The longest non-stop flight ever is waaaay longer than you think

On December 4, 1958, the little Cessna took flight. It only landed on February 7, 1959, after 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds. Traveled more than 241,000 kilometers – the equivalent of about six times around the Earth – without ever leaving the Mojave Desert, California.

The story is told by . It all started in the mid-1950s with the Hacienda Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

To draw crowds from neighboring casinos, a gaming machine mechanic and former World War II bomber pilot, Robert “Bob” Timmpresented his boss with an advertising idea: make a plane fly non-stop for as long (humanly and mechanically) as possible, with “Hacienda” written on the side.

It received the green light and, suddenly, Timm found himself with 100 thousand dollars for the project, with which he bought a Cessna 172 from 1956, new to him.

Timm had already been pursuing flight endurance records for fun on his own, and had failed in his three previous attempts in 1956 and 1957 – either due to mechanical problems or exhaustion.

He realized he needed another skilled pilot/mechanic to keep the plane in the air long enough to set a record, so he turned to Alamo Aviation for help.

John Wayne Cooka flight mechanic and pilot who worked in maintenance for Alamo, volunteered for the mission and, in the following months, with the help of the mechanic Irv Kuenzidedicated themselves to deeply modifying the Cessna 172 for the long-duration effort.

Almost everything except the pilot’s seat was removed. They installed a 10-centimeter sleeping pad in place of the copilot’s seat for naps between shifts, a small sink for washing and a toilet.

The engine was replaced by a new “special” Continental enginedirectly from the factory, and at Timm’s request, alcohol injectors were added, with the belief that the occasional injection of alcohol would eliminate carbon deposits.

A 360-liter auxiliary fuel tank was added to the bottom of the plane, where an electric pump could send fuel to the wings.

The Madness of the Final Flight

The “crazy” people refueled the machine like a Tom Cruise feat in Mission: Impossible every time the tanks ran low. They flew low and slow over roads like 95 or 93, while a support truck below matched their speed..

Timm sat in the main seat while Cook leaned out on a specially made folding step in the passenger door, with a hose connected to a helmeted man in the truck.

They were flying so low and so close to the van that a helmet was essential – they even hit the man’s head more than once during refueling.

Food and drink, kindly prepared by Casino Hacienda, were hoisted from the truck with each refueling. As for the contents of the camping toilet, Timm said that “bombarded the desert”.

As the New Atlas article details, this maneuver was done twice a day, 128 times in total, day and night.

For more than two months, pilots Robert Timm and John Cook took turns in four-hour shifts, flying mainly over Nevada, California and Arizona.

Furthermore, everything that could break, broke. The generator, heater, autopilot, cabin lights and pressure gauges failed at various times during the record-breaking flight.

The Hacienda, with tail number N9217B, still hangs from the ceiling of the baggage claim area at Harry Reid International Airport.