It’s been 40 years since an American spy plane, the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird,” flew 85,069 feet above the surface of the earth, setting a record for sustained altitude that stands today.
But records are made to be broken, and it looks like the Blackbird’s is about to fall.
A new aircraft, the Airbus Perlan 2, is expected to be soaring soon at an altitude of 90,000 feet – 17 miles above the earth, nearly a full mile above the Blackbird’s record – where the temperature is 94 degrees below zero and the air pressure is less than 2 percent of what it is at sea level, almost as thin as the atmosphere on Mars.
But, unlike the Blackbird, a powerful beast that also holds the absolute speed record of 2,193.2 miles per hour – more than three times the speed of sound – the Perlan 2 will achieve speeds of only about 400 mph.
Want to know why?
IT HAS NO ENGINE !
The Perlan 2 is a glider – a pressurized sailplane that weighs less than a ton, has an 85-foot wingspan and is powered by air currents alone. Though it is designed to carry a pilot and co-pilot most efficiently at 50,000 feet, its designers plan to take it to 90,000 feet to explore the science of giant mountain waves that help create the ozone hole.
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