0:08

I read something interesting that I want to

0:10

talk to you about because I would like

0:12

to imagine if it were

0:14

us doing this. Oh fun. Yeah,

0:16

it's a silly thing. First of all, this

0:19

is how I stumbled upon this, I think. I

0:21

remember reading this one thing. Obviously

0:24

there was an attempt at a record

0:28

and the record is the aircraft

0:30

that has the longest endurance flight. Now

0:32

what does that mean to you when

0:34

you hear endurance? It means you don't

0:36

land. Right, exactly. Oh wait, no, I

0:38

have another question. You don't

0:40

land and it's one pilot or

0:43

are you allowed to have another pilot that sleeps

0:45

in the back and then you keep swapping? Great

0:47

question. The particular aircraft

0:49

that set this record is

0:51

called the Zephyr, Z-E-P-H-Y-R,

0:53

made by Airbus.

0:57

Back in the Wright Brother days, have

1:00

you ever seen the Wright Brother

1:02

plane in our Sure, the Kitty

1:04

Hawk, North Carolina. The replica of

1:06

it they have in Washington DC.

1:08

It's like a cotton fabric stretched

1:10

over sticks and there's cables and

1:12

it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, they

1:14

made a rudimentary airfoil. Well, think

1:17

about what we could do with modern technology. Do

1:19

you know what the power plant was on the

1:22

Wright Brother's flyer, the Wright flyer? Do you know what it

1:25

was? No, actually I don't.

1:28

It was gasoline engine. Okay. What do

1:30

you know about Kitty Hawk? It

1:32

wasn't in the air very long. No. And

1:35

it wasn't the most comfortable landing. Yeah.

1:38

Yeah, but that's odd. I've always kind

1:40

of imagined like a steampunk bicycle plane

1:42

or something when I picture it. You

1:45

know, you sit in it, it kind of reminded me of a

1:47

motorcycle, the pictures that I saw. Yeah, I

1:49

guess to get off the ground, you'd need some

1:51

kind of actual combustion. Yeah. All

1:54

right. They did. Lightweight

1:56

engine. It's awesome. I recently went to DC,

1:58

got to see it and they did a lot of airfoil. space engineering.

2:00

They had a wind tunnel. They discovered an

2:02

airfoil. They didn't have like ailerons on the

2:04

wings that you could, you know, I'm

2:06

doing my hands back and forth like I'm flying

2:08

like a bird, but you know, you tilt the

2:10

back of the wing and you can tilt things

2:12

up and down. They twisted the whole wing with

2:15

cables, which was amazing. But recently,

2:17

if you think about the principles they

2:19

figured out, then they're the same. They're

2:22

the same when they figured it out. They're the same now, right?

2:24

Yes. But we have modern

2:26

technology. So what modern technology do

2:29

you think we could bring to bear to

2:31

make a longer duration flight? What would

2:33

you do right now? Just say the

2:35

biggest like tech mechanical engineering words you

2:38

can think of. Oh my goodness. Materials

2:40

that can sustain that drag without being

2:42

damaged. You're going with muslin fabric or

2:45

something. They're like, okay, I'm gonna rip

2:47

the same way a flag eventually. So

2:49

don't do fabrics. Do like composites. What's

2:51

a fancy composite you can think of?

2:54

I don't know. The carbon fiber. Exactly. Use that

2:56

in everything. Carbon fiber. Yeah. That'd be great. So

2:59

we use a gasoline engine back then. What would

3:01

be a good option for like a way

3:04

that we would do a long duration flight

3:06

now? Well, my point is you can design

3:08

the plane that just did this record, this

3:11

endurance record. Can I? Really? Yeah, you could.

3:13

It assists them.

3:15

So how much is it? Okay. But

3:17

there are two different ways that we

3:19

could go about this. Way number one

3:22

would be to say we're going for

3:24

the lightest weight, most efficient, mixed with

3:26

durability so that we don't have refueling

3:28

as a constant problem. Yes. Or

3:30

way number two is if

3:33

we think we can get it

3:35

to such a long flight that

3:37

keeping the vehicle together without maintenance

3:39

that would normally happen every few

3:41

hours after concluding a flight, If

3:44

we think that's the important thing that's going

3:46

to be heavier and you're going to have

3:48

to refuel in flight a lot more to

3:50

make it work, but you build it so

3:52

that you feel very confident this doesn't need

3:54

any maintenance over many more flight hours than

3:57

it would ever go without maintenance. Can You

3:59

imagine the. Design that would not need

4:01

to be refueled. I can

4:03

imagine a design that would

4:06

has a very large amount

4:08

of fuel that is supplied

4:11

externally. The of what is

4:13

that. You. Have another.

4:15

You're. Right key plane flying in front

4:18

of it. Accounts or

4:20

I'm making this too hard for. okay, How about there's

4:22

no way or it. But then you have

4:24

to swap planes because they have to refuel cousin

4:26

the plane refueling you would be sitting the under

4:29

his record and said than what he just go

4:31

with that three slight fifteen feet off the ground,

4:33

drive a truck behind it more yeah, stick a

4:35

hose into it and go to like the Bonneville

4:37

Salt Flats and just drive laps. Okay evil, that's

4:39

something else we're gonna talk about the day but

4:42

limited but the Zephyr a quick so that Zephyr

4:44

is a new airplane. That. Was made

4:46

by Airbus that almost all most

4:49

said the endurance record. What?

4:51

Is the endurance record. Or. Well,

4:53

the Zephyr stayed in the air

4:55

for sixty four days. Eighteen hours

4:57

and twenty six min. What sixty

4:59

four days? Now the sun? A

5:02

pilot on this. The Zephyr is

5:04

a carbon fiber large sale wing

5:06

looking thing. With. Solar panels

5:08

on the top of it. Okay, I thought

5:10

about that, but I thought we had Debbie

5:13

Human in their Am. I won't There's one

5:15

hundred and seventy five pounds. Right off the

5:17

bat that we have to account for solar.

5:19

Take. keep up with that. The solar panels

5:21

charged up batteries and so at night this

5:24

thing does running off battery power, but during

5:26

the day it's charging end is inherently yeah

5:28

exactly in an awesome and so they fly

5:30

this thing. It's seventy thousand seat and so

5:33

my guess Being an airspace guy, my guess

5:35

is they're also getting some benefits from the

5:37

thermals up. There. Is powered flight.

5:39

There's not a human on board. But.

5:42

What did you do with that technology?

5:44

You could keep something in the air

5:46

at seventy thousand seat. For. Two months

5:48

wicked to do with that. I'm. Sorry,

5:50

I gotta go back. One question that I

5:53

want to think about That question in North

5:55

American Summer Northern Hemisphere Summer. Why?

5:57

couldn't you just do this sucks

6:00

experiment at a very high line of

6:02

latitude and stay in Sun all the

6:04

time. So you don't have to even

6:07

charge batteries just because maybe you want to loiter over

6:09

a certain target at a certain latitude. Why would somebody

6:11

want to do that? Because you could observe it all

6:13

day long. It's a pseudo satellite. But that's like a

6:15

peeping Tom kind of thing. It is. It's

6:18

gross man. Wait a minute. Is that what you could do

6:20

with it? Yeah, it is. Oh, okay. All

6:23

right. I get it now. I'm making you

6:25

work too hard. No, you're not. It's fun. Okay.

6:29

So Tom's effort just recently did this endurance test

6:31

64 days, 18 hours and 26 minutes. However,

6:36

unmanned, that is not the

6:39

endurance record. Is the

6:41

endurance record manned? The

6:43

endurance record is manned

6:46

and it was set in the 1950s. So

6:49

we are now in the 2020s. A

6:52

record that was set in the 1950s still stands.

6:57

Think about that. Yeah, I'm thinking

6:59

about that and it's bothering me. We have new technology.

7:01

I mean, I always root for the old timers. You

7:03

know this about me. Yes. I love

7:05

that the Greeks know things that we don't know. I

7:07

think that's just incredible. But

7:09

I for the life of me cannot

7:12

even start to put together a way

7:14

that that makes sense because the technology

7:16

is so much better now. The fuel

7:19

is more efficient. People

7:21

are so much heavier on average. Well,

7:23

actually now that works the other way, I guess, doesn't

7:25

it? Yeah. I don't have a theory.

7:28

So this was a test by the US Army. They

7:31

said that it landed or it

7:33

had an event that made it come down.

7:36

I don't know that it actually landed on

7:38

purpose. Something stopped the test

7:40

four hours short of the record. And

7:42

today I want to tell you the

7:45

story of the Las Vegas Hacienda Hotel

7:47

Endurance record that was set by

7:50

two crazy guys back in the 1950s. And

7:53

I just want to tell you the story. I don't know a whole

7:55

lot about this, but I've read what I

7:58

can find on it and it's fascinating. Okay,

8:00

let me give you this bit of feedback on

8:02

the front end. Here's why I'm intrigued. Well, I'm

8:04

intrigued because all the things you said about flying

8:07

for a long time and all that business is

8:09

great. It doesn't seem like if you were going

8:11

to talk about an airplane record, that naming it

8:13

after a hotel makes sense because of how airplanes

8:16

generally move to places and don't

8:18

stay in one place when they fly. So

8:20

I'm hooked. Yeah, this is interesting. Let's do

8:22

it. All right, so here's the deal.

8:26

It's the 1950s. Las

8:28

Vegas is popping up. You got all these casinos

8:30

popping up, the high rollers, they know where to

8:32

go. Where do you go in Las Vegas if

8:34

you're a high roller? This trip, right?

8:37

Right. Yeah. What

8:39

hotel would you go to today? Now? Yeah. When

8:42

Aria, yeah, I think those are the new

8:44

fancy ones. 15 years ago,

8:47

Bellagio and Caesars Palace were real

8:49

hot. Now you've actually lived in

8:52

Vegas. Yes. And the airport

8:54

there is McCarran. McCarran, yeah. So do

8:56

you know in the baggage claim area

8:58

when you're in there and you look

9:01

up and there's this airplane attached to

9:03

the ceiling? Yes. Oh, I

9:05

know exactly. Yes, exactly. Yes, I know what

9:07

you're talking about. What does that airplane look like? Primitive.

9:09

Yeah. Old. Yeah.

9:12

Small. Yeah. To

9:15

Cessna 172. Great. I would not

9:17

know that. That airplane that is hanging above

9:19

the baggage claim at the Las Vegas airport

9:21

stayed in the air with two humans flying

9:23

it for 64 days, 22 hours, and 19

9:25

minutes. Why?

9:30

I kid you not. That happened. And

9:32

it's weird because the first question should be how,

9:35

but my first question instead is why. Well,

9:38

what on earth would make a man decide to

9:40

do that kind of thing? Okay. So

9:42

the Hacienda Hotel, first we have to

9:44

talk about that. So there was this

9:46

dude named Doug Bailey, his wife Judy.

9:48

They decided to build the Las Vegas

9:51

Hacienda Hotel. Where is this in Las

9:53

Vegas? Off the Strip. It

9:55

sounds like an off strip hotel. Yeah. This

9:57

is for the low rollers. Sure. They

10:00

used to laugh about it being where the

10:02

low rollers, because you're at Vegas, right? All

10:05

these people are flying out to Vegas, they

10:07

wanna do the vacation thing, but you actually

10:09

have people that live in Vegas. Yes,

10:11

you do, that's the thing. And they wanna go

10:13

on a date one night too. Or they wanna

10:15

just, you know, hey, let's

10:17

take the weekend, darling. We've been working really, really hard

10:20

over, I don't know what you do in Vegas for

10:22

a job, but we've been doing this, all this stuff,

10:24

maybe you're working at the other casinos. A hit man.

10:27

A hit man, yeah, who knows? So

10:29

they want to chill out, right? By building

10:31

this hotel, Doc Bailey and his wife, they're

10:33

like, we want a place for the families

10:36

of Vegas. So they branded it as the

10:38

family casino, which is kinda funny, right? Yeah,

10:40

it's an oxymoron. Did you ever take your

10:43

family to a casino in Vegas? We think

10:45

I'm some kind of yes, I did. What

10:47

did you do? You go and

10:49

walk through New York, New York. I

10:51

always thought it was fun, because it's like, it's in New York, and that's

10:53

a long ways away. We can't get you there right now, but we can

10:55

look at this. The Bellagio's fun,

10:58

it's like you're in Italy, Caesar's Palace,

11:00

it's all anachronistic, and they've got Greek

11:02

stuff in there, and they're off by

11:04

hundreds of years on several of their

11:06

displays, but you don't have to just

11:09

set aside the historical disbelief. That looks

11:11

old. That looks old, what, it's marble

11:13

or something, Greek robes, whatever, they got

11:15

fuzzy things on their hats. Crojan Horse,

11:17

sure, missed by 800 years

11:19

from Julius Caesar. It's about

11:22

as bad as me missing from now to nights

11:24

in Shining Armor with a 50s diner that I

11:26

want to design, whatever,

11:28

good enough. Yeah, you go to those places

11:30

because it's a cool vibe. Okay,

11:33

the kids didn't gamble with the kids at all. Didn't?

11:36

No. So what he's doing, what Doc Bailey's

11:38

doing, is he's trying to make a place where the

11:40

locals can chill out. In fact, they call the place,

11:43

according to all the articles I read, they call it

11:45

Haysid Heaven. Haysid meaning a

11:47

lower class redneck kind of person, somebody

11:49

that works really hard, and

11:51

they embraced that title. They're like, yeah,

11:53

we are the Hacienda, and the

11:55

people that worked at the Hacienda, they were

11:58

kind of a tight knit family type vibe.

12:00

You know, everyone. Everybody liked each other, the

12:02

maids, the slot machine mechanics, all this. Doc

12:04

Bailey is kind of an interesting

12:06

guy. He decides he wants to

12:08

do some type of large marketing

12:10

campaign. Okay, a

12:13

stunt. A stunt. That's a

12:15

very Vegas thing to do. And

12:17

so he goes around and he starts talking

12:19

to everybody. He talks to the maids. He

12:21

talks to all these different people

12:24

and it is a slot machine mechanic that said,

12:26

hey, I got an idea for you. What

12:28

if we go for the endurance record? And there

12:30

was this guy, his name was Robert Timm, and

12:33

he was a slot machine mechanic that was

12:35

actually a World War II bomber pilot and

12:38

he loved flying. And he said,

12:40

I bet we could make an airplane beat the

12:42

endurance record, which at the time was a surmountable

12:44

task. Like I think it had been set in

12:46

the 30s or 40s. I don't know. I

12:48

don't remember all the dates, but it had been set at

12:51

least a decade before. And so they

12:53

started talking about it. And Doc said, you

12:55

know what? Let's do it. You know what? $100,000

12:57

to do this. Doc.

13:01

Go buy a plane. Wow. Go do whatever you

13:03

got to do. Just make it happen and we're

13:05

going to get all this publicity. If somebody gave

13:07

you $100,000 right now and said, hey, Matt,

13:10

I need you to go build a plane that

13:12

will beat the current endurance record.

13:15

That's let's say it's 30 days, whatever it was. What

13:18

would you do? What would you do different than a

13:20

normal plane? I give, I would go

13:22

find somebody who's already working on it, ask to become

13:24

an investor, give them the $100,000 and ask for a

13:26

share of their prize money that would earn me back

13:28

more than $100,000. I'm

13:31

so overwhelmed by that. The

13:33

refueling is going to be the key and

13:35

life support. What are you going to do with your

13:37

poop? 64 days, for me, that's

13:39

128 poops. I

13:45

don't want all that in there with me. We're going to

13:47

accumulate. How am I getting the food? How

13:50

am I going to get through the first half of

13:52

this thing with all of that food not yet converted

13:54

to poop and dumped out the back of the plane?

13:56

I got to have somewhere to fly it. I

13:58

have to be able to research. There's

14:01

absolutely no way for me to make this work

14:03

without resupplying or eating and drinking things I don't

14:05

want to eat and drink This is fascinating because

14:07

your brain instantly goes to the human part of

14:10

it and my brain Instantly goes

14:12

to the engine and the valves. I'm like,

14:14

how am I I'm gonna burn a valve

14:16

out like doing this How am I gonna

14:18

keep enough oil in the engine? That

14:21

means I have to you didn't think about all the

14:23

poop No, I did. I mean I don't

14:25

go I'm thinking mechanics first, but

14:27

you know, eventually I would get to the

14:29

poop But I think about the

14:31

engine first Okay. Yeah,

14:33

that's I'm not sure I'm ready for 64

14:36

days in a container on the

14:38

ground the size of an airplane Let

14:41

alone one the size of an

14:43

airplane but in the air that's

14:45

fascinating. Okay, so Robert Tim gets

14:47

to work He gets

14:49

an airplane. He starts stripping it down. He

14:51

takes out the backseat replaces it with a

14:53

cot he starts modifying Everything

14:56

he they reach out to an engine

14:58

manufacturer and they said hey We need a

15:01

special engine that can do this Don't

15:03

you want to be the engine manufacturer that made the

15:05

engine that has the endurance record? Of course this I

15:07

forget who it was this fancy pants engine makers like

15:09

yeah, of course we do and he goes Okay, well

15:11

I need a special one. I need it to be

15:14

really good And so the guy at the engine factory

15:16

is like, okay cool And then he tells the secretary

15:18

hey go out on the floor and pick out an

15:20

engine This guy needs an engine and so hope they

15:22

end up doing it. I forget the name of that

15:24

company So they get this new engine

15:26

and then Robert Tim is He's

15:29

a bit of a control freak. So he

15:32

starts doing things He adds a funnel so

15:34

that he can add special alcohol into the

15:36

engine Because he thinks that alcohol

15:38

will get rid of the carbon build up as it

15:40

starts to build up He starts getting

15:42

all these dials and stuff that he

15:44

can access the engine itself while the

15:47

plane is running Trying to do fuel

15:49

additives like people used to do on

15:51

their vehicles with some frequency imagining that

15:53

this would somehow Clean out the

15:55

system. Have you ever put gas in a in an

15:57

airplane? You've done that. No would have

15:59

watched some How'd they do it? Well,

16:01

they had a little truck that they came out with. It

16:03

was a small plane. It wasn't a normal fueling. The

16:06

fuel went into the wing. It wasn't like

16:08

a gas trigger at the gas station or

16:10

even like you'd put gas in a boat.

16:12

It was a different attachment. They

16:14

didn't turn it on at the point where the fuel goes in.

16:16

They turned it on back at the... Oh, so they attached it

16:19

and then they hooked it. So this

16:21

particular plane is a Cessna 172, which I've fueled up before.

16:26

And on that one, if I recall correctly,

16:28

we would climb up on top of the wing

16:30

and we would pop the little gas cap off

16:32

on top, and we'd put fuel in the top

16:34

of the wing. But you're right. I've seen the

16:36

little fuel trucks as well, the

16:39

pumps back at the truck. Yeah, it

16:41

was adorable. It wasn't like a big

16:43

production or anything. Yeah. So that's what

16:45

they did. They had to modify that

16:47

airplane so that it could be refueled.

16:50

But there's a problem. Air-to-air refueling

16:52

is not really a thing at this time. And

16:55

we're coming out of World War II and

16:58

all that. They know how to do it,

17:00

but you're not going to air-to-air refuel a

17:02

Cessna 172. It's got a propeller on the

17:04

front, right? Yeah, that's a huge problem for

17:07

your refueling hose. Do you ever play the

17:09

Nintendo Entertainment System Top Gun game? Yes. The

17:12

hardest thing to do in

17:14

all of video games, other than stab

17:17

jaws with the front of your boat,

17:20

is refuel that stupid Top

17:22

Gun plane. I can shoot

17:24

down all your dumb Russian MiGs or whatever,

17:26

but I simply cannot make gas go back

17:28

into my plane. I'm going to have to

17:30

crash into the ocean again. So

17:32

based on that, which is my only experience

17:34

with air-to-air refueling, it's very difficult. There's

17:37

a special helicopter that it's a

17:39

– well, the Chinook. There's a

17:42

special Chinook that I think the

17:44

160th uses. The really

17:46

good helicopter. What is the 160th? The

17:49

Nightstalkers. They're the best

17:52

helicopter pilots in the nation. Can

17:54

You say the name of what they are

17:57

again but cooler? The Nightstalkers. The Nightstalkers. Who

18:00

who he added added some to meet

18:02

the i am the titillated yeah this

18:04

is keep yourself say if it's so

18:06

they have. They have a big fan

18:08

on top of the chinook helicopter but

18:10

they have this big long boom out

18:13

in front of the nose in it's

18:15

the weirdest thing with that's designed just

18:17

so they can refuel a sinner which

18:19

to me is amazing. Staff: Yeah anyway

18:21

so we're not living in the age

18:23

of jet turbans for the smoke while

18:25

I guess we are but not for

18:27

commercial airplanes are my private airplanes. We

18:29

have these. An internal combustion engine? They.

18:32

Give it a go. They do all the stuff

18:34

they start flying ah that they take off and

18:36

the have this plan and I are. Here's what

18:38

we're going to really take off. It's

18:40

me and this other pilot. We don't

18:42

actually know the other pilots name. For.

18:44

The first two attempts because apparently they

18:47

didn't get along to the point where

18:49

Robert never spoke of this guy again.

18:51

Oh, But. They gave it to cracks

18:53

and I'm it did not worth the something

18:55

happened and they had the land but the

18:58

way they I want and would begin at

19:00

him and howling with epic battle. no I

19:02

don't know it. Visiting him beat the original

19:05

record. he was like I think it was

19:07

like a weaker nineteen days or something. I

19:09

was long enough to develop a hatred for

19:11

someone is it is Yes so that that

19:14

app and apparently they took off this speeding

19:16

down his was a road near the desert

19:18

they would drop the airplane really close to

19:21

to the debt and. Then somebody in that

19:23

in a truck would reach up and paint

19:25

the tire. See. Paint the tire white.

