I've been a plane aficionado for as long as I can remember. I'm not exactly a plane "nut," but I think I might know a bit more than the average person who isn't a pilot. Yet somehow, I'd never heard of this story until I stumbled across it at random.
Heck, I even lived in Las Vegas for a number of years and passed through McCarran Airport (Harry Reid International now) dozens of times. And while I've seen the little Cessna hanging above the baggage claim, I had no idea of its significance. Turns out, that plane isn't just cool airport decor – it's a main player in an absolutely bonkers story that's been quietly hanging over travelers' heads for decades.
It started back in the mid 1950s with the Hacienda Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a new addition to the famous Strip, but situated pretty far to the south – roughly where present-day Mandalay Bay is at about a mile from the next big casino. "You can either go to Vegas, or you can go to The Hacienda," was an actual saying at the time. It struggled to acquire patrons.
To pull in crowds from the flashier nearby casinos like The Sands and The Dunes (both of which, ironically, have been reduced to dust since then), a slot machine mechanic and former WWII bomber pilot named Robert "Bob" Timm pitched his boss a publicity stunt: fly a small plane nonstop for as long as humanly (and mechanically) possible, with "Hacienda" plastered on the side.
He got the green light from the casino "as a fundraiser for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund" in 1958, and suddenly Timm found himself with US$100 grand for the project, with which he purchased a new-to-him 1956 Cessna 172.
Timm had already been privately chasing flight-endurance records for fun, and had failed in all three attempts he'd made previously in 1956 and '57 – either due to mechanical issues or outright exhaustion. He realized that he needed another skilled pilot/mechanic to keep the plane aloft long enough to set a record, so he turned to Alamo Aviation at McCarran Field for help.
The Build:
This is where John Wayne Cook steps in, pilgrim – a flight mechanic and pilot who'd been working maintenance for Alamo. Cook volunteered for the mission, and over the next few months, with the help of mechanic Irv Kuenzi, they went to work on heavily modifying the Cessna 172 for the long haul.
Nearly everything but the pilot seat was stripped out. They installed a 4-inch (10-cm) sleeping pad where the co-pilot seat was for naps between shifts, a tiny sink for washing up, and even a folding camp toilet for ... well, you know.
The engine was replaced with a brand new "special" Continental 145-cubic-inch six-cylinder straight from the factory and, at Timm's insistence, alcohol injectors were added to it (under protest from Kuenzi) with the belief that the occasional alcohol injection would clear out carbon buildup. Timm also insisted that Continental send him a customized engine in exchange for publicity. It was only after the record attempt that Continental admitted the only thing "special" about the engine was that the sales manager had tasked his secretary with going down to the factory floor and picking out her favorite one.
A 95-gallon (360-L) auxiliary fuel tank was added to the belly of the bird, where an electric pump could send fuel into the wings. They even rerouted oil lines and made changes to the firewall so the crew of two could change the oil and filter mid-flight – with the engine still running. Back then, about 25 hours was the normal interval for changing the oil on a Continental O-300 engine. Eventually, the plane's engine would rack up over 1,500 hours of continuous running.
Even so, they didn't just hop in and fly to a new record. There were a few botched attempts leading up to the 66-year-long (and counting) record.
While still ironing out the bugs on the highly-modified Cessna, Timm wrote in his flight log that the entire sky lit up at 4 a.m. He later realized what he'd seen – one of 37 above-ground atomic bomb tests that year in the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las Vegas. The very same patch of desert as the famed "Nuketown."
During the early failed attempts, the "special" engine kept burning up exhaust valves, so Kuenzi swapped it back out for the used motor that was originally in the plane with 450 hours on it, and disconnected the alcohol injection without telling Timm.
The 1950s were wild.
The Flight:
I presume you've heard of air-to-air refueling? Well, they didn't do that. Instead, they refueled like a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible stunt every time the tanks would get low. They'd fly low and slow over highways like 95 or 93 while a chase truck below matched their speed. Timm would sit in the hot seat while Cook would lean out on a specially made folding step off the passenger door with a hose to a helmeted man in the truck below. They would fly so low and at near stall speed that a helmet was required, as they clipped his head more than once while resupplying.
Food and drink, graciously prepared by the Hacienda Casino, would be hoisted up from the truck below with every refuel. And camp toilet contents? Timm said they'd "bomb the desert," whatever that means.
They did this stunt twice a day, 128 times in all, day and night, for just over two months.
Just about everything that could break, did. The generator, heater, autopilot, cabin lights, and gauges all failed at various points during the record flight. The pair got sick, they were exhausted, and bordering on delirious. Once, Timm nodded off mid-flight while in the pilot seat and flew halfway to Mexico before waking up.
By day 60, enough carbon had built up in the engine that the two were struggling to gain altitude. And on day 64, after nearly hitting a fence post after refueling, they called it quits and touched down at McCarran Airfield.
The flight started on December 4, 1958. For over two months, pilots Robert Timm and John Cook traded off in four-hour shifts, circling mostly over Nevada, California, and Arizona.
By the time they touched down on February 7, 1959, the little-Cessna-that-could had been up in the air for 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes, and 5 seconds – a record that still stands today. In doing so, they logged over 150,000 miles – equivalent to about six trips around the Earth – without ever leaving the Mojave Desert.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas ... and The Hacienda, tail number N9217B, still hangs from the ceiling in the baggage claim area at Harry Reid International Airport. The next time you're waiting for your luggage, look up. It's pretty dang cool.
Source: AOPA & Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum
