Edge of space flights - any good?
Discussion
The maximum altitude possible in an aircraft like that is around 70,000 feet - which equates to 13.25 miles or 21 kilometres.
The official "start" of space is defined by the FAI as 100 km (the Karman Line), so 21 km is quite a bit short of the "edge of space".
However, from 70,000 feet the sky will be "almost black" and the curvature of the earth would be clear. This pisctures is from a U2
The official "start" of space is defined by the FAI as 100 km (the Karman Line), so 21 km is quite a bit short of the "edge of space".
However, from 70,000 feet the sky will be "almost black" and the curvature of the earth would be clear. This pisctures is from a U2
I was fairly interested in doing this about 4 years ago. As it turned out, my dad became ill and the outlook was pretty bleak which, combined with the fact you had to commit to doing the flight 4-5 months in advance meant that life sort of got in the way.
I exchanged quite a few emails and phonecalls with the Russian tourist company who organise the flights. It's usually organised as effectively a fairly bespoke visit to the country with a few days in a plush Moscow hotel, a pretty personalised itinerary of accompanied visits to whichever touristy things you want to go to along with some exclusive visits. Similarly, the trip to the airbase at Nizhny Novgorod comes with a fairly personalised touristy itinerary as well as the flight itself.
I had asked the organisers if they could give me contact details of a few western European folk who had done the edge of space flight to get some sort of independent feedback and they were happy to do that. The 3 folk I got in contact with were hugely impressed with the whole package including everything to do with the flight itself. All were blown away by the high energy aerobatic part of the flight at low level after the ballistic high altitude part. Their videos are all uploaded on youtube and are obviously awesome.
I was looking at about $26k for the whole 8 day package with my wife which included a full 5-star vacation and I got the impression that adding stuff to the itinerary didn't really add much to the overall cost of the trip.
I exchanged quite a few emails and phonecalls with the Russian tourist company who organise the flights. It's usually organised as effectively a fairly bespoke visit to the country with a few days in a plush Moscow hotel, a pretty personalised itinerary of accompanied visits to whichever touristy things you want to go to along with some exclusive visits. Similarly, the trip to the airbase at Nizhny Novgorod comes with a fairly personalised touristy itinerary as well as the flight itself.
I had asked the organisers if they could give me contact details of a few western European folk who had done the edge of space flight to get some sort of independent feedback and they were happy to do that. The 3 folk I got in contact with were hugely impressed with the whole package including everything to do with the flight itself. All were blown away by the high energy aerobatic part of the flight at low level after the ballistic high altitude part. Their videos are all uploaded on youtube and are obviously awesome.
I was looking at about $26k for the whole 8 day package with my wife which included a full 5-star vacation and I got the impression that adding stuff to the itinerary didn't really add much to the overall cost of the trip.
montecristo said:
Has anyone done one of the edge of space flights you can do in a MiG-29, or a similar thing as an air force pilot? Do you really get to see the earth as a planet? Do you get a sense of being near "space"?
Best to do it in the winter months, as more chance of getting higher, as the MiG-29 technically only has a service ceiling of about 59,000ft, so it can be a bit hit and miss as to how high they can get.They used run flights out of the test centre at Zhukovsky in MiG-25's or 31's which could easily get to 70k+ in a zoom profile, but civilian flights out of Zhukovsky were stopped back in 2006.
The MiG-29 out of the production plant location at Nizhny Novgorod is the only option now IIRC.
Given that plant used to make the MiG-25 and the MiG-31 its a shame they can't still use those, although the MiG-29 flight does include a tail-slide as part of the flight, which must be fun
Boatbuoy said:
Sounds a tad more exclusive! Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff