WEBVTT - Up in the Air 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:14.680 Works dot com. Hey, wasn't the stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.000 what's the longest flight, continuous flight you've ever taken in 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.040 your life? In reality or in my mind? Well, that's 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:28.160 that's both, okay, I don't know. Nine hours yeah, to London, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.120 I believe, and in my mind I've been on a 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.199 hot air balloon journey for a while. Yeah, yeah, well 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.640 that's the hot air balloon journey sounds a lot more 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.319 romantic and a lot a lot smoother. I mean, you're 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.479 just gliding. You're up there in a basket. I'm assuming 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.320 there's a second basket that might have, you know, some 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.560 nice bread in it or something, and a panda bear 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.960 to keep me company. And well that out it sounds 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.479 really dangerous. You're gonna be mauled and you're gonna have 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:58.120 to jump half laid for your life storybook panda Okay, yeah, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.120 talks and stuff of course, what about you? Um, definitely 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.520 my flights to Asia either. And I the thing is 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.040 like once the once a flight is long enough, it 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.120 becomes eternally long it becomes long in a way that 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:17.600 ours can't really measure it, so counting in um both 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.039 the length of the flight and the uh the factors 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.400 of the flight, I would say the flight home from 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:30.120 China with my son and my wife, that was say 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.240 so that was that was the longest plane, right, I've 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.120 ever been on. But in this episode titled up in 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.160 the Air, we're gonna be talking about other lengthy flights, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.400 lengthy flights by humans, lengthy flights by birds, lengthy flights 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.120 by robots. And I was really astounded by some of 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.160 the information we're going to discuss in this episode because 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:50.440 some of this I was already familiar with. I was 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.520 new about some of the records, some of the technology, 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.559 but other things just completely came out a left field 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.520 for me. Yeah, and I think this is one of 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.040 those topics that's always gonna be fascinating to us because 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.080 we would all like the hour of flight, and we've 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.320 been trying to attain it from time memorial. And I 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.280 was actually thinking about a later example, but again a 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.000 hot air balloon example of the moncal Fhier brothers who 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.680 created the first hot air balloon, and I thought, Ah, 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.639 if only I could go back in time to September 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.799 nineteen three, two first Sigh, where one of these hot 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.040 air balloons carried a sheep, a rooster, and a duck 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.519 and flew for eight minutes in front of Louis the 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.880 sixteenth Marine Antoinette and of course the French court. I 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.000 mean that must have seemed like just alchemy and and 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.680 all sorts of magic. Well to the people under the sheep. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.519 But I bet the rooster and the duck we're probably 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.640 not as impressed, because they're like, all right, oh flight, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.000 oh great, even invented flight. That's great humans. Because but 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.440 back to your point, humans have always obviously craved flight. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.480 We've we've we've stood there, we've invented things, we've we've 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:57.360 made weapons and tools, and then we look up and 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.200 the birds are flying all overhead, and we're like, I 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.840 want that too. Feels like nothing, all those intentions feel 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.919 like zero. And for ages and ages and ages that 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.639 was forbiddness. We might try to strap together some sort 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.360 of wingsuit, and then we'd fall off a cliff and 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.040 die or hardly injure ourselves. And and and we and 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.840 we just can't help but envy those birds. Um, there's 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.600 a great YouTube clip that's been going around recently up 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.800 and it's it's I believe it's a European and Russian 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.120 origin where someone's just turning their camera out the window 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.280 and they're they're filming this crow. We've discussed crows before, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.840 highly intelligent birds tool users. And this bird is taking 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.000 like a a little dish or a lens cap or something, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.160 and it's on the slanted roof covered with snow, and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.800 it will take this little, uh, this little makeshift sled 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:42.520 up to the top and it will ride the sled 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.560 down and then it'll drag it back up and write 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.839 it down again. And I was talking to my wife 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.800 about this, and she she's like, she says, well, why 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:50.920 is this crow doing this? Like, doesn't crow know that 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.200 he can fly? He's here, he is wasting his time sledding, 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.320 and sledding is the thing we do as as land 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.240 based creatures to try and just get a tape east 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.720 of what it might be to fly. I think that 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.360 crow is just throwing it in our faces. Right, not 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.800 only can I fly, but I can slid? I think 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.560 so too. All right, let's look at some of these 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.240 showoffs in the animal world here. Yeah, because it's Again, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.120 it's one thing to say, all right, birds can fly, obviously, 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.880 but how long can they fly? How how long can 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:20.760 they keep their feet up off the ground? How long 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.360 can they just exist in that that that nether world 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:29.359 between solid surface and in the sky and exceedingly long time. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.839 And we're gonna look at the Alpine swift. This is 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.559 a small bird each way, it's less than a quarter 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.839 of a pound, and they spend the summer breeding in 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.360 Europe and they migrate to Africa for the winter thousands 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.440 of miles away. Yeah, the Alpine swift is pretty crazy 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.200 because we're talking about a one thousand, two forty mile 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.080 flight carried out by three Alpine swifts. Longest recorded flight 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.280 made by any bird, uh recently tracked. I want to 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.200 use two hundred days in the air no stop. It 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.119 seems it seems like it was a NonStop flight. Um. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:02.800 The reason we know this is that there is a 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.840 team of scientists who strapped tiny electronic monitoring devices to 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.320 six alpine swifts before they flew south for the winter. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.960 They recaptured three of them and they looked at this 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.080 data and they were astounded. Now, the thing about this 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.680 is that these tags only collect data every four minutes, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.400 So it's impossible to rule out the chance that they 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.479 touched down occasionally, but every single one of the data 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.200 points collected for more than six months in a row 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.440 indicated that at the time they were either actively flying 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.360 or gliding in the air. Yeah. The gliding is key, 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.400 because that's basically what they're doing, uh, instead of resting 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.920 at night, based on the data, they're gliding, and then 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:42.960 they're they're eating and drinking in the air as well, 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.320 presumably according at the Swiss research. Yeah, this is so cool. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.120 They were making meals of airborne playing them bugs and 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.440 spiders swept into the sky by high winds, and then 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.560 they slaked their thirst by just skimming the water in 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.920 rivers and oceans. I mean, that's that's eating on the 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.800 run there. Yeah, I've I have run across the information 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.520 about the number of insects that you will have swept 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.160 up and had rather high altitudes before, but I had 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.000 not really put one and two together that, oh there 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.320 might be birds coming through that can not only snack 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.240 on that, but depend on it during a very long 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.680 distance flight. Yeah, I mean that is fast food for 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.520 that animal. Now, another bird that deserves mentioned here is 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.560 the bar tailed Godwit just because the sheer distance involved here. Uh. 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.840 In two thousand seven, a female god with was found 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:36.000 to have flown seven thousand miles or eleven thousand, five 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.880 hundred kilometers NonStop from Alaska to New Zealand. So that's 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.200 without taking a break for food or drink yep, and 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.640 that is in just nine days. The US Geological Survey 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.920 and pr BO Conservation Science they outfitted sixteen of these 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.840 birds with satellite transmitters to study god with migration, trying 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.599 to figure out exactly how long they were out there. Now, 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.760 one of these birds, which they easy It flew six 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.240 thousand forty miles directly to UH, this wetland area on 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.600 the border of North Korea and China. So there it 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.440 touches down, has a very brief rest, and then continues 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.800 the remaining three thousand miles to Alaska. But then the 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:19.560 return trip NonStop UH seven thousand miles fly to New 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.720 Zealand uninterrupted. Now she she benefited from tail winds on 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.280 that and UH. And of course you want to about 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.520 the sleep, like, how do you possibly get any rest? Well, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.560 this comes back to an old topic of discussed before 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.520 Uni him is spheric sleep. You dare not put the 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.120 whole brain to rest for the night because you are flying, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.920 just put half of it to rest, right, And and 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.760 they found out that she burned up huge stores of fat, 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:45.960 more than fifty of her body weight that she had 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.480 piled on at the start of her journey in Alaska. 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.560 So it's be prepared to not rest, and be be 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:54.880 prepared to sleep one half of the mind at a time, 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.560 and be prepared to lose a lot of weight. Indeed, now, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.720 the reason they wanted to look at this is because 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.960 the uh the Godwit migration has decreased from the mid 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.280 nineties from one hundred and fifty thousand birds a year 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.400 to seventy thousands. So it's thought that development along the 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.440 Yellow Sea between China and North and South Korea is 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.160 depriving the birds of vital food sources since those mud 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.920 flats and wetlands are drained for development. And this is huge. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.760 It's wiped out half the population. So examples like that 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.000 are are amazing. And also again that it's it's another 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:26.520 case where we kind of look at the example of 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:28.920 the bird and and it kind of makes us a 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.360 little jealous because even even other examples of birds that 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.760 just flies off for the winter. Uh you look at 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.560 I mean, you might be a person who realizes, hey, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.080 I've never left the state, I've never left the city, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.400 or I've certainly never left this country of this hemisphere. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.160 And here's a bird, just a stupid old bird, and 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.920 it's doing it every year, or smart old birds or 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.160 a smart, smart old bird. But but they're probably being 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.559 a little judge, you know, you think, is that why 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.199 they're always trying to to squirt their guana on our heads? Oh, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.160 the people are being judge that the birds they're not. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.680 I don't know. Are you implying that the people who 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.400 hate words are always trying to Yeah, you don't see 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.120 them like just off of ledges where they're going on. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.240 There you go. On that note, let's take a break. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:12.959 When we get back, we're going to talk about how 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.720 humans have tried to engineer your own crazy length of cliffe. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:25.400 All right, we're back, and we're going to talk about 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.680 the longest human flight on record. And i'd like to 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.360 think about the next example is really trying to embrace 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:38.600 our spirit animal by naming this airship the snowbird. Yeah, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:43.640 you're talking about the ZPG two airship Snowbird. Uh, and 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:49.120 this was back in when the ZPG two airship took 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.040 off from South Weymouth near Boston, Massachusetts, under the command 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.000 of Commander Jack our Hunt. And uh where did it go? Well, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.280 it went to Sunny Key West, Florida. Eleven d days 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.520 later it landed there and it logged an amazing nine 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:09.320 thousand four miles or two hundred two kilometers. We're talking 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.480 about two hundred sixty four point two hours. And can 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:14.839 you imagine how surreal it would be to be in 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.360 that airship for eleven days? I I can because I 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.240 have I've often seeing like images of the old the 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.720 old Zeppelins particularly and where I've watched the second Indiant 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:27.520 know it's the third Indiana Jones movie that has the 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:29.000 you know, the neat scenes of the Zeppelin or that 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.760 I think there's an old old Michael York film called 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.600 Zeppelin has some some nice classy scenes as well, where 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.439 it does look just instantly attractive because you're talking a 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.640 very smooth ride where I mean they say that you 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.160 could take an eat pin or a fountain pen and 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:45.880 you could stand it up on the table and it 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.960 would just remain there just because everything was so still 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.480 and so smooth, and you're you're flying NonStop. Yeah, this 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.040 fabulous castle in the sky, the closest that you probably 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.839 would ever get to, like hitching a ride on a cloud. Now, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.520 in an airplane, it's gonna be harder to replicate that experience, 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.439 especially if you're dealing with very long distances, um, and 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.120 especially if you are crammed in with humanity. Yes. Now, 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.920 in terms of commercial flights, we talked to the beginning, 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:17.599 you know, what are the longest commercial flights we've been on. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.760 If you try to come to a book a commercial 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.640 flight just for the purposes of having a really long flight, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.240 Let's say there's something really wrong with you and you 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.360 you just crave an excruciating amount of time and an 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.520 airplane like cycled air. Yeah, what's the most damage you 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.160 could do to your psyche with one trip NonStop? Well, formally, uh, 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.560 we had a real humdinger in the Newark to Singapore 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.840 flight on Singapore Airlines, which was an eighteen hour, fifty 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:48.319 minute flight that covered nine thousand five miles or fifteen thousand, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.280 three d forty five KOs. That one was cut out 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.320 because it just, uh, it just wasn't It wasn't financially viable. 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.560 You're talking about a lot of fuel. You're talking about 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.160 a pretty stiff journey that just isn't gonna be um 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.520 aplical to everybody. Yeah, and you just missed your chance 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.960 because this was just in November that they stopped this service. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.080 Now you can still count on quantas though to fly 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.600 you from Sydney to Dallas in fifteen hours and twenty 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.360 five minutes. It's a mere eight thousand, five of the 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.560 eight miles or thousand, eight hundred and four kilometers. Still 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.079 a pretty hefty flight. So I would be very interested 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.679 to hear from anyone who's listening to this podcast who 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.599 has taken either of those flights. Or you could just 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.880 get stranded on our tarmac for five hours, in which 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.079 case you enter to dog time and everything is like 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:40.920 seven times longer. That's true. Anytime you're flying commercially, you're 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.160 you have to factor in all that extra time that 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.120 you're spending just you know, waiting around at transfers or 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.800 getting to the airport dealing with delays. Now, by the bye, 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.120 the shortest flight in the world, just so you know, 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.439 is between the two Orkney Islands in Scotland. This is 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.600 the Westray and pop up Westray Islands just north of Scotland, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.760 and they are separated by a distance of only one 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.560 point seven miles or two point seven kilometers. Operated by 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.240 logan are the flight duration is officially two minutes long, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.280 but under ideal wind conditions, it can be completed in 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.120 only forty seven seconds. Wow, that's pretty short. Yep. Take 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.560 thirty bucks a pop. There's obviously ah no in flight service. