Height, depth and spaceWorld record
Highest altitude for a balloon-launched hang glider
11.8 km
7.33 mi
- Holder
- Judy Leden
- Year
- Standing since
- 1994 (32 years)
What to remember
On 25 October 1994, over Wadi Rum in Jordan, Britain's Judy Leden reached 11,800 m, or 38,800 ft, with a hang glider launched from a balloon. That is the altitude record for this category.
A hang glider is a light, unpowered, fixed-wing aircraft, usually launched on foot and made of an aluminium or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth. The pilot hangs from the airframe in a harness and steers by shifting body weight.
Early hang gliders had a low lift-to-drag ratio and could only glide down small hills. By the 1980s the ratio had improved a lot, and pilots learned to gain thousands of metres in thermals.
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Sources and licences
- Value, holder and date: Wikipedia article “Hang gliding” (revision used 1350890026). Data from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Photo: Audrey from USA, Photo licensed under CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
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