Perlan’s blog collects the thoughts and experiences of team members from the multiple disciplines needed to build and prepare the aircraft, plan the flight, and carry out the mission. Here, you’ll find insights from the designers, craftspeople, pilots, meteorologists, and support personnel who will make Perlan’s record ascents a reality. Perlan’s blog will be an opportunity to delve into the challenges and triumphs that travel with the giant sailplane.
On November 4, 2017 the Pacific Soaring Council (PASCO) hosted it's 50th anniversary seminar and dinner. This was at the Sequoia Yacht Club just south of San Francisco. Perlan Project was represented by Jim and Jackie Payne as the banquet speakers.
On October 7-8, 2017 the Minden Tahoe Airport hosted an Aviation Roundup (Extravaganza) with the Air Force Thunderbirds as the headline event. In two days 31,000 aviation minded folks came through the gates! Perlan Project had our simulator available for those who wanted to see how it would feel to be at the controls of Perlan 2 thanks to Tim Gardner. And we had our mockup available for youngsters to build a dream of soaring. Thanks to Bobbi Thompson, airport manager, and Laurie Harden-Ricardi, SoaringNV, for letting Perlan in and finding a place for our equipment. (The actual Perlan 2 was still on a boat sailing north.)
A world record is more than accomplishing the desired feat. A world record claim must document the data and prove that the pertinent rules were followed. A major component of verification is the flight data recorders. Thanks to Professsor Simone D'Amico and the Space Rendezvous Lab at Stanford University, Perlan Project was able to document that flight data and follow the never before used rules. Thanks also to Bernald Smith and Todd Walters for setting up the initial calaibration in 2016 and to Duncan Eddy and Vince Giralo for running the scripts. Tom Payne (PhD Stanford) helped the lab set up the two LX's for the calibrations.
Airbus Perlan Mission II was well represented In Buenos Aires from September 18-22 by Morgan and Sandra Sandercock. They made a presentation to the Argentina Air Force Research and Development division.
When many of the Perlan team departed El Calafate, the weather was not safe for the tow plane to fly. Cholo was able to fly out from El Calafate on Monday.
At the end of a successful campaign there are many people to thank. First is all the team members who traveled to El Calafate taking from 3 weeks to 3 months out of their busy lives. Each one of us put the mission above our personal lives and it is deeply appreciated! The team members who supported from outside El Calafate were also important to our success. We knew we could count on them to assist with any challenge.
On September 15 the Perlan team finished loading the container. It takes some preparation to get everything in the proper place and tightly secured.
Perlan 2 has a unique system to communicate with the ground. We call our ground station Cap Comm shortened for Capsule Communication. The software program was written by Tom Payne with Morgan Sandercock. Tom wrote a very robust program that could accept our in-the-field revisions without crashing the program. The Life Support System Display (LSSD) is seen in the cockpit and in CapComm. The flutter excitation data is also seen both in the cockpit and can be sent to CapComm. Photos are of CapComm on the day of the highest flight.
Michael Batalia explains telemetry: