Hacienda Hot still holds the record for longest ever continuous flight

(CNN) — Late last August, a solar-powered drone called Zephyr almost beat one of aviation's most enduring records.

The unmanned aircraft, operated by the US Army and produced by Airbus, flew for 64 days, 18 hours and 26 minutes before unexpectedly crashing down in Arizona -- just four hours shy of breaking the record for the longest ever continuous flight.

That record was set 64 years ago, in 1959, by Robert Timm and John Cook, who flew aboard a four-seater aircraft in the skies over Las Vegas for 64 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes.

It's remarkable that the Zephyr -- a light aircraft with modern technology which was flying autonomously -- not only failed to beat that time, but even if it had, Timm and Cook would still have retained the world endurance record for a crewed flight.

In fact, it's nothing short of astonishing that Timm and Cook managed to stay in the air for so long, in an era that was closer to the Wright brothers' first flight than today.
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