Blog posts | Perlan Project

SSA Convention Reno 2018

On March 1-3 in Reno, NV the Soaring Society of America held the 2018 national convention. The Perlan 2 glider was the featured display at the front of the convention floor. Many of the Perlan team showed up to work the convention floor. Einar, Ed and Jim put in many hours answering questions about the glider. Tim, Morgan, Alec, and Scott were our workers at the extremely popular Perlan flight simulator (more in a separate blog as this one had too many photos! 15). Susana, Sandra, Linda and Jackie also filled in with hours of support. Stewart and Tago helped with rigging and de-rigging as well as during the convention.

National Records and OSTIV Presentation

The Soaring Society of America hosted their convention in Reno, Nevada from March 1-3. Perlan Project was featured on the convention floor and at the Friday night OSTIV dinner. The team gathered to celebrate the awarding of two national records from Greg Principato, the president of NAA on Friday. We all know that the entire team contributed to make that high flight possible. For Absolute Altitude 52,221 feet GPS altitude. For Altitude Gain 41,768 feet.

Perlan 2 - Return and Landing

On September 9, 2017 Perlan 2 soared to 35,000 feet but was unable to get higher. So Jim Payne and Tim Gardner made the decision to come back to El Calafate. In the video linked below you can see the spoilers extend upward on each wing. They are called air brakes or spoilers because they spoil the lift across the wing.

You can also see lines of clouds acros the lake. These mark the various harmonics of waves downwind of the Andes Mountains. One of my favorite photos is the nose of the glider backlighted with a halo of shimmering water.

Evening with Classical Tahoe and Perlan Project

When Perlan Project was approached by Classical Tahoe to partner in a fundraiser, we said "Yes!" It is always good for a community when two non-profits can work together. As it turned out we hosted two "Evening with Perlan" events. Karen Craig and Laurie Riccardi aided by Lindsay McIntosh organized it beautifully. Jackie coordinated on the Perlan side.

Happy Valentine's Day

To all our families, friends, and fans:

Perlan 2 Upgraded Hatch Progress

The most important upgrade for Perlan 2 in the off-season is new custom fit hatches made by Greg Scates. He created a collar of fiberglass which will be the basis for tooling for the new hatches. The old hatches were made from splashing from the test fuselage, not the flight fuselage. The original hatches clearly worked to 54,000 feet but were not perfect. Jim and Greg want perfect.

Exciting Upgrades for Perlan 2

Every non-wave season we try to get some upgrades done on the Perlan 2. From December 2017-February 2018 Greg Scates has led a volunteer crew in Rosamond and achieved some spectacular changes. Mike Malis, Alec Guay, Scott Wiley and David Leingang have all spent many hours and days supporting these Rosamond-based upgrades. Morgan Sandercock dropped in one day to add his engineering help. And Jim Payne connected people, organized tasks, all round go-fer, and kept the entire team updated on progress.

Perlan and Patagonia Wave Clouds

The tail camera footage from Perlan 2 can be spectacular. I scoured the 5 hour flight from 9/9/17 for the most glorious shots. It was very difficult to narrow it to only 4 minutes! The music I selected was "Higher" by Silent Partner. How cool is that? Tim Davis put it together for us. The glacier Perito Moreno is visible below the Perlan 2 in several early sections and the third photo of this blog. If you look closely you can see where a chunk of ice (calf) has fallen off the 200 foot wall of the glacier. The stacked lenticular clouds in photo four topped out at 35,000 feet.