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...
Morgan recently visited Omarama, New Zealand, to fly in the unique conditions and learn from some of the world’s top experts on wave flying. Omarama has a special connection to the Perlan Project as the team was based there for several seasons early in the project....
The Soaring Society of America is holding its annual convention in Little Rock, Arkansas on January 28-30 this year. The Perlan Project will be there with a new mockup of the forward fuselage. If you want to see if you fit in the cockpit, then this is a good chance to...
Our project meteorologist Elizabeth Austin took this picture of lenticular clouds over her house in Nevada yesterday. Lenticulars are important to glider pilots because they only occur when there is wave activity. Sometimes the wave might be too weak to support a...
The mold-building process has begun on the horizontal tailplane. This is the first of the “flying” aerodynamic parts to be started. It is proceeding in exactly the same way as the fuselage. First we cut a foam block with the CNC machine, then sand and paint it to make...
The first high-temperature carbon fibre mold has been seperated from its plug. It has turned out perfectly with no defects.
Today we completed three big milestones towards constructing the airplane. One fuselage forward-half mold has been infused with epoxy resin The hatch test box has passed its pressure+cold test We pressurised a test double-paned window to destruction just to see what...
The second test box has now been completed. This box is intended to test the hatch with pressure and cold. This is a process of iterative design and testing. The first test box showed that the fixed-window design is adequate but the box itself failed. This new one has...
Ten years ago on August 29, 2006 Einar Enevoldson and Steve Fossett made history with a sailplane flight to 50,722 feet (15,460 meters) from El Calafate, Argentina. They were extremely cold and their pressure suits, on loan from NASA, had inflated to the point...
Argentina and California have approximately the same population, but Argentina is over five times larger. Over a third of the population live in Buenos Aires, Over three-fourths live in cities over 100,000. This is all to say that Argentina is a vast land of...
August 27 dawned clear and calm so aeriel reconnassiance was in order. German, an instructor from Aero Club Largo Argentino took Jim and Miguel up scouting several landing strips. They took off from El Calafate on the shore of Lago Argentino. They headed west toward...
The Perlan Team visited two schools in two days in two cities in Argentina. Tago, Morgan, and Cholo (Argentine tow pilot and soaring record holder) visited an elementary school in Mendoza. The next morning Jim Kuhl (Teachers in Space), Miguel Iturmendi, and Martin...
The Perlan Team will be very comfy in El Calafate, Argentina. Eduarado and Patricia have been extremely welcoming to the team with their cabins. The wave cloud photos are from Eduardo too! Beautiful shots over the lake at sunset and with dark, roiling rotor...
August 22, 2016 - The Airbus Perlan Press Briefing was a smash hit, home run, hat trick, record setting event. Airbus and Jeffery Group arranged for real time simultaneous translations. If the speaker was in English, you could wear an ear piece and could hear...