19:28

Or whatever so that when they land right

19:30

before they land, you can go back and

19:32

you can inspect the tired because they, oh.

19:34

They've. never touched the ground o l

19:37

good yeah so yeah so that's what

19:39

they did anyway so they tried it

19:41

twice didn't work they developed the hatred

19:43

for each other move forward they did

19:45

that this new fancy pants engine that

19:47

they decide to to to try out

19:49

and then they went back to this

19:51

new the cessnas a brand new plane

19:53

at this point in time it's great

19:56

airplane people stuff on the day but

19:58

in the course of them trying to

20:00

beat this and it not working, somebody else

20:02

beat the endurance record. And

20:04

they did it with a Cessna 172 with a stock engine. Really?

20:09

Yeah. And so how would you

20:11

feel about that? Discouraged. Exactly. I

20:13

would not like it and I would feel even

20:15

blamier toward the two idiot co-pilots who couldn't pull

20:17

their weight. Yeah. Yeah.

20:20

It was actually, I think it was one guy that was just a jerk both times or

20:22

whatever. Maybe he was a great

20:24

guy. Maybe Robert Tims the villain. I have no

20:26

idea. But apparently they didn't get along. They move

20:29

forward, they replace it with the

20:31

stock Cessna engine and then they're starting. And

20:33

then there's a problem. You've already

20:35

tried this two times. Didn't

20:37

work. So the whole point

20:39

is media coverage. At this

20:41

point it's not working out. What do you think? Like,

20:44

hey. Hey, Matt Whitman

20:46

with the Las Vegas Tribune. We're

20:48

going to try the Hacienda endurance

20:50

stunt again. You want to come out and cover

20:52

it? I'm

20:55

good. Didn't somebody else already just

20:57

win that after you guys failed

21:00

twice? No, I'm

21:02

good. Right. So that's kind

21:05

of the vibe at this point. There's another

21:07

thing. It's clearly a marketing

21:09

stunt. Clearly. What

21:11

would you do if you knew you had

21:13

a marketing stunt on your hand? You're trying to

21:16

tell everybody about your casino being for the, you

21:18

know, this is the casino for the common man.

21:21

This is a family casino. Can

21:23

you think of anything you could do to

21:25

spice up this thing to make it more

21:27

palatable to everyone? Well, I would bring in

21:29

a local radio station and have them do

21:31

a remote with hot dogs and balloons. We

21:33

got face paint for the kids and we're

21:36

setting the all time aerial endurance record. Come

21:38

on down to the Hacienda Hotel on

21:40

Tropicana Boulevard in Las Vegas. I'd do

21:43

that. I'd have that guy with that

21:45

voice say those words into a microphone.

21:47

You're really good at that. Thank you.

21:50

So you'd have hot dogs and balloons? And face

21:52

paint? Yeah. And maybe a

21:54

dunk tank? Didn't they did the secret weapon when you kind

21:57

of just wanted to do something And

21:59

you. Can I need it to

22:01

mean more than what it actually means? There's.

22:03

A secret weapon that people sometimes of poor.

22:05

That's right, they raised money for cancer as

22:07

with a chip is irritating me know they

22:09

did. Yeah. Seriously, they went

22:11

altruistic. They did lame fact that

22:13

the they're like guys we just

22:15

care so much about cancer that

22:17

we're gonna go flying a plane

22:20

for sixty four days to help

22:22

with the cancer. Currently people are

22:24

getting and now and it's very

22:26

bad. Yes! and we're going to

22:28

try to stop it Now there

22:30

is one endurance record. Ah to

22:32

they succeeded. They end up stop

22:34

and cancer. Know and so

22:37

we saw Habit. we hippie stuff I have.

22:39

well that is another failure that they are

22:41

going to have to live with. Yeah that

22:43

there actually is a are a guy that

22:46

that did something pretty amazing. endurance record that

22:48

was for cancer and have you ever heard

22:50

of Terry Fox? Them. Sir. Terry

22:52

Fox was this guy in Canada.

22:55

He. Is a legend and he

22:57

it's a big big deal and

22:59

kinda the Terry Fox that cancer.

23:02

And he had. One leg as a

23:04

result of this than he is up

23:06

running across the country is called the

23:08

Marathon of Hope. He did it in

23:10

the in the Nineteen eighties. that's ring

23:12

a bell yet it's a big deal

23:14

and so they that is a really

23:16

good endurance record. And I don't think

23:18

Terry Fox was. You know he wasn't

23:20

promoting the Hacienda Hotel. I think he

23:22

legitimately was was trying to do is

23:24

stop the cancer. Yeah he does get

23:26

okay at different levels of is. So

23:28

for example, I just saw an ad

23:30

the other day with the guy who

23:32

his son. Had a masseur, was a

23:34

quadriplegic and pushed him. An

23:37

Iron Man races are in in ultra marathon that's

23:39

what it was a are yet is a swimming

23:41

and think know I think they may be did

23:43

an Iron Man. And. He figured out a

23:45

way as it's just insane whatever that story

23:47

is and I've and second on that story

23:49

for a long time. and the commercial opens

23:51

in his push and his sons thing but

23:53

his sons not in. oh gosh

23:56

as watch a movie with camilla and

23:58

both of us just I

24:01

felt that we said that we stopped our conversation.

