In just eight days during late August and early September, Airbus’s Perlan 2 glider set three new world altitude records for a glider. Moreover, during the third of these flights, it reached an altitude that has been exceeded in level flight by only two other types of aircraft. These flights were all executed as part of the Europe-based global aerospace group’s Perlan Mission II programme and resulted in the acquisition of key information on flight performance, weather and the atmosphere.

On August 26, flown by Jim Payne and Morgan Sandercock, the Perlan 2 reached an altitude of 63 100 feet (almost 19 233 m). On August 28, flown by Payne and Miguel Iturmendi, it achieved 65 600 ft (almost 19 995 m), and on September 2, piloted by Payne and Tim Gardner, it flew to 76 124 ft (nearly 23 203 m). Only the famed Lockheed Martin SR-71 high-altitude high-speed reconnaissance aircraft, and the almost as famous Mikoyan MiG-25R reconnaissance version of the MiG-25 interceptor, routinely flew at higher altitudes. And both were powered aircraft.

(The SR-71 and the MiG-25R both operated at more than 80 000 ft, or 24 384 m; the altitude record for level flight is held by the SR-71, at 85 069 ft, or slightly over 25 929 m. Some sources say that the Mikoyan MiG-31 – derived from the MiG-25 – has a ceiling of 24 400 m, but other sources put it at 20 700 m. The renowned North American X-15 rocket plane was really a spacecraft, not an aircraft.)

“World records are gratifying evidence of progress towards a goal, but the goal itself is advancing our knowledge and expertise,” highlighted Airbus CEO Tom Enders. “By exploring an underexplored part of the atmosphere, Perlan is teaching us about efficient high-altitude flight, about detecting natural sources of lift and avoiding turbulence, and even about the viability of the wing-borne exploration of Mars.”

The Perlan pilots achieved these very high altitudes – at which both the curvature of the earth and, above the atmosphere, outer space can be seen – by soaring on rare stratospheric air currents created by mountain winds in combination with the Polar vortex (a high-altitude low-pressure area, over both the North and South Poles). The mission is based at El Calafate, in the far south of Argentina, and the flights take place over the southern Andes Mountains.

The Perlan 2 is pressurised and designed to reach – conditions permitting – 90 000 ft (27 432 m). It will continue its flying programme (for this year) to the middle of this month, when the stratospheric mountain waves will start to fade away. How many flights will be undertaken during the remainder of the “flying season” will be determined by the weather. The ultimate objective for the Perlan Mission II is to fly the glider, in Airbus’s words, to “the edge of space”. (The phrase ‘edge of space’ is widely used to refer to a zone of the upper atmosphere below the Karman Line, which lies at an altitude of 100 km and is usually seen as the line at which space begins. The X-15 crossed the Karman Line twice and thus flew in space.)

“As a company that makes not just airliners but also high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Zephyr as well as the Mars rover robotic vehicle, every Perlan flight is an investment in our future,” affirmed Enders. The Perlan project team are actually all volunteers and the project is a nonprofit venture that is also supported by US businessperson Dennis Tito and US companies Weather Extreme, United Technologies and BRS Aerospace.