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.440 That's pretty good. That's a good deal, isn't it. How 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.319 would you do it just for the experience of skipping 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.800 to another island in in a minute? Yeah? You know, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.000 I forget how long the flight was from Oahu to 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.599 the Big Island in Hawaii. I did that once, and 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.360 that's a I'm not dealing with a big distance there, 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.800 but definitely it took more than a minute. Well, and 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.640 I find those types of little puddle jumpers to be 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.079 an entirely different experience for time because for me it 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.640 slows down. It may only be a fifteen minute johnp 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.880 but it feels like two hours, just because you're so 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.040 aware of being in a tin metal can in the 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.520 middle of the air exactly now with we're talking about 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.320 commercial flights, So that's one area of of long distance flying. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.000 Another huge areas, of course, military flight distance, where especially 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.079 when you're dealing with bombers, the idea that you you 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.920 can and will have the ability to deliver um a 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.080 payload to virtually anywhere on Earth. UM. So the military 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.920 flight distance currently still goes to the the American B 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.720 fifty two and this for this is a particular record, 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.200 you have to go back to UH January seven, when 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.280 three fifty two b s made a non stuff flight 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.000 around the world during Operation Power Flight that's spelled al 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.120 f l I t E. For some reason, I'm not 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.440 sure why they went with that, but I'm not gonna 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.080 I'm not gonna disagree with them because the B fifty 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.720 two is are pretty impressive. In this particular UM exercise, 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.480 they covered thirty nine a thousand, one hundred and sixty 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.480 five kilometers or one forty five nautical miles or twenty 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.120 four thousand, three hundred normal miles in forty five hours 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.640 nineteen minutes. UH. There were several in flight refuelings, which 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.160 of course is key. Everyone's seen this the footage of 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.480 this before, where you have the refueling plane and then 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.400 you have another plane being a jet fighter or a bomber, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.080 and there's this wonderful magic, almost romantic mating of the 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.240 two planes. Yeah, the docking uh in in the the 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:24.760 end of the hose if you want to call it 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.160 that has has yes, call that has a has has 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.720 the these wing surfaces on it to help maneuver it 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.160 into place. Um, if you ever played flight simulators, you're 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.560 you're very familiar with this. And so obviously that allows 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:40.400 a plane to stay in the air longer because instead 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.640 of the plane having to land for new resources, you 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.600 just bring the resources up to it, very much like 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.600 our bird friends who are able to eat spiders on 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:50.880 the fly and then deal with the plankton and all. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.800 So obviously this, uh, this whole exercise was just to demonstrate, hey, 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.920 we can fly atomic payloads all over the world. To 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:00.600 put it all of this in a mode and perspective 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.960 about you know, what kind of reach capacity the military 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.640 has the these days. Back in two thousand eleven, B 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.760 two stealth jets made twenty five hour, eleven thousand, five 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.920 hundred mile bombing missions from Whiteman Air Force Base in 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.760 Missouri to Libya and back again. Okay, so by today's standards, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.920 the B fifty two still stands up here. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.320 then that's why we still the United States still uses there. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.200 It's a very tested, time tested uh UM piece of 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.960 military technology, very dependable. Okay, now let's talk about longest 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.600 endurance flight non refueled, and we're talking about the Routon Voyager. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.320 Nine days, three minutes and forty four seconds twenty six thousand, 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.040 three hundred sixty six miles or forty two thousand, four 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.840 and thirty two kilometers took place between December four in 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.360 December twenty three and nineteen six. Yeah, and this is 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:57.960 a definite third category of of human uh piloted flight records. 