I The Highest Ever Week of Soaring Airbus Perlan Mission II Jackie Payne

Top: It takes a team to accomplish what the was the big payoff with an 8 day vali- Perlan Project is accomplishing. With Stewart's dation that the southern beard showing the wind. (Photo by Jackie Payne.) does create soarable lift to above 76,000 ft. It takes specific weather con- ditions, a pressurized sailplane, and an awesome onsite team of 20 volunteers to make it happen. Here s the story. ALTITUDE: Background VERTICAL SPEED: 6 kts Many years ago, Perlan Project's GLIDER SPEED: WIND SPEED: founder, , hypoth- A^T"'/ ,\0 ° 20 Xx esized that there was wave lift in the ^>200 W f"10 «0<^ — IM O »0 — stratosphere above the tropopause. -;„ \ ',», iM\M^ In 2006, Einar and ''/ihV' proved it with the Perlan 1, a modi- Above: Five pilots toast attaining 76,000 ft. GLIDER HEADING: WIND DIRECTION: fied DG-505, during Perlan Mission L-R: Tim Gardner, Morgan Sandercock, Ame Vasenden, Jim Payne, Miguel Iturmendi. (Photo 268° 282° I. During descent from their record by Jackie Payne.) flight to 50,722 ft, they decided that they should build a pressurized sail- plane known as Perlan 2. Perlan is the AIR TANK O2 TANK BATTERY Scandinavian word for pearl - refer-

MAX ALTITUDE: 76071 ft encing pearlescent high altitude clouds. FLIGHT TIME: 03:19:57 The building of Perlan 2 was a big ef- fort that was documented in Dr. Dan Johnson's article published in the May ra 2019 issue of Soaring magazine. The Perlan Project has conducted three campaigns in , Ar- Virtual cockpit screenshot. gentina. Shipping Perlan 2 to remote Argentine Patagonia with the neces- erlan Project was founded to sary equipment and required official Above: Front cockpit at 76,000 ft + pressure Psafely explore stratospheric waves. permissions made my prior experi- altitude. (Photo by Jim Payne.) August 26 through September 2,2018 ence of logistics for five World Soar- 22 Soaring • June 2019 ing Championships and four scouting to include professional weathermen hatches fit the cockpit openings. So a trips to Patagonia (before the Perlan and a medical doctor. Our bilingual recent Lockheed retiree, Greg Scates, 2) look like child's play. government relations coordinator, a composites guru, built a pair of new We were helped by many supporters Sandra Sandercock, and Argentine hatches. Mike Malis supported with in Argentina. This included shipping logistics coordinator, Tago De Pietro, the engineering calculations. Those companies, soaring and aero clubs, both worked to get us what we needed hatches were textbook perfect for all glider pilots, government agencies, and and to stay out of trouble. Rebreathers the high altitude 2018 flights. lodging providers. There were many, needed mounting and testing before The second gamechanger was get- many more supporters who helped each flight and cleaning post flight. ting a Grob G-520 Egrett for a tow- Perlan Project. I tried to include all of Each pilot pulls additional responsi- plane. Normal glider towplanes could them in my blogs from Argentina. See bilities. We have professional flight test only get to about 12,000 ft in an hour www.PerlanProject.org/blogs. engineers. Our CapComm (capsule of fighting headwinds and rotor. After communications) ran the entire time discussion amongst the team consider- Team of every flight. They were analyzing the ing several more powerful options, Jim Airbus Perlan Mission II maintained weather real time and analyzing the said in January 2018, "What we really 20 volunteers to fully staff the complex vibration excitation system to look for need is Einar's Egrett." (Our founder needs to safely soar in the . signs of flutter. They kept a close watch Einar was a test pilot for the Egrett in In 2018, we expanded the onsite team on all life support telemetry. Europe.) As Miguel Iturmendi com- We had several glider knowledgeable mented, "You must be very careful ground crew for oxygen, pressuriza- what you ask for in Perlan. Someone tion, launch, and recovery. There were is likely to make it happen." By May two interns who assisted with pre- of 2018, Mike Malis had helped the flight responsibilities like cameras and Egrett owner install a tow reel system cockpit computers, science equipment, and get it signed off. Jim and Miguel, cubesats, Virtual Cockpit, launch, and with Tim Gardner and Mike Malis' recovery. The Perlan Project CEO Ed support, did some test tows in a Grob Warnock and purser Linda Warnock 103 to verify the suitability and proce- kept everything flowing smoothly and dures for launching behind the Egrett. paid for. And I managed logistics and With the high tow line tension, flying ground ops, and wrote blogs. tow was relatively easy as the sailplane wanted to follow the Egrett, and it 2018 Upgrades was difficult to induce slack line. The team made two huge improve- The Egrett is a towplane on steroids. Perlan CapComm, L-R: Ed Warnock, Lars ments before the 2018 campaign. In El Calafate (cold, 665 ft MSL), the Benschy Tim Gardner. (Photo by Jackie Payne.) The pilots did not like the way the Perlan 2 was 1,200 ft AGL by the end

