wrote on 8/28/2018 7:26 PM:
I just can’t get excited about this. Until a guy climbs into his sailplane without big money sponsorship or pressure suits “on loan” from NASA and surpasses 49,009 feet, Bob Harris is still the King in my book.

Bob Harris did an amazing feet, but even he didn't push the boundaries of high
altitude soaring: he was limited by his physiology, not his knowledge of soaring
or his skill as a pilot. Any pilots attempting to beat his record are testing
their pulmonary function, not their soaring abilities or those of the glider.

The Perlan pilots are not limited by their physiology, and what they accomplish
will depend on their soaring skills, and their glider's performance. For me, they
are the ones pushing back the frontiers of soaring, and not someone that risks
death by trying to beat Bob's record using just a mask to breath.


--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/...anes-2014A.pdf