New Altitude Record for Steve Fossett
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New Altitude Record for Steve Fossett
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He said he and Enevoldson, a former NASA test pilot, rode in a lightweight, unpressurized glider named "Perlan" Norwegian for "pearl" which was released from a tow plane at 13,000 feet.
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I doubt they took off from sea level in the Andes, , but even if they did , Fosset has the money for that I guess !
Congrats nevertheless, my own max alt was almost 25.000 ft over the Pyrennees in a Breguet 904 , a wooden glider many, many years ago, and the only thing I remember is that it was bloody cold....Now you are restricted below FL195 nearly everywhere...
Congrats nevertheless, my own max alt was almost 25.000 ft over the Pyrennees in a Breguet 904 , a wooden glider many, many years ago, and the only thing I remember is that it was bloody cold....Now you are restricted below FL195 nearly everywhere...
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Another technique , when you are in the mountain waves, which they were obviously, is to look for the " down " side of the wave, and there it can go very fast....
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ATC Watcher
Because I've never flown an aircraft above FL390, I don't have that sort of experience. I would have thought there would be compressibility problems to look out for in the descent and the thought of simply pulling a glider airbrake at such a height must be problematic indeed! Frightens me anyway...
Oscar
Because I've never flown an aircraft above FL390, I don't have that sort of experience. I would have thought there would be compressibility problems to look out for in the descent and the thought of simply pulling a glider airbrake at such a height must be problematic indeed! Frightens me anyway...
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Compressibility is usually more to do with speed than altitude. Below about Mach 0.3 you can disregard it in most circumstances. Gliders fly at much less than that, so I doubt it is a problem.
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Wow this is an absolute amazing record, this will be hard to beat! Regarding aerodynamic problems with descending a glider from this altitude, its quite correct what jr says very low speeds not a big issue.
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The other way to decend a glider from that height would be to intentionally spin. Depending on the glider he used, the majority are extremely stable in a prolonged spin, also 300-600' per turn would be easily lost.