24:03

We immediately paid attention and I haven't followed up

24:05

on it I don't know what happened. But as

24:08

the ad went along it gave the impression that

24:11

now he's pushing other people. Oh Gosh,

24:14

dude. Cool. I

24:16

felt something when he said that Wow,

24:19

so Stuff

24:21

means stuff and similar things are not the same

24:23

thing. I am gonna go

24:25

ahead and keep the Hacienda

24:28

hotel endurance aviation

24:30

record attempt over

24:33

here in the cheap

24:35

promotional appeal

24:37

to emotion Exploitative

24:39

side of things and yet I still think

24:41

it's awesome I'm gonna put

24:43

the dad who pushed his son in the thing over here

24:46

and the really meaningful thing along with mr Fox who ran

24:48

across Canada are we good with that? Yeah

24:50

That's interesting that you say that because when

24:52

I was reading these articles that component had

24:54

not even occurred to me But you're absolutely

24:56

right. We are still talking about

24:58

a hotel that doesn't exist anymore By

25:01

the way, it was destroyed in the 90s to

25:03

make way for the Mandalay Is that a somebody

25:05

should have tried to break their record to raise

25:07

money to keep their hotel in? But

25:10

it's interesting that that was a

25:12

yeah. Yeah, you bring up an excellent point. I

25:14

still think it's cool story I'm gonna keep I think it's

25:17

cool story too and I want you to keep going but

25:19

I'm gonna needle them for the cancer thing Yeah Yes,

25:23

there you go. You got that so

25:25

move forward and they figure out hey

25:27

This is a hard thing to do

25:29

our engine It's not working that little

25:32

port that Robert Tim put in the

25:34

the firewall to get that alcohol down

25:36

Well the mechanic that's working on the

25:38

Cessna. He's like, okay. Look Robert

25:41

really wants this thing I think it's

25:43

horse crap. So he disconnects that

25:45

pipe and he just lets that alcohol

25:47

run down You know harmlessly

25:49

to the bottom of the whole engine compartment

25:51

So there was a little bit of subterfuge

25:54

going on at least in one of the

25:56

sources. I read where the mechanic disconnected

25:59

it so that The guy that's about to

26:01

fly the thing thinks he's doing something he's not

26:03

actually doing because the mechanic thinks, hey, if

26:05

we want this thing to work, we got to use the engine like it

26:07

was designed to run. Okay. I thought

26:10

that was interesting. Whose side are you on, team

26:12

mechanic or team visionary? Well, I mean, there's

26:14

a little bit of a, I don't know,

26:16

a lie going on there. And also there's another guy

26:19

that's going to be in the airplane. In what way

26:21

is it a little bit? Oh, no, it's

26:23

very much a lie. Because dude

26:25

is making decisions based on his

26:27

knowledge and his brain about his

26:29

survival. They're rooted in

26:31

the assumption that that alcohol is going

26:33

into the engine for better or for

26:35

worse. That's the mental calculation he's running.

26:37

And team mechanic over there, he's changed

26:39

the rules. He did. But

26:42

also if team mechanic is the

26:44

actual mechanic and he's the one who knows

26:46

and he thinks that it's risky and problematic to

26:49

put the alcohol in there, is

26:51

team mechanic guy saving other guy from himself?

26:54

Yeah, that would be called an ethical conundrum.

26:57

That's what's happening.

27:01

I like that. That's pretty good. So long

27:03

story short, well, no, short story long rather,

27:05

they get up in this airplane and

27:08

they start going and people don't care. They're

27:10

like, oh, whatever. They're doing the Hacienda thing.

27:12

Okay, great. So they start

27:14

circling around. They start flying over Vegas,

27:17

over Vegas. They went out into, there's

27:19

this training area outside of Vegas, you

27:21

know, somewhere in California. They

27:24

did that for a while. They just got to fly. That's all they

27:26

got to do. And so they found

27:28

that, well, our airplane is more efficient the

27:30

higher we go, but it's

27:32

cold up there. So they had to

27:34

find this nice balance point where

27:37

they're comfortable. Have you ever been in an

27:40

airplane, an unpressurized cabin at high

27:42

altitude? Not super

27:44

high altitude. I mean, I've been

27:46

in unpressurized planes plenty of times,

27:49

but I've been cold in one. Yeah.

27:52

If you go too high, it gets crazy cold, crazy

27:54

cold. And so I think they round up around

27:56

4,000 feet. If I

27:58

remember the numbers that I read correctly. I could be wrong

28:00

about that. I think it was somewhere in there. I know it's less

28:02

than 10,000. That's low enough to plant you

28:04

into one of the mountains there around the Las Vegas Valley.

28:06

I mean, Mount Charleston will get you at 4,000 feet real

28:09

easy. Which brings

28:11

me to something that happened. So

28:13

they have a rudimentary, what do you

28:16

call it, an autopilot. And

28:18

so this autopilot is supposed to just keep everything flat

28:20

and level. We're not talking

28:22

about, you know, highfalutin computational power back

28:24

in the day, right? We are still

28:26

like pre, are we pre transistor? I

28:28

know they're starting to develop transistors for

28:31

Apollo at this point, but we

28:33

have early computers but they're not great. So

28:36

at this point in time, they have an autopilot. They're

28:38

here in the hum of the engine 24 seven. They're

28:42

taking turns. You know, one

28:44

guy will fly, one guy will sleep. They

28:47

modified the passenger seat so that they

28:49

could make this little porch like area

28:51

because they can't stretch their legs.

28:53

I had wondered about that. Yeah.

28:56

And so you're sitting out of Kilia. Yeah,

28:58

it will. You're sitting or laying down.

29:01

And one thing we know now, we didn't know this

29:03

then is that if you're not standing

29:06

up and fighting the force of gravity, you

29:08

are literally peeing out your bones. Like

29:11

your bone. Never heard that phrase

29:13

before. You're peeing out your bones. Yes.

29:17

Yes. The calcium in your

29:19

body. Oh, it goes out your pee. Yes.

29:23

You're reabsorbing. So right now, when

29:25

you lift weights, your

29:27

body, I don't, I'm fascinated by this

29:29

concept. I don't know how it works,

29:31

but your body somehow says, huh,

29:34

there was a stress on that bone.

29:37

I should probably allocate more

29:40

structural material to that bone so that

29:42

it can handle the stress in the

29:44

future better. Huh. So

29:47

if you reduce the stress on all

29:49

the bones at once, conversely, the body's

29:51

like, we don't need to waste resources

29:53

on these stupid bones anymore. Let's

29:56

just pee that out. Exactly. Dang.

30:00

The mechanism in the human body, I don't

30:02

understand it, but as an

30:04

engineer, if I could

30:06

make a material that could somehow

30:08

detect stress and reallocate more material,

30:12

dude, that's game changing. If you could

30:14

ever do that, that would be

30:16

incredible. That's what the human body does. So

30:19

anyway, they started, you know, they're

30:21

not using, they're not standing up. They're

30:23

just laying there. So they started not feeling that great.

30:26

They're going for days and days and days. And so

30:28

it's like, man, what would that do to

30:30

your brain? Just to hear an engine going and you're flying

30:33

the thing. What would you do? I

30:35

hope you brought books. The

30:37

not standing is what would drive

30:39

me crazy. Just the lack of

30:41

ability to get out and around.

30:44

And I also think having where

30:46

you would really like to be,

30:49

be constantly visible, but

30:51

it's down there and you either have to land

30:53

or fall out and die to go be where

30:55

you'd like to be. Like there's a Hardee's down

30:57

there, but you're not allowed to go to it because

31:00

you're setting a flying record right now. So

31:03

I think you'd start to feel

31:05

really homesick and these

31:07

little undercurrents of odd despair. The

31:11

English boys in the trenches in the North

31:13

of France and world war one, apparently I've

31:15

never verified this myself. There are certain places

31:17

where the trenches were dug and there at

31:20

the end of the line, you could see

31:22

the lights in the Southern UK from the

31:24

trenches. All these boys want to do is

31:27

go home. And apparently there's

31:29

a psychological phenomenon where the British

31:31

soldiers in the trenches who had

31:33

the closest proximity to the coast,

31:35

it was even harder because you

31:37

could see it. There were rumors that with just

31:40

the right conditions, you could almost hear the sounds

31:42

or the music of home. Whoa. And it made

31:44

them crazy. I think that would happen right there

31:46

in that little plane that you got pulled up.

31:48

It's fun and quaint when you get on a

31:51

plane for the first time. You're like, I can

31:53

see my house from here. But

31:55

then eventually you're doing the, I

31:57

can always see my house from

31:59

here. where my family is

32:01

and my comfortable bed, it's there

32:03

and I just can't go to

32:06

it. That's a great point. They

32:09

started this in early December. They

32:11

experienced Christmas Day from

32:14

the air. Yeah and so their kids, they flew

32:16

over the house, I think, I don't know if

32:18

it's Robert's house or whatever, they flew over the

32:20

house and they made these little parachutes and put

32:22

candy canes in them and dropped them to their

32:24

kids. So this happened between

32:26

December and February and they

32:28

sure enough spent Christmas Day in the

32:30

airplane. That's cute but horrible. Right. Exactly.

