AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019 - 67

in 1970 to climb for an altitude gain
of 26,919 feet. Another American,
Ronald Clem, flew his open-class,
piston-powered model airplane in
1998 for a straight-line distance of
517.2 statute miles. (World aviation
speed and distance records are officially listed using kilometers and
statute miles, which is why these
units are used here instead of nautical miles and knots.)
At one time or another, the
record book included the names
of aviation's most famous pioneers, but most of their records
have long since been eclipsed.
Charles A. Lindbergh's 90-mph
record flight from New York to
Paris, for example, is currently
held by Robert Moriarty, who flew
his Beechcraft Bonanza C35 along
the same route in 1984 at an average speed of 200.61 mph. Gone,
too, are the around-the-world
speed records held by Wiley Post
and Howard Hughes. Modern airplanes enable pilots to
circumnavigate the globe
at average speeds well in
excess of 83 mph (Post)
or 161 mph (Hughes). A
pilot's speed around the
world is determined by
dividing total distance
flown by the total time
required to make the
flight. This includes
time spent on the
ground and explains
why British pilot Colin
Bodill's globe-girdling record flight in
a Mainair Blade 912
is listed at only 10.27
mph. But completing a flight around
the world in an aircraft weighing less
than 1,102 pounds
(500 kg) would be
a remarkable feat at
any speed.

Interestingly, neither the
Post nor the Hughes efforts
would qualify today as flights
around the world. Previously,
any route around the
world would suffice.
Eventually, though,
someone suggested
that the world could be circumnavigated in less than
a minute simply by making a 360-degree pylon
turn around the North
Pole. So it was decreed
that an official attempt
must fly a route at least
equal in length to the circumference of the Tropic
of Cancer, considered to be
22,848 statute miles. Because
Hughes and Post flew northerly
routes-both overflew
Russia-the distances
flown were only 14,672
and 15,569 statute
miles, respectively.
International
rules also have been
modified to exclude
endurance records.
Such flights were once
condoned, but this was
during an era when
skill and cunning was
needed just to keep
an engine running
for more than an hour or two.
As engine reliability increased,
endurance flights simply gauged
the ability of a pilot to stay awake
and endure prolonged periods of
fatigue. Eventually, some aviators
passed out during their record
attempts with fatal results. The
FAI decreed that such flights no
longer served a useful purpose
and eliminated them from competition. This is why the 65-day,
nonstop flight in 1958 and 1959 of
Robert Timm and John Cook in
a Cessna 172 never received the
FAI's official blessing. (Midair

refueling was accomplished by
handing a fuel hose to the pilots
as they flew low and slow over a
pickup truck.)

The 65-day, nonstop flight in
1958 and 1959 of Robert Timm
and John Cook in a Cessna 172
never received the FAI's official
blessing. Midair refueling was
accomplished by handing a fuel
hose to the pilots as they flew low
and slow over a pickup truck.
Duration attempts, however,
are still acceptable when flying balloons. The longest flight
to date in a hot-air balloon, for
example, is 55 hours, 10 minutes and was flown by Russian
pilots Ivan Menyaylo and Fedor
Konyukhov in 2017.
Pilots face a wide variety of
challenges in pursuit of a world
record. There are, for example,
flights made for speed along 3-km
and 15-km straight-line courses.
The shorter 3-km flight must be
conducted at no more than 100
meters agl, and diving into the
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019
