Just read this amazing story and thought I should share it here. It's hard to imagine the things people were willing to do back in the day...
How A Slot Machine Mechanic Flew 150,000 Miles Over 64 Days Without Landing
Maybe you've never heard of the Hacienda Hotel, but you may have seen a Cessna 172 with "Hacienda" plastered on the side in big, goofy letters hanging in the Las Vegas airport. They're connected.
The plane's owner worked at the Hacienda, and, along with a co-pilot, set the record for the longest manned, refueled flight in 1959 by traveling 150,000 miles without landing.
Here's how (and why) they did it.
Back in the '50s, the Hacienda's owner had big ideas about running a family hotel in gangster infested Las Vegas. Known as "Hayseed Heaven," amongst nightclub chic detractors snubbing it from the relative glitz of the Strip, the Hacienda sat alone on dusty, vacant land south of town.
Hacienda was a low-buck joint at the time — probably something like the place where Clark Griswold played war in Vegas Vacation. But Judy and Warren "Doc" Bailey thought that it would take off eventually. In 1958, hoping to garner some family-friendly publicity for his hotel, Doc Bailey backed an endurance flight. A slot machine mechanic named Bob Timm and an airline pilot named John Wayne Cook broke the world record on Jan. 23, 1959. When they finally landed, they'd been in the air around Southern Nevada, California, and Arizona for 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes.
The record still stands today...
Read the whole article here:
http://jalopnik.com/5971433/how-a-s...lew-150000-miles-over-64-days-without-landing