32:32

That's not what I want. But

32:35

remember we're promoting the hotel so it's okay.

32:37

I thought we were stopping cancer. No. Oh

32:41

you're right we're stopping cancer. What a dang

32:43

minute dude what's actually going on here? We're

32:45

stopping cancer man. Okay because I want the

32:47

episode to end if this is about some

32:49

dumb hotel. Okay. Are we

32:51

stopping cancer? We're stopping cancer. Well let's keep going.

32:54

I'd like to know more. So

32:56

we haven't talked about the refueling thing. Here's a

32:58

picture. Describe what you see on this picture.

33:00

Well huh. Okay

33:02

I see some problems. There's

33:05

an old truck that looks like they're out

33:07

in a salt flat. So this is

33:09

a little bit like what I was envisioning. You're out

33:11

on a salt flat and there's

33:13

a semi. It's actually not a salt

33:15

flat. It's a very very long straight

33:18

stretch of road somewhere between Arizona and

33:20

California. Needles Highway. What? No do they

33:22

call it? No Needles Highways. The Black

33:24

Hills. Is it the Needles Highway

33:27

also? What do they call that? It's from

33:29

Boulder City and you kind of go down

33:31

toward Arizona, Lake Havasu. It's just a

33:33

gun barrel. It is as straight and

33:35

long as any road you'll

33:38

ever see ever coming out of Boulder

33:40

City which is there on Lake Mead

33:42

by Hoover Dam and just going

33:44

south. How come I can't remember the name of that?

33:46

I think there's a town down there called Needles and that's why I

33:48

called it the Needles Highway. I don't know what the name of the

33:50

thing is. Okay so they're not on a

33:52

salt flat. It looks like a dirt

33:54

road though. It does. So it looks like if

33:57

you encountered bumps this could get tricky in a

33:59

hurry. They got a big

34:01

semi-rigid tube. Can't tell

34:03

how thick, but I would say the diameter

34:05

there is maybe two

34:08

inches. So how did that tube get to the

34:10

airplane? You got any ideas there? Keep

34:12

going. What do you see below the airplane?

34:14

I see a truck and there's a dude standing in the back

34:17

of the truck. Okay,

34:20

this is my guess for how it got to the airplane. I

34:23

think the guy in the truck held

34:25

that semi-rigid but somewhat flexible tube straight

34:27

up and I think they built a

34:29

catch onto the plane and

34:31

he held that up and they lined it up, caught

34:34

the catch, which may be dangled, then reeled

34:36

in the catch to get the seal and

34:39

get the fuel. But then you

34:41

got to have a monster of a pump

34:43

down there in that truck to move fuel

34:45

that high. I mean, that's a pretty

34:47

significant pump. Yeah. It's a big

34:49

stretch. The most important word you said was reels. They

34:51

had a winch on the airplane, so you're right. They

34:54

reeled it up. So they had

34:56

this hook. They would dangle it down and

34:58

they would somehow get the end of the

35:00

hose from the truck that's pacing them down

35:02

this desert highway. So they dropped the

35:04

hook clear down to them, so with the hands, the

35:06

guy in the truck could do it. Right.

35:10

So this is all happening on a dark desert highway.

35:12

Yep, exactly. Cool wind, breezing that guy's hair. Yeah, exactly.

35:14

And then he gets the thing and he has to

35:16

connect it and send it all the way back up.

35:18

Was there some Hotel California in there? Hotel what now,

35:20

Cali? We're talking about the Hotel Hacienda, dude. That's right.

35:23

So anyway, they hauled that thing up there. Check out

35:25

any time you want, but you can never leave. They

35:27

have it set up where they can fuel this thing

35:29

as it's going. So

35:31

the truck driver is suddenly

35:33

very important. You have to drive this

35:35

truck straight and you have to have

35:37

the airplane at the correct altitude. You don't want to be

35:39

going up and down. You don't want to be going left

35:41

and right. You have to be perfectly paced.

35:44

It's a pretty interesting thing. So if

35:46

you had to do this like four times a

35:48

day, they had to do this well over 100

35:50

times. More than you... Four

35:53

times a day? Is that really the number? I don't

35:55

know. Maybe it was two times a day. I

35:57

don't know. It was a lot. The

36:00

most important thing is they also had to do it in

36:02

the dark. That's where

36:04

it gets crazy because if you're looking at this

36:06

right now, the way they do this is this

36:08

airplane, they have to line up with the road

36:10

and they just drive straight or excuse me, fly

36:12

straight along the road. Once the

36:14

truck gets in position, they could probably get

36:16

under the airplane and look up and just

36:19

keep that airplane right there. You would accelerate

36:21

and decelerate as needed to keep that plant,

36:23

that plane in a certain place in your

36:25

windshield. And then you just bank on that

36:27

hose operator that can handle it. To me,

36:30

this is the most dicey part of the

36:32

whole thing, refueling. To me, this

36:34

invalidates the whole record. Why? They're

36:36

connected to the ground. Yeah, but they stayed.

36:38

You're right. But they, they are

36:41

flying the whole time. Destin. Yes. If

36:44

I am running down, do you want cancer to

36:46

end or not? Okay, nevermind. I want cancer to

36:48

end. I take back everything I said. I

36:51

hope this ends cancer. If I'm running down

36:53

the sideline and I catch a pass and

36:56

the ball is over the field of

36:58

play in bounds, imagining we're playing football,

37:01

but my right foot is touching out of

37:03

bounds. You're out of bounds. It feels like

37:05

I'm out of bounds, even though the ball

37:07

is inbound. It feels

37:10

like this only half counts. I

37:12

mean, it's, they're connected to the

37:14

ground. When it comes to football and

37:16

this, they're not same Z's. I

37:18

think they're same Z's. Okay. So

37:22

you can't just call no same

37:24

Z's. Okay. Well, you have

37:26

your perspective. I have mine. What we can

37:28

both agree on is that we hate cancer.

37:30

That's right. And the ravaging effects it can

37:33

have on lives and families. So we're in

37:35

with these people. So, uh, somewhere

37:37

along the way the monotony gets

37:39

to him and Robert ends up

37:42

falling asleep at the yoke and

37:45

he sleeps for like hours.

37:48

No, maybe it's, I don't know. He sleeps for a long

37:50

dang time. Maybe it's an hour. I

37:52

don't know what it is because they have the

37:54

autopilot. They don't crash and they wake up and

37:56

they're like, Oh, Hey, um, I

37:59

was asleep. Where are we

38:01

and then they had to navigate after that

38:03

we are? 200

38:05

yards from the face of Mount Charleston Exactly

38:08

the fact that they were pointing away from the

38:10

mountains is the only reason they were alive So

38:12

at that moment in time, I think you know,

38:14

I didn't see my kids at Christmas I

38:17

could have died because this moron right

38:19

here fell asleep. I'm kind of

38:21

done like I'm kind of done I'm kind

38:23

of done, you know, if we

38:25

had a reasonable expectation that we're gonna

38:27

cure cancer I'm still in but we've

38:30

got hacienda painted on the side of her

38:32

airplane here Hacienda hotel. So

38:35

anyway, but did Judith Palmer say she

38:37

was kind of done during her second

38:39

round of chemotherapy? No,

38:42

and if she could keep fighting bravely I think

38:45

we can keep fighting bravely that'd be my attitude

38:47

when I'm up there dude cancer We've

38:51

both known people that have died from cancer. We

38:53

are dangerously close to not joking

38:55

territory The

38:57

joke is not cancer. The joke is

39:00

their facetious concern about cancer to promote

39:02

their hotel You're right. That

39:04

was the thing they they were reaching for

39:07

this moral justice, you know this moral I

39:09

don't know what the word is. They needed a justification

39:11

and They they tagged

39:13

that on there and by doing that they

39:16

could get a lot more people interested or

39:18

I get willing to Just how stuff works.

