The plane that stayed in the air flying for 64 days, 22 hours and 18 minutes.

 

How Two Pilots Flew For More Than 64 Consecutive Days Without Landing.

In 1958 two men in a Cessna took off on a nonstop 150,000-mile flight around the desert outside Las Vegas and set a record that still stands.

In May, Australia's Qantas Airways announced it had ordered the aircraft to link Sydney to London or New York with nonstop flights. Codenamed Project Sunrise, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce talked of breaking through the last frontier and how Australia would now be one flight away from anywhere.

Qantas has chosen the Airbus A350-1000 for the job but have they picked the wrong aircraft? Perhaps they should have considered the Cessna 172 that hangs above the baggage carousel at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS). In 1958, that Cessna 172 flew nonstop for 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes and covered 150,000 miles (240,000 kilometers). That's about six times around the Earth or 15 Sydney-New York flights without touching the ground.

It started as a flying billboard for the Hacienda Hotel. 

In 1956, an entrepreneur wanted to promote his Las Vegas hotel and his slot machine mechanic, Robert Timm, a WW2 bomber pilot, had an idea. He convinced the owner to fund an attempt to break the manned flight endurance record, with Hacienda Hotel featured prominently on the aircraft. Timm found a Cessna 172, registered N9217B, and with a trusted mechanic, spent a year modifying it for the record attempt. Like Airbus, they installed a belly tank to supplement the 47 gallons carried in the wings. The 95-gallon belly tank had an electric pump to transfer fuel to the main tank, and they also replumbed the oil lines to change oil and filters without shutting down the engine.

After three failed attempts, Timm found a new co-pilot and mechanic, John Wayne Cook and ultimately, they took off on December 4, 1958, at 3:52 pm. They made a low pass on the airfield to allow a chase car to paint white stripes on the aircraft's tires to ensure they didn't make any secret landings. They spent most of their time flying over the deserts around Las Vegas, sometimes diverting to Los Angeles for TV promotional opportunities. Now for the really ingenious method of refueling. Twice daily, a truck fitted with a fuel tank and pump would rendezvous with the aircraft over a straight stretch of closed highway.

Ground to air refueling at its best

The Cessna would fly roughly 20 feet off the ground and use an electric winch to lower a hook and snag the refueling hose. Timm or Cook would stand on a platform outside the door and insert the hose into the belly tank, taking around three minutes to fill. Over the course of the flight they refueled 128 times. The Hacienda prepared gourmet meals, but the food had to be chopped up and stuffed into thermos jugs to get them to the pilots.

Thirty-nine days in, the generator failed, so they had no lights, heat or fuel pump. The pair relied on a hand pump to transfer fuel and soon after had to refuel in the dark, with no lights or moon. They passed the existing record but decided to keep flying for as long as possible. By the beginning of February, the spark plugs and combustion chambers were loaded with carbon, making it difficult to climb with a full load after refueling. They decided to land on February 7, 1959, but before they could touch down, the paint on the tires was checked, and no scuff marks were found.

Timm and Cook had to be lifted out of the Cessna, and their record still stands today. Robert Timm died in 1976 and John Cook in 1995, both in Las Vegas, and the Hacienda Hotel was demolished in December 1996.

So the next time you're stuck next to someone on a flight for a few hours, try imagining how you would feel after 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes.