Engineless glider soars at 52,000 ft to set world record
The Airbus Perlan 2 aircraft has set a new altitude world record for a glider, climbing to 52,172 feet on September 3 in El Calafate, Argentina. The Perlan 2 is a composite-intensive, engineless glider designed to fly at the edge of space using stratospheric mountain waves. The previous altitude record was 50,727 feet set by Perlan 1 in 2006.