"...a lot of fuss over a flight with one takeoff and one landing."
April 25, 2022 10:52 AM   Subscribe

"During the months of December 1958 and January and February 1959, two young men flew a mission-modified Cessna 172 around and around over the desert Southwest for 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes. The world endurance record in a propeller-driven airplane was set in that little Cessna over 50 years ago." posted by jessamyn (22 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Neat! "95 gallons plus 50 some in the wing-tanks" was not the answer I was expecting to the question, "what about fuel?"
posted by eotvos at 11:03 AM on April 25, 2022 [2 favorites]


Amazingly, that 64 day record appears to hold for drones also! I guess Airbus are expecting to take the uncrewed record with their (solar powered) Zephyr at some point, but they've not gone over 26 days yet as far as I can see.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:06 AM on April 25, 2022


The most amazing thing about this story to me is that a guy working as a cook in a second-tier casino hotel, and who went back to that career after this event, was the pilot. I realize that WWII turned everything topsy turvy for a while, but these days I think of flying as something for folks who think nothing of having an order of magnitude $10k/year for hobbies (not an unreasonable number, but not exactly something you see in food service).
posted by straw at 11:19 AM on April 25, 2022 [2 favorites]


This is one of my favorite stories in aviation. To put some of these numbers in perspective:

-They logged almost 1600 hours in just over two months. My club averages about 200-250 hours per plane per year and we're considered "heavy usage" in this sort of recreational flying environment.
-Operating 400 pounds over max gross weight gave them about 50% more useful load than a typical 172. Climb performance on those planes is pretty middling on the best days, so climbing out of a refueling run on a hot day must have been... anemic, at best.
-Time Between Overhauls (TBO) on that engine is 2,000 hours, so with the 450 hours that was already clocked on it they actually got it past its overhaul interval which is pretty impressive.
-172s usually ship with a 160 hp, 4-cylinder Lycoming engine so I'm wondering where this six-cylinder jobbie came from, or even how they fit it in the engine bay.
-If you were to attempt this today, it would cost around $75,000 in fuel plus another $20k or so to rebuild the engine when you were done.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:31 AM on April 25, 2022 [13 favorites]


I grew up near a small airport, so small plane aviation stories always get me. I first heard about this on the Futility Closet podcast and their page about the event has a lot more citations.
posted by jessamyn at 11:35 AM on April 25, 2022 [4 favorites]


64 days sharing that tiny cabin with nothing to do but listen to the engine drone and stare at the sky sounds like torture. I think the fact that the record was broken so many times and then never again is pretty interesting, I wonder if the amount of media attention each successive attempt was waning.
posted by skewed at 11:48 AM on April 25, 2022


Amazingly, that 64 day record appears to hold for drones also! I guess Airbus are expecting to take the uncrewed record with their (solar powered) Zephyr at some point, but they've not gone over 26 days yet as far as I can see

It's probably the limit for a gasoline powered vehicle. Running and engine for that long something will break that cannot be repaired unless they land. All electric might last a bit longer as there are fewer moving parts.
posted by jmauro at 11:57 AM on April 25, 2022


I like to think that no one attempts these kinds of stupid stunts any more because we now realize that there's no point, what does it actually prove? (I say this as an airplane-crazy nut who has been flying for 28 years and built the airplane I currently fly around in.)

But perhaps I'm wrong -- just yesterday a pair of damn fools attempted to swap airplanes in mid-flight. As a wag in the comments wrote, "Attempting to execute a stunt like this is akin to self abuse in a House of Ill Repute: you can do it, but what’s the point?"
posted by phliar at 11:59 AM on April 25, 2022 [2 favorites]


but these days I think of flying as something for folks who think nothing of having an order of magnitude $10k/year for hobbies

Back then a brand new C172 “only” cost double the national median salary, as opposed to 6x now.

Not that it was ever going to seriously be in the cards, but I found out this week that an existing health condition is a serious impediment to getting a medical clearance, so my lifelong dream of getting a pilot’s license will stay in the MSFS realm.
posted by hwyengr at 1:02 PM on April 25, 2022 [3 favorites]


sounds like torture

John Cook on the ordeal: “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.”
posted by jessamyn at 1:09 PM on April 25, 2022 [6 favorites]


Not that it was ever going to seriously be in the cards, but I found out this week that an existing health condition is a serious impediment to getting a medical clearance, so my lifelong dream of getting a pilot’s license will stay in the MSFS realm.

Can you get a drivers license? If so, you can probably get a Sport Pilot license - while it imposes some additional restrictions on what you can do with it, the medical requirements are significantly more relaxed than with a private pilot certificate. Gliding might also be an option!
posted by backseatpilot at 1:13 PM on April 25, 2022 [5 favorites]



I like to think that no one attempts these kinds of stupid stunts any more because we now realize that there's no point, what does it actually prove


Every year pople are lining up for every available spot to pony up $100 grand to "summit" Everest. Overall breaking this record would be cheaper, would actually get you 15 minutes of fame, and probably isn't much more of a time commitment; it just comes as one big block instead of spread out developing the physical ability to climb a mountain even on sherpa assisted easy mode.
posted by Mitheral at 1:28 PM on April 25, 2022


I've heard this story before but hadn't read this version and it is very well told. So many details stuck with me. Timm weighed 240 pounds, or some 80 pounds over the average for a man of that era. Not your first choice for an endurance flight where fuel and max weight are a problem! But this was his project, so of course he's on the plane. The bit about the alcohol injection and the clandestine disabling of it is also pretty wacky. Not to mention the ground support for fueling, although a 172 flies perfectly comfortably at 65 mph so it's not as hard as it sounds (assuming no wind). Neat stuff. Shame about the door alteration, it must have been loud as hell in that cockpit.

