> When asked by a reporter if he would ever replicate the stunt, Cook replied: “Next time I feel in the mood to fly endurance, I’m going to lock myself in a garbage can with the vacuum cleaner running, and have Bob serve me T-bone steaks chopped up in a thermos bottle. That is, until my psychiatrist opens for business in the morning.”
"From December 4, 1958, to February 7, 1959, Robert Timm and John Cook set the world record for (refueled) flight endurance in a used Cessna 172, registration number N9172B. They took off from McCarran Airfield in Las Vegas, Nevada, and landed back at McCarran Airfield after 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds in flight. The flight was part of a fund-raising effort for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.[14][15]"
> A Ford truck, donated by Cashman Auto in Las Vegas, was outfitted with a fuel pump, tank, and other paraphernalia required to support the aircraft in flight. When fuel was required, a rendezvous would be arranged on a stretch of straight road in the desert near Blythe, California. An electric winch lowered a hook, the fuel pump hose was picked up, and Timm or Cook inserted it into the belly tank. It took a little more than three minutes to fill the belly tank.
> The total fuel capacity of the airplane was 142 gallons. Plans called for refueling twice daily. Sometimes weather or the inevitable glitches upset the schedule, and a new rendezvous was worked out by radio. This activity was repeated more than 128 times.
The whole article is worth a read; it was quite the hairy sounding endeavour. Two months in a C-172 would kill me, I'm quite certain.
Over 1500 hours of continuous operation is quite a feat. Components like magnetos have service schedules much shorter than that.
This also ignores all the unexpected issues that pop up in aviation. My only experience with Cessna 172s are rentals which are treated like crap - those planes need something looked at like every 50 hours.
Is it not? I don't imagine such sustained flight, continuous operation of all the equipment and engine for so long, would've been a design consideration.
Presumably there's a number, I just doubt it's tens of days, so isn't it interesting that it was achieved?
This record was set ~3 months after someone else did it for 50 days.
From an engineering stand point, performance of components or materials are always assumed to be much worse than actual and the forces / conditions they are subject to overestimated, with further factors of safety applied on top. This is how it should be. It also means properly designed things will carry on working better than you expect (on average).
It’s not interesting (to me) from a technological stand point compared to the solar UAV because flying up and down the same road with a truck refuelling you is not useful, and if others (e.g. Military, NASA) could be bothered to do it - they would probably do a better job relatively easily.
To me - It’s the same as building the worlds longest domino trail. You could beat the previous record by 1 million dominos which is neat but.. what have you proven, and why does it matter ?
> This record was set ~3 months after someone else did it for 50 days.
Fair enough, I didn't know about that, I'd have been as interested to hear about either of them first, and like you not so much the other second. (And I doubt the commenter that shared it meant it as 'wow look 64 compared to 50' either.)
Cessna 172 flown for 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds.