Linda WarnockLinda brings a wealth of international experience to the Perlan Project. After earning a BA in Spanish, Linda worked abroad for 7 years with an International Development agency in Mexico, the Philippines and South Sudan. Following her return to the US,...
Stewart TattersallStewart began living near Lake Tahoe 25 years ago and has been flying since 2000. He has been watching the weather since he was young as a skier/sailor and now as a pilot. Stewart is a man of many talents and is a key part of ground operations. His...
Dennis TitoDennis earned a B.S. in astronautics and aeronautics from NYU College of Engineering, and a M.S. and honorary doctorate of engineering from Rensselaer in engineering science. He began his career at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory where he was responsible...
Armistead Sapp Armistead Sapp retired in 2016 as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of SAS Institute. As head of SAS’ Research and Development Division, where he led R&D employees worldwide to produce the highest quality software in areas such...
Silvio F. RicardiSilvio F Ricardi grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with dreams of being a crop duster. In 1989, he moved with his family to Melbourne, Australia where he began his flight training. In 2010 he married Laurie Harden Ricardi (Glider Girl) owner of...
Tago de PietroEspartago (Tago) De Pietro, an American who grew up in Mendoza, Argentina, was in charge of coordinating the operations and logistics for the Perlan Project Phase One in Argentina. He started working in the project early on with Einar Enevoldson and...
John "JDM" MillerAfter a three-year hiatus, JDM returns to Perlan, this time as Data Scientist. In 2010, JDM co-founded The Perlan Project 501c3, and for seven years served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. In 2020, JDM retired from Intel Corporation as a...
Alan MurrayAlan is a recently retired American Airlines Captain and Check Airman who lives in Grapevine, Texas with his wife Karen. Alan grew up in the United States (Ohio and Georgia), as well as England and Nigeria in his youth. He began flying while a college...
Dean Sigler Dean has 34 years’ experience as a technical writer working for electronics and engineering firms. He documented systems and processes for “wafer fabs,” large-scale manufacturing plants that turn silicon wafers into computer chips. His design and...
Mike MalisMike is an active commercial glider and tow pilot with over 2000 hrs and 35 years experience. Mike recently retired from Lockheed Martin as a Staff Engineer, working composites structures research for high altitude vehicles, and hold several patents in this...
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...
Flight #74 – Weak Wave On August 30, 2023 the forecast wave conditions had improved marginally from dismal to merely difficult. But the support teams had worked hard on various squawks from the previous flight. Perlan 2’s wings were removed to check the full travel...