Over the years since that time, the refueled, manned endurance record has been broken on at least a dozen occasions. During that time, it had 9 mid-air refuelings that pumped 687 gallons of gas, and 38 gallons of oil into its tanks. The receiving plane managed to stay aloft for more than 37 hours. A mere two months later, the first refueled endurance record that beat the current un-refueled endurance record 1 was set by three DH-4Bs, a receiving plane and two tankers. The planes were Airco DH-4B Biplanes in the US Army Air Service. The first mid air refueling between two planes took place on June 27, 1923.

But this was all about to change with the introduction of aerial refueling, something which would vastly increase the amount of time an airplane could stay in the air. In the early days of aviation, flight endurance time was limited by how much fuel a plane could carry.

The flying can be handled by multiple pilots, as long as all pilots remain in the aircraft for the duration of the flight. In manned flight endurance, flying can be handled by one pilot, though this is not the recommended method. Flight Endurance and the Early Years of Aviationįlight endurance is defined as the longest amount of time an aircraft in a specific category can spend in continuous flight without landing. But to help put their story in the proper context, and give it a little additional weight, let’s start by defining flight endurance, and providing a little history. The story of this pair of Las Vegas pilots, and their record breaking flight is incredible, often funny, and always a little unbelievable. The current record of 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes was set in 1958, by Robert Timm and John Cook.

One of the most interesting and sought after of all flight records is for refueled, manned flight endurance. They can be in either a manned or unmanned aircraft, re-fueled or un-refueled, and cover areas such as flight distance, speed, or altitude. There are a lot of world records related to flight. Setting the Flight Endurance World Record

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