On November 26 the Royal Aeronautical Society awarded a bronze medal to the Perlan team. The awards and medals are recognized as “The most prestigious and long-standing awards in global aerospace honoring achievement, innovation and excellence.”
The citation read, “Awarded for a notable contribution to the advancement of aerospace…The Airbus Perlan 2 project team has been awarded a team bronze medal for exploring very high-altitude aerodynamics and performing research in ‘near space.’ Perlan 2 is a pressurized, two-place, space capsule with glider wings designed to use only the power of stratospheric mountain waves to fly as high as 90,000 feet. At the time of the time of the nomination Perlan 2 had set a new glider record of 54,000 feet. It has recently achieved an altitude of 76,124 feet. Perlan’s experiments and data will help in designing a possible future Martian airplane.”
“The Perlan 2 team is a 41 strong, all volunteer group of aerospace engineers, pilots, meteorologists and scientists. The key members are leaders in their fields and have invested thousands of work hours developing this one-of-a-kind stratospheric vehicle.”
The 2018 Honors, Medals and Awards ceremony of the Royal Aeronautical Society was attended by Loris Glider, Linda Warnock and Ed Warnock. They accepted the medal on behalf of the whole team.
Air Commodore Nigel Wood CBE, and his wife, Caroline, attended as part of the Perlan delegation. They stood in for Jimmy Doolittle III who nominated the Perlan team for this prestigious award.
