A hangar that will house the Perlan 2 is under construction at the Minden Tahoe Airport. It will have an 85-foot door that will enable the Perlan 2 to go into the hangar fully assembled. The high altitude flight and envelope expansion testing of the Perlan 2 will take place here in the spring of 2016. The hangar should be ready for occupancy by mid-September 2015.
August 6-8, 2015 Airbus Perlan Mission II was a sponsor of a Teachers in Space Professional Development workshop for STEM Teachers. Perlan Team member Dr. Michael Batalia, Ph.D. taught part of the workshop. He is a member of the Perlan Science and Education Committees. The workshop was in Palmdale, California. The objective of the workshop was to give teachers hands-on training and experiences in planning, conducting and analyzing real science experiments at the edge of space.
The opening ceremonies for the first ever 13.5 meter World Gliding Championships were on August 1, 2015. The competition is scheduled for two weeks, with the prize giving ceremony on August 15, 2015.
Perlan Project Pilot Morgan Sandercock is there flying his SparrowHawk R under the Australian flag.
He faces an interesting fleet of sailplanes that vary from a Silent to a sawed down Diana 2.
The Perlan 2 glider on display under the wing of the new Airbus A350 was a huge success at Oshkosh. CNN Travel even ranked it #3 as not-to-be-missed "Wow" displays at AirVenture 2015. (See press section of website for a link.) That is a podium finish behind the A350 and the military jets.
Team Perlan worked hard at AirVenture 2015. But we had an amazing sense of accomplishment throughout the week. It was gratifying to share with other experimental aviators and earn their peer recognition.
The Airbus Perlan II on display at Oshkosh under the Airbus A-350.
July 2015
Several of Perlan 2 sponsors and donors were on hand at Oshkosh to get a first look at the new glider.
On the first morning of EAA AirVenture 2015 the team gave a presentation about Perlan 2. Ken McKenzie from Airbus, Stephane Fymat, Ed Warnock, Jim Payne, and Dennis Tito spoke to a good size crowd. History, build, test plans, weather, education and Argentina scouting reports were addressed. The mood of the audience went from disbelief to skeptical to amazed during the course of the presentation!