Fossett aiming for the stratosphere

By PAULA OLIVER

Imagine being wedged into a tiny cockpit, unable to move in the inflatable pressure suit that is keeping your blood from "boiling".

The worst and most frightening air turbulence - five times what you can experience on a commercial jet - is lurking ahead, unseen.

You have soared to nearly 18,300m. You have no engine power, and it is minus 50C outside the craft's skin.

These are the conditions facing two pilots when they make a high-profile attempt to fly a glider to a world-record altitude of 18,900m above Central Otago.

They are no ordinary pilots. Sitting in the back seat of the two-man cockpit will be Steve Fossett, the millionaire American adventurer who this week made a bumpy landing in a rocky ranch about 1400km northwest of Sydney after reaching his goal of flying solo around the world in a balloon.

Up front will be Einar Enevoldson, a former Nasa test pilot.

Fossett arrives in New Zealand next week, and the glider is already here.

Most of the nine-strong project team this week descended on the unlikely host town of Omarama, a small settlement at the southern end of the Mackenzie Basin.

The world record attempt is backed by Nasa and Fossett himself, and it is phase one of a scientific research programme known as the Perlan Project (perlan is Icelandic for pearl).

The attempt is labelled "phase one" because if it succeeds the team plan to build a pressurised glider and make an even more outrageous expedition to the edge of space - 30,500m.

Two of Perlan's scientific brains spoke to the Weekend Herald this week while visiting Niwa in Wellington.

Edward Teets jnr, of Nasa's Dryden Flight Research Centre in California, said the project was first and foremost scientific.

The glider would use stratospheric mountain waves to reach 18,900m. Little was known about turbulence at those levels, and Nasa would use the data for its aviation safety programme and to look at how the waves circulate around the globe.

The glider will initially be towed to a height of 1220m or 2440m depending on the conditions.

It is expected to reach its target world record height in four or six hours, going at a speed of about 300m a minute.

But it is a dangerous expedition.

At 12,195m the pilots will inflate their pressure suits. "Otherwise because of the pressure the blood will boil at 50,000 feet [15,240m]," Teets said, matter-of-factly.

The suits are worth US$250,000 each - a bargain compared with the ones used on the space shuttle which cost US$1 million.

The suits also have battery-powered foot warmers because the pilots' feet will rest near the glider's cold skin.

Oxygen systems will be attached, and the cockpit will be heated by the sun.

Teets said that if something went wrong, the glider would have a drogue chute which acts to stabilise and slow the craft. It would then fall almost straight down.

If it was still in danger, below 12,195m the pilots could deflate their suits, open the cockpit and jump out using specially designed parachutes.

Asked what they would do if that plan failed, Teets said: "I'm sure they will use their many years of experience to do what they have to do."

The biggest threat is turbulence.

"Stressing the airplane, breaking it apart, all the complications that can come about from turbulence are there," Teets said.

But the team, who have worked more than two years researching the project, have done their homework.

The glider can handle up to eight Gs of stress, and the team expect it to be subjected to five Gs.

Teets said severe turbulence on a normal commercial jet was half a G to one G, but the glider was very flexible.

Pilots have been lining up to fly it.

"A lot of them are our Nasa test pilots, and several are very, very willing to do it.

"Most of our test pilots can fly any vehicle, so flying one of these would be no big deal.

"We even had one of our astronauts express interest in flying. Test pilots are a different breed."

So why choose Omarama?

The project's meteorological expert, Elizabeth Carter, said the conditions there were suitable.

Another site in Sweden is also being considered for the later attempt at 30,500m, if it goes ahead, but Omarama is more temperate, and in winter a system known as the polar vortex develops strongly in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Perlan team will start flying next week. World-record attempts are expected to start about July 20.

The team plan to go home on August 11 having achieved their goal - they hope.