39:20

It is how it works. Whatever. Alright, so

39:22

she let me let me get you to

39:24

the end All right, so they kept going

39:26

the instrumentation starts, you know blacking out on

39:28

all the panels and stuff one by one

39:30

Things start to fail in the airplane, but

39:33

the engine kept going they lost all the

39:35

lights in their panels They lost the lights

39:37

that was helping them figure like on the

39:39

on the wings Like the FAA would shut

39:42

you down today But they

39:44

lost the lights on their wings kept

39:46

going the refueling truck kept being able

39:48

to do the thing at one point

39:51

the refueling truck itself broke and they

39:53

resorted to getting five gallon gasoline cans

39:55

and just sending stuff up via the

39:57

winch and fueling the airplane by hand

40:00

which is incredible to me. Just quit!

40:02

Right! I didn't mention this though

40:05

maybe this is why they stayed in it. The

40:07

whole time the food that they're eating they're getting

40:09

steaks made from the hotel. What? Like the, yeah

40:11

I know you see you're back in now. The

40:13

chef at the hotel is making them like gourmet

40:16

food and they're chopping it up and they're putting

40:18

it in thermoses because that's the only way they

40:20

could get it to go up the winch system.

40:22

So they're eating their food out of thermoses. What

40:25

do you think they did for

40:27

the poop situation? Put it back

40:29

in the thermos, send it back

40:32

home. That was so quick! Sometimes

40:34

you say things that remind me

40:36

your brain is

40:38

witheringly fast when you want it to

40:40

be. That is so funny. No,

40:44

they pooped in plastic bags. Oh.

40:46

And someone asked one of them after

40:48

the fact like what did you do with your

40:50

poop? And they're like well you know all those

40:52

little clumps of flowers all over the valley? There

40:54

you go. So apparently they were dropping

40:57

poop bombs all over. Yeah so

40:59

that's what they did and they

41:01

eventually got there. They realized you know

41:03

we've broken the record. They look at each other

41:06

and like hey man we broke the record. Great

41:08

you know work time. It's no.

41:10

That's not what they did. They

41:12

said you know let's keep going because we

41:14

want to put a little, we want to

41:17

put a little distance on this record. Oh.

41:20

So that nobody, well let's make it

41:22

so absurd. Cancer can't come back later.

41:24

That's right. We're gonna make it so absurd

41:26

that no one will want to try to break this

41:28

record in the future. Like they would just lose interest.

41:30

What was the previous record? I don't know. I want

41:33

to say it was like 50 days

41:35

or something. Oh it

41:37

was whatever 64 minus 15 is. It was like

41:39

49 days. 49. They stayed up there for an

41:43

extra two weeks just cuz. Another

41:45

15 days.

41:47

No wait wait. Even if you kept fueling eventually.

41:50

No no no. Let me see. Let

41:52

me find it. I can't

41:54

find what the previous record was but what I do

41:56

see here is they he fell asleep at day 36

41:58

and shortly after that. that the autopilot quit

42:01

working. So now they had, good, yeah.

42:03

So anyway, they kept going once

42:05

they broke the record. I wish I knew what

42:07

the record was previously, but I mean, that's

42:10

not the record holder, who cares? Doesn't matter. That's

42:12

lost the history, nobody cares about that. Relevant. They

42:14

kept going until 64 days. The

42:18

official record is 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes. They

42:22

made the decision, we're done. They

42:24

start lining up and then

42:27

the journalists come out. Now

42:29

it's interesting to everybody. Oh, now you

42:31

like us. Yeah, exactly. Now you're against cancer.

42:33

So then they bring out the trucks and

42:35

then they come in, they make a low

42:37

pass and they look and they verify, yes,

42:39

verily, I say unto thee, there is a

42:41

white stripe on the tire. And so, okay,

42:43

they must have been in the air this

42:45

whole time. And so they come down and

42:47

then they land and they have to be

42:49

helped out of the airplane because their bodies

42:51

are like astronauts, astronauts land

42:54

after long duration. And they're like, you know, carry

42:56

them like a child. It's that kind

42:58

of situation. My question is,

43:00

wasn't this worth it? We're still

43:03

talking about it. We're a long ways

43:05

away. We're 60 years away from this.

43:07

Well, I've gone my whole life without

43:09

talking about it. So we're not still

43:11

talking about it that much. Okay. You're

43:14

against this stunt. I

43:17

feel like you just made a decision that this is

43:19

not awesome. I think it's awesome. Okay, I think it's

43:22

awesome. On the one hand, it feels cheapened by what

43:24

it is. On the other hand,

43:26

I love what it is. I

43:28

live in the Black Hills of South

43:31

Dakota, man. I love stupid roadside tourist

43:33

traps. I love gimmicks and ridiculous things

43:35

that don't make any sense that

43:37

you just do because it's cool and so we might as

43:39

well do it. It's fun for

43:41

me to look at that and kind of

43:44

needle them a little bit about the fake

43:46

altruism thing. It's fun for me to think

43:48

about how much I would hate to do it

43:50

myself. But the fact that I would hate to

43:52

do it myself is also why I respect it

43:54

and I think it's cool and I think it's

43:56

fun. Yeah, they asked and they said,

43:58

well, would you ever think of breaking? this record

44:00

again. He said if I ever

44:02

thought about breaking the record and he made this

44:04

funny joke about locking me up until I wake

44:06

up in the morning and when I do finally

44:09

wake up make me see a psychiatrist. It's

44:11

interesting to me. I don't know if

44:13

that's the competitive spirit of people. I'm a

44:15

competitive person. You're a competitive person. If I can

44:17

juggle and I can toss it in the air

44:19

90 times, what do

44:21

you have to do? Yeah, 180. Yeah, exactly.

44:24

Yeah. Not only do you have to beat my

44:26

record, you have to crush it. Crush it. Yeah,

44:28

I want you to feel bad about who you

44:30

are as a man. You even tried. Yeah, exactly.

44:32

And so I did finally find it. The previous

44:34

record was 50 days. That's cute. They stayed, who

44:37

cares, they stayed in there another two

44:39

weeks after beating the record. To just

44:41

curb stomp the previous people. Exactly. Who

44:43

jumped in while they were still working

44:45

out the kinks, stole their idea, set

44:47

a record. I think that's why they

44:49

stayed up the extra two weeks. It

44:51

wasn't enough to just barely get by

44:53

those guys. It's to make it so they

44:56

would have no temptation to ever try to

44:58

rise up and revolt again with a curb

45:00

stomp. Try doing that

45:02

without teeth, homie. So

45:04

this is the question I have because we

45:07

don't have this information. This army test of

45:09

this Zephyr aircraft. Okay, now let's

45:12

change everything. Let's say you,

45:14

Mr. Whitman, you are the

45:16

test director over this new long duration forever airplane

45:18

we've built. Cool. We're going to do our maiden

45:20

flight. We're going to check. Maybe this is the

45:22

fifth flight. I have no idea. We're

45:25

going to end the test in a week or so. When do you want

45:27

to land? When do you want to bring it down? I

45:29

don't know if it came down because of

45:31

a mechanical failure. I don't know, but let's

45:33

say, for example, let's say that it's flying

45:36

perfectly and you know that the

45:38

duration, the long duration record was

45:40

set by Robert Timm and John Cook,

45:42

the mechanic that airplane mechanic, I don't

45:44

know if I ever said his name.

