Recent News Blog

The Soaring Society of America has just wrapped up its convention in Litte Rock, Arkansas. The Perlan Project was represented there by the project director, Einar Enevoldson, the designer, Greg Cole and some new Perlan team members.

This mockup cockpit has been made from the ‘production’ molds so it tested the production techniques as well as becoming a ‘plug’ for molds which will make internal parts such as the all-important pressure bulkhead.

This mockup is a fantastic visual aid to let everyone know what the finished glider will look like.

Morgan recently visited Omarama, New Zealand, to fly in the unique conditions and learn from some of the world’s top experts on wave flying. Omarama has a special connection to the Perlan Project as the team was based there for several seasons early in the project.

While he was there, Morgan was asked to make a presentation to the pilots to let them know where the Perlan is up to. The presentation was well-recieved, with many questions asked at the end. (Click on the image for a larger size.)

The Soaring Society of America is holding its annual convention in Little Rock, Arkansas on January 28-30 this year. The Perlan Project will be there with a new mockup of the forward fuselage. If you want to see if you fit in the cockpit, then this is a good chance to try it for yourself.

This mockup has been created to test the manufacturing techniques for the pressure cabin. It is made of fibreglass because it is easier to see what you are doing with the translucent glass instead of opaque black carbon. It doesn’t hold pressure but it will be used to develop the fit and finish of the final components.

Our project meteorologist Elizabeth Austin took this picture of lenticular clouds over her house in Nevada yesterday.

Lenticulars over Reno

Lenticulars are important to glider pilots because they only occur when there is wave activity. Sometimes the wave might be too weak to support a glider or there is no lift underneath the wave that would enable us to climb up into it but these deeply-stacked lennies in the photo indicate lots of strong wave.

There has been lots of wave in other parts of the world too. Terry Delore, long time associate of Steve Fossett, has claimed a record for flying more than 2500km in New Zealand on Sunday and Klaus Ohlmann has flown several flights more than 2000km in Argentina within the last two weeks.

The mold-building process has begun on the horizontal tailplane. No pictures as yet - hopefully we will have some photos to share soon.

This is the first of the “flying” aerodynamic parts to be started. It is proceeding in exactly the same way as the fuselage. First we cut a foam block with the CNC machine, then sand and paint it to make a plug. The mold is laid up on the plug, using high-temperature carbon fibre and resin. The actual parts will be laid up in the mold with lightweight pre-preg carbon fibre cloth.