This Plane is Trying to Fly to 90,000 Feet Without an Engine

[Narrator] This aircraft is part of a landmark mission

to fly higher than any plane ever before.

And get this, the Perlan 2 doesn't even have an engine.

It's a glider designed to move at 400 miles an hour

and eventually reach 90,000 feet,

more than twice the cruising altitude

of a typical passenger plane.

The Perlan surfs the skies on what are called

stratospheric mounted waves.

Jim Payne, the chief pilot, is in Argentina right now

preparing for the next flight.

When you're trying to climb in a wave,

you're focusing on positioning the airplane

so that you're in the area where the air's rising

the fastest and you're always making adjustments

because as you climb, the position of the lift changes.

[Narrator] They've chosen the Argentinian Andes

because it's one of the few areas in the world

where they can find the waves of wind that they'll need

to climb to new heights.

[Jim] Air comes over the mountains, it comes down the back

side of the mountains and descends and then it rebounds

so typically, maybe 10 miles down into the mountain range,

you have this line of rising air

and we exploit that, the area where the air's rising.

Airplane's been flying very well,

the challenge of course is the phenomenon that causes

the very high altitude waves,

does not occur on a regular basis.

So we've been here for almost a month now

waiting for the right conditions.

[Narrator] This is phase two of the Perlan mission

which is staffed by 25 volunteers

but does have backing from Airbus.

The team wants to keep setting new altitude records

for winged flight, beating even the mighty SR 71 Blackbird

which soared high on the power of massive jet engines.

The plane has a cabin with room for two.

It is pressurized to the equivalent of about 14,000 feet.

[Jim] You have the small windows, so the visibility's

not as good as it might be in a production cell plane

and of course because we don't have an engine,

we don't have a heater so it gets rather chilly

inside the cabin and we dress for it.

The side that's facing the sun normally stays clear

but the side that's in the shade is normally pretty frosty.

[Narrator] The wings are 84 feet long,

which is plenty to keep the 1100 pound plane

aloft at altitude and the plane does have a parachute

if things go wrong, but it'd be a really long fall down.

This isn't just a joyride.

Perlan 2's belly will carry sensors to gather data

that could help scientists study cloud formation,

the upper atmosphere, and factors that are contributing

to climate change.

But mostly it's just about building a really cool aircraft

and doing something that's never been done before.

The Perlan team isn't stopping here.

The next phase is to replace the wings with ones

capable of getting closer to the speed of sound

and flight to 100,000 feet.

That version will be taken to the polar vortex winds

in the northern hemisphere, and in the process,

get a really good look at the world

that it's nearly left behind.