Height, depth and spaceWorld record
Highest altitude reached by an electrically powered aircraft
Record
29.524 km
18.345 mi
- Holder
- NASA Helios
- Year
- Standing since
- 2001 (25 years)
What to remember
Electrically powered, NASA Helios climbed to 29.524 km, or 96,863 ft, on August 14, 2001. It is the highest altitude ever obtained by an electrically powered aircraft.
The flight counts in a second category too. It is also the highest altitude reached in horizontal flight by a winged aircraft.
Altitude records are sorted by type of craft, all the way back to the age of ballooning. Only some of them were certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), founded in Paris on 14 October 1905; one reason is that certain flights took place before the federation existed.
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Sources and licences
- Value, holder and date: Wikipedia article “List of flight altitude records” (revision used 1378383058). Data from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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