Living the Long-Haul Flight Lifestyleįresh meals were cooked for the duo by the chefs at the Hacienda, though the food had to be chopped up to fit in thermos containers to be passed up to the plane. What downtime was available was spent reading comics and making up simple games such as counting cars on the roads below to pass the time. This, and the job of flying the plane kept Timm and Cook plenty busy. Over the course of the near-65 day flight, the plane was refuelled by its truck over 128 times. Officials monitoring the record chased the plane down the runway in a convertible Ford Thunderbird, putting white paint on the tires as an indicator to ensure the plane didn’t make any secret landings during the attempt. The plane took off once more on December 4, 1958, at 3:52 PM from McCarran Field, Las Vegas. The original co-pilot was dismissed, and 33-year-old John Wayne Cook, a pilot and airplane mechanic, was given the job instead. The alcohol injection system was quietly modified to harmlessly squirt the alcohol overboard instead of into the engine. It was clear changes were needed.įor the next attempt, Kuenzi reinstalled the plane’s original engine, which had 450 hours on the clock. The duo had managed to fly their own Cessna 172 for a full 50 days, landing on September 21 1958. Timm wasn’t getting along with his co-pilot, and pilots Jim Heth and Bill Burkhart had just set a record of their own. After the first three flights, the plane had never stayed aloft longer than 17 days. The aim was to reduce carbon build-up over the long duration flight, but the engine suffered burnt exhaust valves which curtailed the third attempt. The plane had been fitted with a brand-new engine from Continental Motors Corp., fitted with an alcohol injection system at Timm’s insistence, despite the protests of lead mechanic Irv Kuenzi. The same system was used to regularly pull up food, oil and other supplies like towels and water for shaving and bathing. The winch would then pull up a fuel hose from the truck, which would be used to fill the belly tank in around three minutes. Refuelling was handled by lowering a hook via a winch down to a fuel truck that would trail the plane on a straight stretch of road, usually twice a day. Keeping the Engine Turning The Hacienda Cessna 172 refuelling during its record flight. This allowed the co-pilot some additional room to move during the crucial refuelling operations. A platform was also rigged up that could be extended out of the co-pilot’s side of the aircraft. The interior was stripped out, and the standard co-pilots door was also removed, replaced with a folding-style accordion door instead. Special plumbing was also added that would allow the engine oil and filters to be changed while the engine was still running. The pint-sized Cessna was fitted with a 95-gallon belly tank, paired with a electric pump that could transfer fuel to the main wing tanks as needed. Modifications to prepare the aircraft for the stunt took the best part of a year. Bailey agreed, and committed $100,000 to the effort. Proprietor Doc Bailey was always on the hunt for promotional ideas, and Timm pitched his boss that a record attempt in a plane bearing the casino’s branding would be a good way to go. However, the real truth is that Bob Timm was a slot machine mechanic and former bomber pilot who worked at the Hacienda casino in Las Vegas. One might expect that such an effort was undertaken to push the envelope or to strike new ground in the world of aerospace engineering. The duo remained aloft for a full 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes, setting a record that stands to this day. From December 1958 to February 1959, Bob Timm and John Cook set out to make history. The longest of all happened to be undertaken by that most humble of aircraft, the Cessna 172. However, many of the longest duration flights have been undertaken as entirely civilian operations. Big planes with highly-trained crew will fly for long periods, using air-to-air refuelling to stay aloft for extended periods. Often, when we think of long-endurance flights, our first thoughts jump to military operations.
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