![](http://www.airbusgroup.com/.imaging/stk/airbusgroup/contentImageFlexHeight_560/dam/assets/airbusgroup/int/en/story-overview/Perlan-II/perlan-small/jcr:content/perlan-small.2015-09-16-10-20-53.jpg")
“We really need to recruit old people who don’t care [about dying],” Warnock says, “or really young people with no children”.
...
That’s the winning spirit.
The altitude record they’re trying to break must be for “sustained altitude”.
The F-15 used in Operation Streak Eagle zoomed over 100,000 ft.
“Air so turbulent it could rip the wings off the glider”
They better have some duct tape with them. I’m no aeronautical engineer, but I’m pretty sure that wings ripping off is a bad thing.
The pilots range-factor/power settings/speed curves on a chart plot extends to a limit in excess of 4.2 mach at altitude 72,000 with 90% ramjet/full AB mode. Best economy was paradoxically +3.2 mach and not slower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ao5SCedIk
Maybe they should send a drone up first, so they can determine the altitude at which the wings will be ripped off.