Often, when we think of long-endurance flights, our first thoughts jump to military operations. Big planes with highly-trained crew will fly for long periods, using air-to-air refuelling to stay aloft for extended periods.
However, many of the longest duration flights have been undertaken as entirely civilian operations. The longest of all happened to be undertaken by that most humble of aircraft, the Cessna 172. From December 1958 to February 1959, Bob Timm and John Cook set out to make history. The duo remained aloft for a full 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes, setting a record that stands to this day. //
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. Special plumbing was also added that would allow the engine oil and filters to be changed while the engine was still running.
The interior was stripped out, and the standard co-pilots door was also removed, replaced with a folding-style accordion door instead. A platform was also rigged up that could be extended out of the co-pilot’s side of the aircraft. This allowed the co-pilot some additional room to move during the crucial refuelling operations. //
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. 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. The same system was used to regularly pull up food, oil and other supplies like towels and water for shaving and bathing. //
The plane took off once more on December 4, 1958, at 3:52 PM from McCarran Field, Las Vegas. 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.
Over the course of the near-65 day flight, the plane was refuelled by its truck over 128 times. This, and the job of flying the plane kept Timm and Cook plenty busy. 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. //
Over time, equipment failures began to stack up. A generator failure meant that fuel transfers to the wing tanks had to be done using a hand pump. Other failures took out the autopilot, various lights, the tachometer, as well as the fuel gauge for the belly tank and the crucial winch. With the engine racking up over a thousand hours of continuous operation, carbon build-up was starting to reduce engine power, too, making it difficult to climb the plane with the fuel tanks brimmed.