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.800 Because we had the commercial, we had military, and then 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.720 this is this isn't a whole area where people cram 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:09.000 themselves into very uncomfortable aircraft that are that it's all 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.600 about just gaming the technology as much as possible. But 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.160 because the Routan Voyager essentially is someone sitting around and saying, 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.920 what what would we have to build to to just 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.359 push this record to the very limits. While you'd have 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.439 to build something that's lightweight and is virtually a flying 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.960 fuel tank, and that's what the Routan Voyager was. Yeah, 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.920 this is sort of the flight junkie flight obsessive here, 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:35.080 and the Routon was actually piloted by two crew members, 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:40.120 Dick Routon and Gina Yeager, no relation to Chuck Yeager. Incidentally, interestingly, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:42.560 you have two icons of flight with the same less name, 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.280 no relation. Although some eaglemen might say that one of 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.119 them influenced the other, it's true, right so consciously and said, oh, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.879 I need to get on that. Uh. Dick's brother Bert 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.879 Ruton designed the plane, and the Voyager was built in Mojave, California. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:57.840 It took five years to build and test the airplane 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.960 before taking off on its record setting flight. Yeah, and 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.960 it had seventeen fuel tanks. Seventeen fuel tanks, and the 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.040 pilot would have to shift fuel from tank to tank 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.119 during flight to keep things even down because otherwise, you 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:12.919 you know, you'd get lopsided. Because this is a very 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:18.000 very balanced aircraft. Really a very beautiful aircraft. Um it looks. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.719 Do look up a picture of it because it is uh, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.399 you know, very long wings, very almost ephemeral, like you 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.320 you feel like you could break it just by looking 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.280 at a picture of it. It does look really delicate. 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.840 And here they went on this epic flight in it um. 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.080 Now some of the details of what this consisted of, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.800 what this journey consisted of, as reported in a Only 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.920 Times article that came out in six Uh. It was 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.120 really interesting because it really drives home just how how 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.879 little human comfort factored into this, uh, this exercise, but 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.600 it is an endurance flight. Uh. That they had like 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.680 no room to sleep there. They had like half of 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.240 an inflatable mattress that they had tried I had to 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.000 create by by cutting one in half and stitching it up, 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.920 but it didn't hold air. And and then this is 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.280 this roar of air outside of the vehicle the whole time. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.240 And then when it comes to using the bathroom. Uh, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.840 they had like a like a cup with a straw 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.399 that they were able to funnel the liquids outside of 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.840 the plane. And then they had just bags for the 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.240 solid waste, which they were going to throw out the 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.879 plane as well, but but the one hole they had 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:26.840 to throw it out of the bags wouldn't fit, so 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:28.320 they just had to stay in the plane for the 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.040 whole trip. Uh. And they didn't even have diaper genies 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.040 back then, you know, they couldn't contain the funk with that. Oh, 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:35.879 and then when it came to eating, they this was 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.359 really fascinating to think of too. So they had they 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.680 had food, but they didn't even dream that they were 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:43.640 going to be able to heat anything up. But then 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:45.560 during the course of the flight, they realized that this 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.240 is aluminum pipe the channels warm air from the engine 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.480 compartment into the cockpit to keep everything toasty. And they 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.120 found that they could wrap the foil packets of food 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.159 around the pipe and then wrap a towel around it 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.520 for installation, and they heat the food. You know what 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.600 I love about this is um going to talk about 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.640 this in our next episode about creativity, but we talked 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.400 about um or. We've been looking a lot about innovation 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:10.680 and uncertainty and obsessiveness, and here is a great example. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.480 I mean, people who probably most people would have stopped 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.920 halfway into the logistics of what you just described and 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.879 so forget it. I'm gonna be you know, sitting around 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.560 with pooh bags and you know, peeing and directing this 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.359 into a straw. Yeah, And the whole time they're not 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.639 they're not getting enough sleep because it's very difficult to 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.400 sleep on board. So you're you're you're fighting, you're struggling 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.119 to stay awake while you're you're piloting the aircraft and 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.920 they're flying around the world, so you're not dealing with 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.120 with consistent weather. You're, for instance, you're having to deal 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.080 with a massive typhoon which they managed to avoid being 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.760 destroyed by and actually benefit a little bit from the 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.920 tail winds. And then they're denied airspace Overlibias, so that 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.080 also means they have to have to go around that. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.080 And I mean, it was just such a colossal undertaking. 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:58.639 It's easy to miss that if you just sort of 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.879 catch the you know, in your peripheral understanding of the 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.399 news story. Oh, some people build a crazy plain and 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.480 they flew around the world in a big deal. No, 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.920 it's it's essentially they climbed a mountain here. I remember 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.959 reading something recently about how interesting it is that humans 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:18.119 are hardwired to really take on fear and uh to 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.199 try to take on that in a way that they 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.000