A few days ago I discovered this amazing project: http://www.perlanproject.org/

The Perlan Project Inc. is registered as a 501(c)3 non profit organization. I will donate a part of the payout from this post to the project (5 or 50 SBD) as a Steemian who cares about our future.

Credit to Perlan Project

After viewing some videos I got enthusiastic and thought that would be great to have in FlightGear. So, not loosing any time I contacted the PERL/\N team and got a answer a few hours later. I asked for the 3D-model and now I am waiting for the simulator team to get in contact with.

In the meanwhile I changed some values in the ASK21 glider and took off for first test flights in Patagonia. It was clear after 2 hours that the wind model from FlightGear does not support the wave lift model as it is in reality.

I will take a few moments to explain the 3 kinds of lift for gliders in the real world:

Thermals:

The sun warms up the surface of the earth and then the warm air expands and get up, some clouds show this to the pilot and then the glider may climb up to the base of the cloud.

Ridge Lift:

This you know from my videos very well. Wind is blowing to hills and get deflected from the shape, a glider then may ride on this wind band close to the ridge.

Wave Lift:

Like ridge lift it is created by wind blowing over mountains with increasing speed in altitude on the side of the mountains which is after them. They can reach very hight altitudes and are used by PERL/\N to go up to 90.000 ft, 27.500 m.

More info on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(soaring)#Wave_lift

Yesterday we had a test flight to find out that we may use a property in the weather model and combine it with Geo-coordinates so that we may simulate a region of wave lift in Patagonia for a start. Later the coordinates will spread to other regions where this kind of wave is in reality also, for example in the South alps.

My next step will be now to get the 3D model and set the flight dynamic model with all parameters so that the glider is behaving like it should. Then working on the wave lift model in nasal programming language and then flight high and higher up to the moon :) (just kidding, but we are in steemit so it always goes to the moon)

First test flight video: https://steemit.com/aviation/@schamangerbert/perlan-2-first-test-flight-in-patagonia-on-the-wave-lift-video-by-schamangerbert

The FlightGear simulator is free for win, mac and linux: http://www.flightgear.org

See you next time!

Thank you for your attention!

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Schaman Gerbert

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