25 January 2023 , 15:47
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Two pilots threw their toilet waste out over the desert and had to be carried out of their plane after spending more than two months flying non-stop.
The world record for the longest flight was set 64 years ago when Robert Timm and John Cook spent 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes in the air.
The daring duo flew aboard a four-seater aircraft in the skies over Las Vegas, sleeping, eating and doing everything else in the tiny plane.
Their incredible feat began in 1956 when the Hacienda hotel and casino opened on the Las Vegas Strip, and wanted to run a publicity stunt involving beating the then-flight endurance record of 47 days, set seven years earlier.
The plane managed to keep going for 64 days (Wikipedia)Timm, who had flown in WWII before becoming a slot machine repairman, was given $100,000 to complete the flight, which would be $1million in today's money.
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He set about modifying a Cessna 172, stripping its non-crucial elements out and adding a sink and mattress, and adding a rudimentary autopilot in the hope it would give him and his co-pilot some respite.
He added an extra tank to the aircraft which could be accessed via a hose from a truck driving along the plane while it flew just above ground height.
Janet Bednarek, an aviation historian and professor at the University of Dayton, told CNN: "It really was a dramatic show of airmanship, because they had to do it at night sometimes and that required some precision flying."
The plane was refuelled from a speeding truck below (Wikipedia)Timm's first three attempts at the record ended abruptly due to mechanical failures, with the longest last 17 days.
However he became increasingly determined - especially when two years later a team set a new record spending 50 days in the air.
They set off on December 4, 1958, from McCarran Airport in Las Vegas.
Plastic bags were used to hold their toilet waste which were then hurled out of the plane over the desert.
The casino spent $100,000 on the project (Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum)Although the pair helped each other to take breaks by splitting the piloting, the constant noise of the aircraft and vibrations made sleeping difficult.
At one point the sleep deprivation got so bad Timm fell asleep at the controls, leaving the autopilot to take over for an hour.
The mechanism worked then, but would break completely a few days later, along with the cabin heater, the fuel gauge and the landing lights.
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Not only did the pair beat the 50 day record, they topped it by 15 days in the hope no one would challenge it again.
By the time they touched down on February 7, they had been in the air for more than two months and flown 150,000 miles.
"They had determined that they had passed the point where nobody else was going to try this -- and nobody has," Bednarek added.
Due to a lack of exercise and being unable to stand-up for such a long period, the pilots had to be carried out of the aircraft.
What is even more remarkable about the record is that it remains 64 years later.
The team behind a solar-powered drone called Zephyr almost beat the flight record last year, when the US Army aircraft flew for 64 days and 18 hours. Just four hours shy of the record it crashed in Arizona.