Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone following the Perlan Project. December has been a pretty slow month for us but work is continuing. The main development was a decision on the battery system. It turns out the main battery is going to be one really big...
We have sucessfully tested one of the candidate flight instruments in wave lift conditions. The new instrument is called a Craggy Ultimate because it provides the ultimate large-screen soaring display for the pilots. It is capable of running any windows CE software...
Just a couple more photos from Oshkosh.
The guys in the workshop in Bend have been making lots of progress recently. The build rate is really picking up and the excitement is building along with the parts count. Much of the current progress is the boring stuff: project timeline plans and specifications for...
As the weather turns cooler in Bend Oregon, the team in the shop is staying indoors a bit more. No more afternoons sanding Perlan parts with the hangar doors open watching the traffic on the airfield. Of course this should help get our parts made quicker. The final...
Dennis Tito has recently visited the Windward Performance workshop in Bend, Oregon. The main fuselage molds are now complete so Dennis had an opportunity to see all the big pieces. The rate of work is now increasing so that we expect to finish the wing molds much...
The production process we are using to build the Perlan is based on the normal process for mass production of gliders. (In the glider business 50 to 100 is considered to be a lot of gliders.) This is necessary for accurate control over the weight and other properties...
First, an apology for not letting everyone watching the blog know about the Perlan appearance at the Oshkosh airshow. It was only organised at the last minute and the blog was offline until almost the end of the show. We did try to get the word out on Facebook and...
A short video (5 min) that shows most of the elements of a Perlan flight, using the X-Plane simulation. Watch the video on YouTube here.
The Soaring Society of America has just wrapped up its convention in Litte Rock, Arkansas. The Perlan Project was represented there by the project director, Einar Enevoldson, and other Perlan team members. This mockup cockpit has been made from the ‘production’ molds...
Argentine Organizational Supporters of Perlan Sandra Sandercock is Perlan’s liason with Argentina governmental organizations. She was busy in the months leading up to our time in Argentina setting up future meetings and completing the necessary documents. During the...
Loading Day and Last Team Dinner With Monday morning’s sunrise the Perlan was in the trailer, the container was ready for inspection, the Egrett was ready to start the long ferry home, the Tribal truck was at the airport and the crane was booked for the afternoon. For...
Farewell Argentina Multiple weather studies for the next week did not show stratospheric waves of sufficient strength to soar to high altitude. So we made the tough, bittersweet decision to pack up and return to Minden. In El Calafate in 2023 Airbus Perlan Mission II:...
For the third and final blog on Support Teams for Airbus Perlan Mission II we look at several team members who wear many hats. Of special note are the words from our 3 Perlan Interns and their observations about their past two months in El Calafate. Argentine Liason –...
Perlan Support Teams – Part Two As I said in Part One we are so fortunate to have such diverse talent on our team to support Airbus Perlan Mission II. This blog is to highlight each team member’s supporting role in their own words. Most have been on multiple Argentina...
Perlan Project Support Teams - Part One Airbus Perlan Mission II is incredibly fortunate to have a team of dedicated volunteer specialists. It takes a huge amount of work to put Perlan 2 into the air to safely hunt for stratospheric wave. These support teams are the...