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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

photo of Einar Enevoldson

Monday, December 5, 2011 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Einar Enevoldson

"The Perlan Project: Soaring to the Stratosphere"

ABSTRACT -- The Perlan Project seeks to understand and exploit  stratospheric waves (such as the ones generated by the Stratospheric Polar Night Jet in the Antarctic region) to achieve motorless flight altitude records in the region of 100,000 feet.  These waves extend much higher than the famous Sierra Nevada lee waves that were previously used to set glider altitude records.  The Project is also dedicated to researching and developing an understanding of clear air turbulence.

Einar’s talk will combine an interesting blend of engineering, meteorology, flying, entrepreneurship, and adventure.  NASA has provided some support to the Perlan Project, including the loan of high altitude pressure suites.  When balloonist and adventurer Steve Fossett heard about it from friend, Barron Hilton, Fossett enthusiastically joined the project as its sponsor. Using NASA and USAF full pressure suits Fossett and Enevoldson set the world sailplane absolute altitude record of 50,724 feet, flying from El Calafate in the south of Argentine Patagonia, above the Andes mountains in the wind field of the stratospheric polar night jet.

Enevoldson will be the pilot for the Perlan II follow-up project aircraft.

SPEAKER -- Einar K. Enevoldson, the pilot for the Perlan Project, has had a long career in NASA and the US Air Force.

While serving in the Air Force, he set time to climb records in an F-104 Starfighter, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. While on an exchange program with the Royal Air Force, he attended the Empire Test Pilot's School in Farnborough, England.

After leaving the Air Force, Enevoldson served as a research pilot at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. Among the aircraft he flew for NASA were the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire and Supercritical Wing, YF-12A, the oblique wing AD-1, Controlled Deep Stall Sailplane, sub-scale F-15 remotely piloted spin research vehicle and the X-24B lifting body.

  In 1974 Enevoldson was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, for his contributions as NASA Project Pilot on the F-111 Supercritical Wing Program and on the F-15 Remotely Piloted Research Vehicle. In 1980 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for contributions as project pilot on F-14 stall and spin resistance tests.

In 1988 he retired from NASA and accepted a full-time position as the chief test pilot for the Grob Egrett, a high altitude reconnaissance aircraft for the German Air Force. Enevoldson set the absolute altitude record for all turboprop aircraft in the prototype Egrett in 1988. He later tested the same company's Strato 2C, another high altitude propeller airplane, but driven by piston engines. In this aircraft, he reached an altitude of over 60,700 feet, which exceeded the official altitude record for all propeller driven aircraft by over 5,000 feet.

Enevoldson holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Wyoming. He was recently inducted into the United States Soaring Hall of Fame at the National Soaring Museum (NSM) in Elmira, NY. 


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov