Perlan GLIDER ALTITUDE: 52004 ft

At 01:26 04 September 2017, Tom Kelley #711 wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 6:56:13 PM UTC-6, G Shib wrote:
Well, 52,172 ft doesn't sound enough to claim a new world record.
According to sporting code,

3.0.4 World record margins
A new record claim must exceed the current value by 1 kilometre for
distance, 1 km/h for speed, and 3% for altitude.

The current altitude record is 50,720 ft. Adding 3% to it, you need at
least 52,241.6 ft to claim a new altitude record.

On their Virtual Cockpit page, I did see altitude over 53,800 ft. I
hope
they can claim a new world record!

I also saw 53,900. downloaded the IGC file and See You shows max.
altitude
of 54,022 ft at 14:31.24 with a landing at 15:44.28. Am wondering what
software will be used to analyze the claim? Is it GPS or pressure
altitude?

Anyway, Congrats to all!

Best. Tom #711.

Above 15,000 metres, GPS altitude data from an FR approved for high
altitude use (HAFR) shall be used, and AFAIK Perlan have the only HAFRs
that have been made.

Congratulations Jim and Morgan! It's been a long hard road, but you hung in there and pulled it off!
Way to go,
JJ

What a contrast in equipment from the Bishop wave project to now.
What Jim and Morgan have done is absolutely fantastic and the prospects for the future are amazing.
But think about the original Bishop pilots and the planes they flew...no pressure suits...very primative oxygen systems...no heating systems...they were like naked men in the jungle compared to Jim and Morgan.

On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 8:23:47 PM UTC+3, Tom Kelley #711 wrote:
GLIDER ALTITUDE: 52004 ft

Through the wonders of technology, I was watching their instruments live and commenting on twitter from a train between Tallinn, Estonia and St Petersburg, Russia.

They were in 300 - 500 FPM lift most of the time above 48000 ft and I think could have easily gone a lot higher. I'm sure they'll smash this new record pretty soon.

On Mon, 04 Sep 2017 17:55:01 -0700, drguyacheson wrote:

What a contrast in equipment from the Bishop wave project to now.
What Jim and Morgan have done is absolutely fantastic and the prospects
for the future are amazing.
But think about the original Bishop pilots and the planes they flew...no
pressure suits...very primative oxygen systems...no heating
systems...they were like naked men in the jungle compared to Jim and
Morgan.

I only saw the 'we're flying' message when they were at 30,000 on the way
down. One thing was obvious, though: they looked to have plenty of air
and oxygen onboard - enough for around 10 hours if that was a 5 hour
flight - but the batteries were a lot more depleted: 30% or thereabouts,
so I wonder what they can do to upgrade their capacity so the battery can
give a similar runtime to the air supply. Are they currently using Li-
ion, LiFePo or just SLA?


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 1:47:11 PM UTC-4, Bill (BT) wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 1:28:15 PM UTC-4, Tom Kelley #711 wrote:
On Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 11:23:47 AM UTC-6, Tom Kelley #711 wrote:
GLIDER ALTITUDE: 52004 ft

GLIDER ALTITUDE: 53040 ft VERTICAL SPEED: 3 kts

Congratulations to the Perlan Team and to Greg Cole, the designer of the Perlan II!!

BT

an awesome achievement, but only the beginning. they still have to go 38,000 feet higher