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Rust was able to fly on and make his historic landing in front of surprised onlookers. Rust’s 172, flying low to evade Russian air defence radars, was initially mistaken for a Soviet training plane – and when jet fighters were able to identify it as a Western plane, they found it too difficult to match the Cessna’s slow speed. At the height of the Cold War, Rust was able to evade the world’s most formidable air defence system, boasting thousands of aircraft and missile launchers, and landed on a bridge on the edge of Moscow’s Red Square. It was also a Cessna 172 that teenage West German pilot Mathias Rust used to fly into the Soviet Union – and land in Moscow in an effort to promote world peace. The aircraft, called Hacienda, is now hanging in the ceiling of Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport. When they finally landed, on 7 February 1959, their Cessna had been in the air for 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and five seconds – a record for a refueled flight that still stands today. On they flew, for more than two more weeks. When the pair broke the record – seven weeks after they first took off – they decided to make it almost impossible for anyone to beat it. The two pilots kept this up day after day. It was a good thing the flight took place in Nevada, with acres of flat, featureless desert outside the city boundaries. Even driving the resupply vehicles was a challenge – while one person steered, the other matched the speed of Timm and Cook’s Cessna by looking out of the window while keeping their foot on the accelerator. It filled up a belly tank especially installed for the flight, which then transferred fuel into the plane’s normal fuel tanks (and then the belly tank was topped up too).

And twice a day, a fuel tanker drove underneath the Cessna and a hose was raised up to the aircraft.

The Cessna had to fly close to the ground and match the speed of a car carrying supplies for the pilots – the reserve pilot would then lower a bucket so food and water could be put in it and then hoisted back up into the cabin.

Refuelling and resupplying the plane with food and water was an even bigger challenge. This looked very similar to what would become the 172, except it was a "taildragger" design, with a wheel underneath the tail. Like the 170 before it, the Cessna 172 could take a pilot and three passengers, at a pinch. It was one of several Cessna designs that came from a light aircraft boom in the years following World War Two, as many of the companies that had produced tens of thousands of military aircraft now turned their attention to civilian aircraft. The 172 was based on an earlier Cessna design called the 170. This is very useful for student pilots because it gives them a better view of the ground and makes the aircraft much easier to land. One answer comes from the fact that the Cessna 172 is a high-wing monoplane – meaning the wings sit high above the cockpit. What is it about the 172 that has made it such a favourite for so long? The only time its production ceased for an extended time was in the late 1980s, when stricter US laws restricted the manufacture of all light aircraft. Light aircraft might not be updated as often as cars, but 60 years is still a very long time to produce a vehicle that has essentially been unchanged. “The forgiving nature of the aircraft really does suit it to the training environment,” he says.