JULY 2018 AH 65OPPOSITE: (TOP) DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY, (BOTTOM) AP PHOTO; RIGHT PHOTOS: HOWARD W. CANNON AVIATION MUSEUM
bent the hubcap all up on the airplane.” Never-
theless, they landed successfully and succeeded in
getting the Yuma airfield reopened. In 1959 the
field became Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.
The Aeronca and a Buick of the same model are
now displayed in Yuma City Hall.
Woodhouse and Jongeward’s record stood for
nine years until Jim Heth and Bill Burkhart stayed
aloft for 1,200 hours and 19 minutes—50 days—
over Dallas. They took off in
their modified Ces sna
172, The Old Scotchman,
on August 2, 1958. The
men refueled twice a
day from a truck speed-
ing down the runway of
Dallas Redbird Airport,
lowering a rope to retrieve
gas cans and supplies. They
landed on September 21.
Surprisingly, their record
would be challenged only a
couple of months later.
Isn’t 50 days stuffed into
a small plane with another
person long enough? Appar-
ently it wasn’t for Robert Timm and John Cook,
who spent 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes
together in a Cessna 172 while circling the desert
Southwest from December 4, 1958, to February
7, 1959. The flight was intended to generate pub-
licity for the Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas, whose
owners encouraged promotional suggestions from
the staff. Timm, who worked as a slot machine
repairman and had served as a WWII bomber
pilot, suggested the endurance flight.
The Cessna prominently displayed “Hacienda
Hotel” in large letters on each side of the fuselage.
Besides publicizing the hotel, the flight raised
money for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research
Foundation.
During the first three attempts, lasting as long
as 17 days, mechanical problems forced the plane
down early. Timm didn’t click with his original
copilot, and replaced him with John Cook, an A&P
mechanic. The new donated Continental engine,
which had proved problematic, was also replaced
with the original 450-hour engine. Modifications
to the 172 included a 95-gallon Sorenson belly
tank, an accordion-style folding copilot’s door,
a four-by-four-foot foam pad in place of the co-
pilot’s seat and plumbing that came through the
firewall to allow inflight oil changes.
The two men took off from McCarran Field at
3:52 p.m. on December 4. To verify that they did
not secretly land during the flight, officials in a car
speeding down the runway painted white stripes
on the tires as the plane flew just above them.
A Ford truck with a fuel tank and pump in the
back refueled and resupplied the aircraft. TheCessna would meet the truck on a
closed section of road in the des-
ert near Blythe, Calif. An electric
winch lowered a hook to snag the
refueling hose, and one of the men
filled the belly tank while standing outside on a
retractable platform. It took about three minutes
to fill the tank.
Time finally began to take a toll on the men and
machine. “We had lost the generator, tachometer,
autopilot, cabin heater, landing and taxi lights,
belly tank fuel gauge, electrical fuel pump, and
winch,” Cook wrote in his journal. The engine
gradually lost power as carbon built up on the plugs
and in the combustion chambers. Disaster nearly
struck on the night of January 9, their 36th day
aloft, when Timm fell asleep at the controls over
Blythe and awoke more than an hour later to find
the Cessna flying through a canyon on autopilot.
After they finally landed, Cook said, “There
sure seemed to be a lot of fuss over a flight with
one takeoff and one landing.” During their
nearly 65-day flight, the pair had covered more
than 150,000 miles, equivalent to about six times
around the world. The record-setting Cessna 172
now hangs in the terminal at Las Vegas’ McCar-
ran International Airport.
Timm and Cook’s accomplishment likely
marked the end of marathon endurance flights
in airplanes. Does anyone really want to spend
more than 65 days circling the countryside, eat-
ing, sleeping, bathing and using the toilet while
shoulder-to-shoulder with someone else? Odds
are slim. And the FAI no longer recognizes new
endurance records due to safety concerns.Early-aviation enthusiast W.M. Tarrant is the author
of East to Meet the Enemy: A Novel of World
War One Aerial Combat. Further reading: The
Longest Flight: Yuma’s Quest for the Future, by
Shirley Woodhouse Murdock and James A. Gillaspie.DURING THEIR
NEARLY 65-DAY
FLIGHT, THE
PAIR HAD
COVERED MORE
THAN 150,000
MILES.
NEVER AGAIN?
Above: (From left)
Cook and Timm are
congratulated on their
world record flight.
Top: Hacienda Hotel
refuels from a truck.