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

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The Highest Ever Week of Soaring Airbus Perlan Mission II Jackie Payne 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 Polar Vortex 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. GLIDER ALTITUDE: Background VERTICAL SPEED: 6 kts Many years ago, Perlan Project's GLIDER SPEED: WIND SPEED: founder, Einar Enevoldson, 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 Steve Fossett ''/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 El Calafate, 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 stratosphere. 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 Behold the new generation of variometers. navigation «• -2.6"* +0.4-* S" -14782,, -14782,, -4283 1634. " 3215 126* 1 '• Eos 57 Era 57 Era 80 Eos 80 Discover more at https://wingsandwheels.com/brands/lxnavigation.html Copyright © 2018, LX navigation d.o.o., all rights reserved. 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 Gliding 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.
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