Airbus, through its partnership with the Perlan Project, is investigating how to clean vapor trails from the high-flown paths traversed by airliners. Through its pair of Blue Condor jet-powered sailplanes, Airbus and Perlan are working toward a contrail-measuring mission in 2024. Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, has been a rarity in the aviation world, other than in well-publicized events involving gas-fueled conflagrations. (Whether the H2 carrying the Hindenburg aloft or the fabric skin covering the great ship’s frame caused the fire at Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 is still somewhat controversial.) Regardless, the disaster brought about a deep mistrust of hydrogen that persists to this day. Airbus, along with the Perlan Project, looks forward to exploiting H2’s advantages while overcoming its undeserved stigma and surprising issues. Perlan’s Greater Mission The Perlan Project has achieved an enviable string of record flights culminating in the 2018 altitude record of 76,114 feet. Carrying CubeSats filled with science experiments developed by …
Jetstream Cargo Gliders – Colorado to China in Three Days
Just as Richard Starke was explaining to Experimental Soaring Association attendees at this year’s Western Workshop how his proposed stratospheric cargo glider program would work, some multi-tasker checking his tablet shouted, “Perlan’s reached 76,000 feet!” Richard’s concept of launching cargo gliders that would ride the jet stream between continents was suddenly validated before an audience that a few minutes before might have been dazzled and even skeptical of his proposal. Perlan’s tows behind the recently recruited Grob Egret turboprop towplane made 10,000 feet in 10 minutes a time-to-climb reality, and tows to 40,000 feet allowed rapid exploration of developing air masses over the Patagonian mountains. The idea of flying large, cargo-carrying gliders goes back to at least Word War Two, with flotillas of Waco CG-4s and British Horsas descending on the French mainland on D-Day. The Russians even had a glider large enough to carry a tank into battle. Hawley Bowlus, who had been in on the design of the …