! There was no 'g' in his surname...

Tom Harding Danaher, 90, passed away Thursday, September 12, 2014 in Wichita Falls, Texas.
...
In late 1945, as a U.S. Marine Corps night fighter pilot, Tom flew Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats in the VMF (N) 543 “Night Hawks” squadron stationed at Okinawa. He was credited with shooting down three Japanese Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bombers, the last being the final one for the U.S. Marine Corps.
...
He was recalled during the Korean War and served with the VMF (N) 513 “Flying Nightmares” stationed at Kunsan, Korea participating in B-29 escort missions and nighttime combat air patrols flying the Douglas F3D-2 Skyknight
...
In 1954 he made a nonstop transatlantic flight in his Bonanza to visit RAF friends in England and, on the same trip, had an audience with Pope Pius XII.
...
Tom built Lake Wichita Airport in 1968 which he operated for the remainder of his life. In the late 1970s he became involved in flying for motion picture scenes starting with “Firepower” and then flew and coordinated flying scenes in some two dozen films including “Death Hunt”, “Out of Africa”, “Empire of the Sun”, “Goldeneye”, “Air America”, and “Cliffhanger”

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/obituaries/tom-danaher_63100584

And he ran the pirate radio station Radio London:

http://www.radiolondon.co.uk/rl/tomtribute/tomd.html

Legends of Aviation:

http://media.photobucket.com/user/KiddieHawk/media/2009%20Living%20Legends%20of%20Aviation/Celebrity/Morgan_FreemanTom_Danaher.jpg.html

Balf

Vaguely reminds me of "Wrong Way" Corrigan's flight in 1938

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Corrigan

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 25 US gal (94.64 L) of water.