45:46

You know that these two gentlemen back

45:48

in the 50s set this record just

45:50

with gumption and you know all their

45:52

skills and their World War II bomber

45:54

pilot, you know, experience and their ability

45:56

to just figure things out. Would you

45:58

land the plane? before the record or

46:01

would you go another hour and a half

46:03

just so your plane granted they would

46:05

still have the piloted airplane record. Yeah.

46:08

What would you do? Have I been ordered to land

46:10

the plane because the test is done. We're out of

46:12

budget because if there's one thing I learned from Top

46:14

Gun Maverick, if you just when

46:17

you're in the military and you feel like

46:19

just giving the middle finger to your commanding

46:21

officers and doing whatever you want because you

46:24

do it and then later they're like, you

46:26

shouldn't have done that. But deep

46:28

down they love you and don't care. Negative goes

46:30

rather than a matter of. I've

46:33

never been in the military but I'm pretty sure

46:35

I understand how things work there. They love it

46:37

when you don't do what you're told. Yeah, court

46:42

marshalling is not a thing. Yeah, of

46:44

course if I have the blessing to keep that

46:46

thing in the air I'm going to. But here's

46:49

the discouraging part. What are the ground rules of

46:51

this if it doesn't matter if it's

46:53

manned? Because then I go down to my commanding

46:55

officer's office to tell him that I just

46:57

set the all-time record for a thing being

47:00

in the air manned or unmanned. I look

47:02

on his desk and he's got this little

47:04

device that he got at Sharper Image for

47:06

Christmas and it's got a levitating

47:08

little metal ball that's been floating like that. I'm

47:11

like, how long has that been there? Oh, this

47:13

thing? My wife probably got that from me five,

47:15

six years ago. I don't even know why I

47:18

have it. How much did that cost? Forty

47:21

bucks. Because that thing is the

47:23

current record holder if all we're doing is

47:26

keep a thing in the air for the

47:28

longest amount of time. So I would need

47:30

more parameters. And that's a great point because

47:32

you will see there's the Guinness World Record

47:35

holder thing. You will see like, oh,

47:37

well, I'm the longest juggler to do

47:39

whatever. Well, I'm the longest juggler to

47:41

do it on my left foot. I'm

47:43

the biggest man alive in

47:48

this specific currently

47:50

in this ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:52

So I think records are made to

47:54

be broken. Some records are

47:56

more important than others. I see nations

47:58

doing this a lot. Well we had a

48:00

person in space for this long. Oh, well we've

48:02

got a person in space for this long. Oh,

48:06

we've got an airplane that'll do this. Well we've

48:08

got an airplane that'll do that. Yeah,

48:10

and obviously the ISS is the winner of

48:12

manned time flying anyway. Yeah, it's interesting. This

48:15

is something interesting about us as people. I'm

48:17

just not sure what it is, but we

48:19

do have a desire to beat others and

48:22

besting them at whatever the thing is. So much

48:24

good has come out of that. So

48:26

much soul poison has come out of that. But

48:29

so much good. Dude, I got to call you on

48:31

that. You just made the gesture to land the plane.

48:33

I know. But if we go for another

48:35

three minutes and 15 seconds, it'll be

48:37

the longest episode we've recorded in several weeks.

48:41

So I cannot land the plane. No,

48:44

it all- Land the plane, man. It's

48:46

just right there, dude. Lunch is right

48:48

there, dude. Oh, I want the lunch.

48:50

Land the plane. On

48:53

the one hand, competitive stuff

48:55

has done dark things to my heart at

48:57

times and caused me to embarrass myself and

48:59

hurt the feelings of people I care about.

49:02

At other times, competitiveness and that

49:04

feisty thing that I have in me

49:07

has caused me to make the lives of people

49:09

I care about better and to serve

49:11

others and to do selfless things and

49:14

to do things that are of value.

49:17

There's a song that some ridiculous

49:19

cheese ball musician wrote in the

49:21

80s or 90s. Nobody's

49:23

going to know what I'm talking about. It's so

49:26

niche. But the song was about

49:28

a dude having a crush on a

49:30

girl at church, like a

49:32

youth group or that kind of church setting. And

49:35

Mr. Somebody's Daughter is the name of

49:37

the song. He's liked her.

49:39

He's going to church. He's praying, sweating,

49:41

and reading his Bible and

49:44

all of this stuff. It's got nothing

49:46

to do with God. He wants to get this Mr.

49:48

Bailey's Daughter. I think that's what it's called. He

49:50

wants to get this young lady to

49:52

like him. And there's a line in

49:54

the song where he's like, sometimes maybe

49:56

it's OK to do all the right

49:58

things for the wrong reasons or

50:01

something like that. I think

50:03

competition is that way. Competition is

50:05

something that harnesses our prideful

50:07

impulses and with just

50:09

a little nudge one way or the other

50:11

what can come out of it is Icarus-like

50:13

ruin and disaster or

50:16

Edison-like hubris that leads to discovery

50:18

that serves all of mankind forever

50:20

and it was always a bigger destiny

50:22

at the other end than your own

50:25

glorification. Well said. Well said. Another thing

50:27

I think of here is these types

50:30

of things create innovation. It leaps

50:32

forward and I'm not gonna

50:34

say it better than you just said it but

50:37

what would be different if suddenly

50:39

the longest duration flight determines

50:41

the outcome of whether we live or die

50:44

meaning war. So

50:46

there's two levels of competition. There's this what

50:49

did you what you 50 days all right well

50:51

we're just gonna stay up here another two weeks

50:53

just because but I have

50:56

noticed the largest explosion in

50:58

technological development and all these

51:00

things when who wins that

51:03

competition actually matters because necessity

51:05

is the mother of invention. There you go. Yeah.

51:07

So I would push back a little

51:09

bit on necessity is the mother of invention. I

51:12

would say necessity is a

51:14

mother of invention but there's

51:16

a rival mother of invention and

51:19

its ego. Yeah. And the nice

51:21

thing about when ego is the mother of

51:23

invention is that there's

51:25

really very little crisis going on.

51:27

You're finding peacetime solutions that

51:30

may have applications in crisis times

51:33

and if the price you have to pay for

51:35

it is someone is a swaggery arrogant jerk and

51:37

gets a little into themselves in the meantime yeah

51:39

maybe that's not such a bad price to pay

51:42

for invention that isn't born out of necessity

51:44

but that is still incredibly useful and a

51:46

service to other people. That's

51:49

uh that's the best argument

51:52

I've ever heard for selfish ambition and

51:54

I think that peacetime was tacked on

51:56

to it is what made it work.

51:58

That's interesting. I enjoyed this.

52:00

Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. Lunch. You