The similar stories that really impress me are the Earthrounders, people who have flown around the world in a light aircraft. There's a lot fewer of these than you'd think, the list has about 400 names on it. I met Wayne Collins (RIP) randomly once at the Mineola airport, turns out he knew my great grandfather. Seemed like a friendly but ordinary guy. He flew around the world not once, but twice in a single engine Bonanza V35B.

It's not exactly an endurance challenge, you certainly are allowed to land and there's no time limit on completion. But it's still a lot of flying. And very difficult flying, including a lot of boring-but-nervous hours over open water. Also the logistics are remarkably complicated, securing clean fuel and repair parts in far-flung places. These planes are not fast nor do they have a lot of range so the typical routes end up with a lot of spots in places well off the beaten track.
posted by Nelson at 4:50 PM on April 25, 2022 [3 favorites]


All electric might last a bit longer as there are fewer moving parts.

I bet all electric would enable you to go a whole lot longer. Electric motors need very little maintenance.

Solar Impulse did about five days in one flight and I think could have gone longer if they were just circling somewhere with reliably good weather. I bet with improvements in battery technology and solar cells, it will soon be relatively easy to stay aloft as long as you like solely on solar power, if someone has the money to build the aircraft for that purpose.

Then you're probably just up against how long you're willing to spend flying in slow circles. You'd have to work out some way to pick up water and food, because you're not going to get off the ground with months of water on board, but that seems easier than refuelling a Cessna from a truck.
posted by ssg at 5:38 PM on April 25, 2022


I guess after a few years, you'd start to run into degradation of your batteries because they'd be cycling once per day. Depending how much extra capacity you can manage to take off with so you can treat your batteries very gently, you could be looking at thousands of days until your capacity is reduced beyond your limits.
posted by ssg at 5:42 PM on April 25, 2022 [1 favorite]


You'd have to work out some way to pick up water and food, because you're not going to get off the ground with months of water on board

You wouldn't need anything much more sophisticated than a pace vehicle and a length of rope with a hook. Fly along runway minimum cruising speed, have a vehicle with a basket set on top match the plane's speed, use rope to hook basket and reel in whatever supplies you need. Kind of like how mail was transferred to and from moving trains with hooks and catcher pouches.

There are probably all sorts of ways to enable more reliability and ease of use (EG off the top of my head have the "loop" of your basket be a length of rope that is hung on a couple uprights attached to the vehicle with 10 or 15' of separation. Slack in the rope would allow for a lot of windage both left to right and vertically.) but for less than a hundred hand offs you wouldn't need much.

Hell I bet with a little practice one could use something like a T-Shirt cannon to fire small packages from a speed matched vehicle into a low flying plane thru an open door.
posted by Mitheral at 7:33 PM on April 25, 2022


no one attempts these kinds of stupid stunts

No, now we have adventure lifestyle influencers faking plane crashes for the gram.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:46 PM on April 25, 2022 [2 favorites]


I bet all electric would enable you to go a whole lot longer

Helios. The technology has improved since.

I randomly met some of the project's people on Kauai. Probably on a dive. Cool folks.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:06 PM on April 25, 2022


But perhaps I'm wrong -- just yesterday a pair of damn fools attempted to swap airplanes in mid-flight. As a wag in the comments wrote, "Attempting to execute a stunt like this is akin to self abuse in a House of Ill Repute: you can do it, but what’s the point?"

Especially when there are dumber ways of getting publicity.

The FAA just concluded that Trevor Jacob faked an engine emergency and purposefully parachuted out of his plane mid-flight for the YouTube views. Jacob just happened to have attached several cameras to the exterior of his aircraft before he took off and he held a selfie-stick in his hand as he bailed out of the plane. And then he hiked to the wreckage to retrieve the cameras and uploaded a video titled "I Crashed My Airplane". The video has over 1.7 million views.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:51 AM on April 26, 2022 [4 favorites]


Before Jacob's farce (which destroyed a pretty cool vintage plane in the bargain) there was David Lesh's rather suspicious crash.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:07 AM on April 26, 2022


I’m sure this proves I’m a bad person but I was happy the FAA decided to revoke Jacobs’ pilot certificate.
posted by phliar at 1:08 PM on April 26, 2022 [1 favorite]


-172s usually ship with a 160 hp, 4-cylinder Lycoming engine so I'm wondering where this six-cylinder jobbie came from, or even how they fit it in the engine bay.

Back in 1957 the Cessna 172 came with a six cylinder Continental engine. Later 172 models were equipped with a four-cylinder Lycoming w similar horsepower.

Edit: The connie 6, beloved for its smoothness, was not appreciably larger than the Lycoming; the cylinders were smaller bore etc.

For perspective, think Volkswagen or Corvair :-)
posted by maniabug at 3:12 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


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