AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 141) AOPAPILOT years Endurance test, circa 1958 150,000 miles without landing in a Cessna 172 BY STEVEN W. ELLS 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 almost 50 years ago. Remember 1958? Arnold Palmer had just won his first of three Masters titles. Baltimore Colts fullback Alan Ameche had plunged across the goal line to beat the New York Giants in overtime in professional football, and gasoline was 24 cents a gallon. TIME magazine predicted that the electronic eyes of satellites would help forecast the weather, and President Eisenhower deployed the U.S. Marines to Lebanon. In the 1920s, endurance records were recorded in hours—the first record time aloft of 35 hours, 18 minutes, and 30 seconds was established by Lt. John Macready Bob Timm, Preston Foster, Warren “Doc” Bailey, and John Cook celebrate the record-setting flight (above). Aerial refueling circa 1958 (top). and Lt. Oakley Kelly on October 5 and 6, 1922, in a Fokker T-2. In June and July 1935, aerial refueling permitted Fred and Al Key to stay aloft above Meridian, Mississippi, for 653 hours, 34 minutes (over 27 days) in Ole Miss, a Curtiss J–1 Robin. Both the Fokker T–2 and the Curtiss J–1 were large cabinclass airplanes. They were much larger than the Cessna 172 that still holds the record. In 1949 the light plane aloft AOPA PILOT • 141 • MARCH 2008
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