I have no idea how they coped with legs extending at times to almost 5 hrs and on marginal food intake at times. After 2 hrs I'm ready to throw myself out the side.
I agree. Last year on the return home from Oshkosh - which is where I met Charlie - we had unusually weak headwinds and so had a blistering ground-speed of ~80 kts. Although it was nice to be flying a vintage aircraft as old as me and to be the object of admiring attention wherever we stopped (the aircraft that is, not me!), I confess to wishing many times, as we droned across the plains of North Dakota and Montana, that I was in something 100 kts faster than a Stinson 108!