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www.ssa.org • June 2019 • Soaring 23 of the 8,400 ft runway. That climb rate wave. The plenums helped prevent This time the forecast position of the meant the Perlan 2 was quickly above icing. The tire was flat upon landing, wave lift was closer to reality. Lift was the rotor turbulence. With a flat rated but Jim expected that after our 2017 barely there from surface to 30,000 ft, engine, the Egrett had a steady 1,000+ experience. It was very windy on the extremely weak at the tropopause, and ft per minute climb to 28,000 ft, and ground upon landing. We brought a improving at 55,000 ft. Perlan 2 was then kept climbing until well over second truck with people to the run- designed to explore the stratospheric 40,000 ft. way to walk the wing during the long waves. Our wing is optimized for On August 10, the team made a tow trip back to the hangar. El Calafate 60,000 ft. No other normal sailplane to 12,000 ft to check the Egrett and Tower and the Bomberos (fire de- with a wing that performs well from Perlan 2. All went well and the next partment) provided lights and sirens 0 to 20,000 ft would be able to climb tow was to 40,000 ft MSL. There was to punctuate a new world record! The off tow that day. And as altitude in- no wave forecast in mid-August which high point was 60,705 ft GPS alti- creases, so does true airspeed. Corre- was perfect for these test flights. The tude (62,600 ft pressure altitude) for a spondingly, the true sink rate increases first time above 25,000 ft, Jim said on new world record. More details are at in the same ratio. At FL600, the true the radio, "The towplane is conning." http://perlanproject.org/blog/world- airspeed is 3.3 times indicated and He meant the towplane had a con- record-claim-above-60000-fee t- minimum sink is 330 ft per minute. So trail. Jim anticipated window frosting august-26-2018. lift of 400 ft per minute meant even before the first high tow. He asked Perlan could barely hang on at 60,000 Mike Malis to make a clear plenum to August 28 - 63,809 Feet GPS ft. We needed a lot more lift, and on 1) capture the air near the eyeball win- Only 2 days later, the weather again that day the stratospheric wave deliv- dow for better solar heating and 2) re- lined up with our desires. This time ered exactly that. strict access of the moisture from pilot Miguel Iturmendi would be flying with Altitudes can be a bit confusing bodies to those super cold windows. Jim. Tim and Darlene Gann from Air- with Perlan 2. Pressure altitude (set- Jim's idea and Mike's fabrication was bus America (our biggest sponsors) had ting the altimeter to 29.92) is used eminently successful. just arrived to watch how Airbus Perlan globally in Class A airspace so all air- Mission II operated from remote Pa- craft are using the same reference for August 26 - 60,705 Feet GPS tagonia. Again we had an early team height measurement. So Perlan needs From the first Egrett tow until Au- breakfast, but to our dismay when we standard pressure altitude on its in- gust 26, the team was incredibly busy arrived at dawn at the hangar there was struments. The "standard" day was cre- implementing all the upgrades and no electricity! The entire airport was ated for operations at the latitude of getting experience with high altitude "dark." The decision was if we could Edwards Air Force Base. El Calafate tows. Dan Gudgel analyzed the strato- get a generator to power our essential is a loooong way from that "standard." spheric weather, and we sent multiple equipment in CapComm, we could still The International Commis- weather balloons up to verify forecasts. launch. So Tago De Pietro worked yet sion and the Federation Aeronautique We were watching for the right con- another miracle when he got a genera- Internationale a few years ago required ditions to develop. We needed enough tor loaned to us. It was a bit of a scram- GPS altitude to be used for soaring re- open sky to stay clear of clouds from ble, but I kept running the checklist. cords above 15,000 m (about 49,000 the surface to the tropopause.Then we As we pushed out of the ramp, I ft). We have consistently found with needed wave to develop from the ener- asked for the team to stand down while our weather balloons and flights that gy of the Polar Night (winter) Jet, aka I ran the checklist again Where GPS altitude in the vicinity of El Polar Vortex. On August 24 and 25, was the backup iPad which runs the Calafate is about 2,000 ft lower than we almost had the weather we want- artificial horizon (Garmin GDL-39 pressure altitude. That's why you may ed, but not quite. The team had early 3D)? It was still on the dead char- see photos of cockpit pressure altim- group breakfasts but the weather just ger .... The front cockpit was already eters (65,600+ ft) that differ from the didn't