Windward Performance Perlan II

Windward Performance Perlan II
Perlan II (in the background the engine of an Airbus A350)
Type:	Experimental airplane
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	Windward performance
First flight:	23rd September 2015
Number of pieces:	1

The Windward Performance Perlan II is a two-seat, unpowered, pressurized research aircraft designed by Greg Cole for the Perlan Project and built by Windward Performance.

history

The Perlan II is the successor to the Perlan I, which was derived from a Glaser-Dirks DG-500 . The aircraft is to be used for altitude research and surpass the world altitude record of 85,069 ft (25,929  m ) set with an SR-71 in 1975  .

Steve Fossett initially supported the project and flew with the Perlan I together with test pilot Einar Enevoldson on August 30, 2006 in the lee waves near El Calafate in Argentina with 50,761 ft (15,472 m) an altitude record for gliders. After Fossett's death in a plane crash a year later, the financing of the construction of the successor glider Perlan II was in question. Attempts were made to secure the budget of 2.8 million US dollars that had been collected up to that point, which also included a donation from Dennis Tito , through crowdfunding . Finally, in August 2014, Airbus was won as a project partner.

construction

The middle-decker , made in fiber composite construction, has a wing with a very high aspect ratio , a rigid landing gear and a normal tail unit. Despite the design of the cockpit as a pressurized cabin with two exit hatches on the top, the crew wears pressure suits for safety reasons . A braking parachute at the stern should enable emergency descents from great heights.

use

In the course of the first flight on September 23, 2015 at the airport Redmond began flight tests beginning in 2016 were in flight performance tests stall tests performed.

Originally, the first flight was planned in early 2013 with subsequent high-altitude flights in the waves of the Sierra Nevada . The first wave flight up to an altitude of 16,800 ft (5,121 m) finally took place on March 21, 2016, on April 22, 2017, a flight of more than three hours reached 30,960 ft (9,437 m).

On September 3, 2017, Jim Payne and Morgan Sandercock set a new world record in gliding at 52,172 ft (15,902 m) over El Calafate in the Andes . A Grob G 520 Egrett has been used as a towing aircraft in El Calafate since August 2018 , on August 17, 2018 a 45-minute towing flight to an altitude of over 13,400 m and on September 12, 2018, a towing in 62 minutes to flight level (FL) 451 .

On September 2, 2018, Jim Payne and Tim Gardner exceeded the altitude record of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft on April 17, 1989 with an altitude of over 23,200 m (76,124 ft pressure altitude, 74,295 ft GPS altitude) in the waves upwelling over Argentina .

In the fourth wave flight season in Argentina on September 17, 2019, the 65th Perlan II flight was the third highest soaring flight ever at 65,000 ft (approx. 19,810 m).

The ten highest soaring flights of the Perlan project

		date	crew	Altitude
1	Perlan II	2nd September 2018	Payne / Gardner	FL 760
2		August 28, 2018		FL 656
3		17th September 2019	Payne / Sandercock	FL 650
4th		September 12, 2018		FL 629
5		August 26, 2018		FL 620
6th		August 31, 2019		FL 563
7th		3rd September 2017	Payne / Sandercock	FL 540
8th	Perlan I	August 28, 2006	Fossett / Enevoldson	FL 507
9	Perlan II	September 11, 2019		FL 506
10		September 14, 2019		FL 492

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data
crew	2
length	10.16 m
span	25.55 m
height	2.21 m
Wing area	24.40 m²
Wing extension	27.1
Glide ratio	43
Slightest sinking
Empty mass	1,265  lb (574  kg )
Max. Takeoff mass	1,800 lb (816 kg)
Wing loading
Max. altitude reached	23,200 m
Top speed	698 km / h

See also

• List of aircraft types

Web links

• Perlan project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Staff report, The Perlan II project continues to develop , pp. 24f. FreeFlight, Journal of the Soaring Association of Canada, Fall 2011.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Perlan 2. In: perlanproject.org. Retrieved September 7, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Airbus Perlan 2. In : flugrevue.de. September 24, 2015, accessed September 7, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Successful Test Flights in Minden, NV. In: perlanproject.org. January 15, 2016, accessed September 7, 2017 . 
5. ^ Jacqueline Payne: Perlan 2 flies in wave. In: perlanproject.org. March 26, 2016, accessed September 7, 2017 . 
6. ^ Jacqueline Payne: Perlan 2 Climbs to 30,000 feet in Sierra Wave. In: perlanproject.org. April 24, 2017, accessed September 7, 2017 . 
7. ↑ Sebastian Steinke: Motorless at more than 15,000 meters. In: aerokurier.de. September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2017 . 
8. ^ Gliding World Records. (No longer available online.) In: fai.org. Archived from the original on March 16, 2015 ; Retrieved on September 7, 2017 (English, data record number (ID) 18248). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Sebastian Steinke: Grob Egrett becomes a stratospheric tug. In: Flugrevue.de. August 22, 2018. Retrieved August 27, 2018 . 
10. ↑ Flight information - Jim Payne (US) - September 12, 2018. In: onlinecontest.org. September 13, 2018, accessed October 8, 2018 . 
11. ↑ FLIGHT REVUE: Perlan 2 rises higher than the U-2 , accessed on October 8, 2018
12. ↑ ^{a b} Airbus Perlan Mission II 2019 Argentina Wrap Up | Perlan Project. In: perlanproject.org. October 3, 2019, accessed October 16, 2019 . 
13. Jump into space: record hunter Perlan 2 . In: aerokurier . ( aerokurier.de [accessed on July 10, 2018]).