John Edward Long Jr. (November 10, 1915 – July 18, 1999) was an American

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

who is in the

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

for the most flight time by a pilot: over 65,000 hours (more than seven years and four months) at the time of his death. He began in 1933 at the age of 17, when he took his first and only flying lesson. In September 1989, he broke the previous record, 52,929 hours, set by

Max Conrad Max Arthur Conrad, Jr. (January 21, 1903 – April 3, 1979, in Summit, New Jersey) known as the "Flying Grandfather", was a record-setting aviator. In the 1950s and 1960s, he set nine official light plane world records, three of which still sta ...

in 1974. According to his brother, Ed Long's job involved checking power lines, so "most of that was under , in a

Piper Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is P ...

". Long's last flight was entered into his logbook June 21, 1999. He died July 18, 1999, at the age of 83. Long was inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame.

References

1999 deaths 1915 births Aviators from Alabama {{Aviation-bio-stub American aviation record holders