If I miss a day with a new blog so much seems to happen! But with 15 quality folks in El Calafate driven to make Airbus Perlan Mission II a success, that’s not really a surprise! While the western US has record heat waves, we are waking up to snow and ice with -6 C temps in El Calafate. We covered the Perlan 2 with the CloudDancer covers inside the hangar when forecast winds were for gusts of 65 kts. That didn’t actually happen, but in the past year 3 of the the upper windows of the hangar have blown out.
LADE visited us in the hangar to see Perlan 2. They are a branch of the Air Force which provides services to remote areas of Argentina and are good friends of Perlan Project. In the hangar the guys ran an oxygen leak test, serviced 4 rebreathers, improved Virtual Cockpit load capacity, requested weather balloon launch ability upwind of airport, and improved telemetry reporting, among other tasks. The OLC published a second magazine article about 2017 Argentina campaign for Perlan Project. To celebrate all of this, Martin and Jackie hosted a TexMex team dinner on July 28.
On July 29 we split into various parties. At the hangar there was telemetry upload practice, refueling the tow plane, and some down time. Jim and Jackie quietly celebrated their 38th anniversary. (We met at an aero club in Iceland 40 years ago.) Tim, Alec, and Martin drove to El Chalten to see Mount FitzRoy. The weather was crisp but clear and the condors were out to play. They got some amazing photos to share.
The next best weather for wave is slidding towards Tuesday. But Monday still holds promise. We will be ready for either day!
Perlan Soars! Perlan Se Eleva! Jackie
