AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2008 - 143

The modiﬁed Cessna “He told me about this project he was going to get involved in and wanted to know if I’d be interested in helping him. I told him ‘sure.’”—Irv Kuenzi, lead mechanic for the record-setting ﬂight Kuenzi was a mechanic at Alamo Aviation and had already worked on N9217B before Timm bought it—with 1,500 hours total airframe time—for the attempt. Avionics included a Narco Omnigator Mk II and a Mitchell autopilot. Modiﬁcations took nearly a year. A 95-gallon Sorenson belly tank was installed on the airplane’s belly. An electric pump was rigged to transfer fuel to the airplane wing tanks. Through-firewall plumbing was installed so that the engine oil and oil filters could be changed without shutting off the engine. The interior was removed, and a folding accordion-style door replaced the co-pilot’s side door. A small platform could be lowered out of the co-pilot’s door to provide additional footing during refueling operations. A single four-inch-thick foam pad measuring four feet by four feet was installed on the co-pilot’s side of the cabin after the seat was removed. There was even a small stainless steel sink installed to enable the two-man crew to wash up and shave. Timm also was a certiﬁcated airplane mechanic. He instructed Kuenzi to install a primer-like system so that alcohol could be squirted into the combustion chamber of each cylinder of the engine. Timm believed that his alcoholinjection system would prevent the buildup of carbon in the combustion chambers. Kuenzi disagreed but reluctantly installed the system. Timm contacted Continental Motors Corp. (CMC) of Muskegon, Michigan, the manufacturer of the airplane’s six-cylinder 145-horsepower engine, explained his cause, and got the sales manager at CMC to agree to supply a new engine for the flight. Timm asked for a special engine, but the sales manager quickly realized that the publicity generated for CMC by this attempt could easily backﬁre if a specially built engine successfully powered the Hacienda attempt into the record books. Pretty soon everyone would be asking for special engines. Kuenzi later learned that the sales manager had asked one of the female office employees to step down to the production line and pick out the new 145 that she liked best. That made it special enough in CMC’s eyes. Kuenzi removed the 450-hoursince-new engine from the 1958 Cessna 172, installed the “special” engine, and hooked up the alcohol system. Timm and his first co-pilot launched, but problems cut the first two flights short. A note written in Timm’s diary of those early flights illustrates the innocence of the 1950s when he wrote that the entire sky lit up one morning at 4 a.m. He later found out that he had witnessed one of the 57 above ground atomic bomb blasts set off that year in a testing area located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A moratorium suspending above ground testing took effect on October 31, 1958. The blast took place during the ill-fated third flight, which was cut short because of burned exhaust valves in the “special” engine. Although the ﬁrst three ﬂights never stayed aloft longer than 17 days, Timm knew that he wasn’t getting along with his co-pilot, so he dismissed him. Timm was becoming frustrated by the delays and the series of mechanical problems. In addition, the team of Heth and Burkhart had just completed their 1,200-hour (over 50 days) flight on September 21. Kuenzi removed the damaged engine and re-installed the used 450-hoursince-new engine. Then he quietly, and without telling Timm, disconnected the alcohol delivery tube and rerouted it so the alcohol was pumped out the bottom of the lower cowling. Kuenzi’s hunch worked: That used engine had clocked more than 2,000 operating hours—1,559 hours continuously—by the end of the record-setting ﬂight. The most technologically advanced aircraft ever awarded, equipped with the very latest in avionics technology! For more details visit: See www.aopa.org/sweeps for Official Rules, entry techniques and other information. The new co-pilot John Wayne Cook, a single 33-year-old airplane mechanic and pilot at Alamo Aviation in Las Vegas, had also worked on N9217B. Like Timm, he had logged time flying for Trans World Airlines (TWA) and Bonanza Airlines. One day Timm asked Cook whether he was willing to be his co-pilot. Cook said, “Sure, I’ll try.” Pictures of Cook at the end of the ﬂight show a young man, weighing 180 pounds distributed on a tall, lanky frame with a ready smile below a pencil-thin mustache. He was given to wearing snap-button western-style shirts. Timm’s spouse, Lorene, later said of Cook, “He always gave Bob the credit. But without John Cook there wouldn’t have been a ﬂight.” In addition to ﬂying, the agile Cook regularly ventured out onto the small service platform attached to the right landing gear strut and, AOPA PILOT • 143 • MARCH 2008

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2008