break in our favor. On Sunday, sealed after the pressurization test. We official record of 63,809 ft GPS alti- August 26, Jim said, "It's a go!" and we quickly inserted it into the rear cock- tude. http://perlanproject.org/blog/ continued the preflight regimen. Jim pit and Miguel handed it to Jim in the second-world-record-claim-2-days and Morgan Sandercock were ready front. Safety backup was restored. The to make this happen! The launch was iPad is only used if the glider loses Sept 2-74,334 Feet GPS flawless, but the stratospheric wave battery and all other instrumentation. The team was energized with two was weak. It was not where the fore- But it's the "get home" backup. By the high altitude soaring flights in the bag. casts said it would be.The 5.6 hr flight way, ground power was restored some- But the weather kept cranking. Both proved that high tows allowed time to time while on tow. CapComm had to September 1 and 2 looked very prom- explore and search for stratospheric go back to 220 V configurations. ising. But the surface conditions of excitation tests. We want the dampening (re- duction of vibra- tions) to match the models pro- duced at our 2015 ground vibration test- ing made in San Diego at ATA. Egrett contrail from Perlan tail camera. WeatherExtreme wave forecast during FL760 We record the test results in the cock- flight. pit and then download them via te- engine. That's why we plan to "only" lemetry to CapComm.The file is then climb to 90,000 ft if stratospheric wave emailed to ATA with a 5 minute anal- permits. Yes, we have two - ysis time. We also have Lars Bensch, sized parachutes for emergencies, but a Flight Test Engineer, in CapComm we would rather not use them, http:// who can immediately look at the data perlanproject.org/blog/fmal-flight- for any anomalies. If flutter ever were argentina-2018-highest-ever-tow to develop at these altitudes and true airspeeds, it would not be good. The Future Jim and Tim surpassed the previous Airbus Perlan Mission II will be in high point and kept climbing. They El Calafate from the end of July until stopped at 74,334 ft GPS altitude late September 2019. If you want to SkySite wave forecast. (76,124 ft pressure altitude). That was "ride along," there are several ways to higher than the U-2 spy plane s max re- be notified. You can follow our Twit- cord altitude while using a big engine. ter account to be notified when we are September 1 were less desirable. There So the pressurized sailplane Perlan 2 flying, then watch the Perlan Virtual is no crosswind runway at El Cala- has the record of the highest level flight Cockpit with nearly real time data fate and strong surface winds 60° off (not zoom) of a subsonic, manned air- like altitude, moving map, climb rate, centerline are a real challenge for long craft. Jim calculated the max speed on winds, heading, remaining battery, winged ships. I loved the Egrett (108 this flight was Mach 0.46 with a true oxygen, and air percentage. We use ft wingspan) tow pilot's response to airspeed of 4.5 times indicated. This tweets for live commentary from Cap- Jim. Arne said, "I can handle anything was a 5.1 hr flight - an hour on tow, Comm. Over 12,000 folks watched you can handle."Jim opted to wait for 3 hours climbing, and an hour to get the highest glider flight ever on Sep- September 2. down, http://perlanproject.org/blog/ tember 2, Labor Day Sunday. You can During the night, we had hard rain perlan-2-soars-above-76000 ft enter your (USA) phone number for and even small hail. We didn't want a a text message to check the Virtual wet runway, and we saw rooster tails Post Record Flights Cockpit. Or you can enter your email of water as the early commercial traf- After these flights, we needed to test address on our website to be notified fic took off. Miguel checked the actual faster speeds to prepare for the 2019 of flight. We also have active Facebook runway conditions and said it was al- assault on 90,000 ft. On September and Instagram accounts. Perlan Soars most dry. So we restarted the preflight 12, 2018, Jim and Miguel towed to High! regimen. Again the forecast tropo- 45,000 ft to make the highest ever tow pause lift band was weak, but at least it (unofficial record). The design limit was forecast to exist according to Walt for airspeed on Perlan 2 is M 0.62. Rogers. But as Jim and Tim Gardner Our flight envelope stops at 90,000 ft. towed behind the Egrett, they report- There is a point (called "coffin corner") ed no lift through 35,000 ft. where stall speed and VNF meet. That They finally got a "nibble" above altitude is about 96,000 ft for Perlan 40,000 ft. Then the lift improved nice- 2 - straight and level. In wave flying, ly. The Perlan 2 got off tow at about there are always gentle maneuvers to 42,000 ft and quickly climbed to stay in the line of lift. We don't do 65,000 ft and performed more flutter straight and level like a jet with an 76,000ft, tail camera. www.ssa.org • June 2019 • Souring