We are excited to be at El Calafate! But it is very necessary to learn the rules and regulations to be good citizens of the airport. So the past 2 days have had several meetings with airport authorities. We gathered for a team photo near the black and yellow tripods mounted in concrete as height barriers for entering the airport. Those tripods were the support legs for the container of Perlan 1 ten years ago. Of course there was a lenticular cloud for a backdrop-even with a south wind.
On Thursday we all trouped to PSA to get our access badges sponsored by the Air Force agreement with Perlan Project. Then we had a meet and greet session. At the airport cafe we met with the head of EANA Eduardo Lescano and head of ANAC Miguel Casco, and the tower operations Hector Ajalla as well as German Muller from Aero Club Lago Argentino. All four Perlan pilots were briefed on airport ops. Sergio Natali of London Suply also dropped by. London Suply runs the airport at El Calafate.
Today we had more technical discussions about the procecedures for actual flight days. Perlan presented the power point from the Buenos Aires reception, and Hector and Christian discussed the details of flight / ground ops. Nicolas represented the tower for our discussions. Dario Filomeni attended the briefing as head of Air Force in El Calafate. Without Tago, I could never keep all the names straight. I appologize if I have messed up. The mistakes are mine.
Tomorrow we downlaod the container with the glider and assemble Perlan 2 at her Argentina home. Stay tuned!
Perlan Se Eleva!
Jackie
Here is a link to more photos by Martin Heltai. Use with attribution.
Heltai 2016/09/02 El Calafate Airport Meeting
