Flight altitude record



This listing of flight altitude records are the records set for the highest aeronautical flights conducted in the atmosphere, set since the age of ballooning.

Some, but not all of the records were certified by the non-profit international aviation organization, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). One reason for a lack of 'official' certification was that the flight occurred prior to the creation of the FAI.

For clarity, the "Fixed-wing aircraft" table is sorted by FAI-designated categories as determined by whether the record-creating aircraft left the ground by its own power (category "Altitude"), or whether it was first carried aloft by a carrier-aircraft prior to its record setting event (category "Altitude gain", or formally "Altitude Gain, Aeroplane Launched from a Carrier Aircraft"). Other sub-categories describe the airframe, and more importantly, the powerplant type (since rocket-powered aircraft can have greater altitude abilities than those with air-breathing engines).

An essential requirement for the creation of an "official" altitude record is the employment of FAI-certified observers present during the record-setting flight. Thus several records noted are unofficial due to the lack of such observers.

Balloons



 * 1783-08-15: 24 m; Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier of France, the first ascent in a hot-air balloon.
 * 1783-10-19: 81 m; Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, in Paris.
 * 1783-10-19: 105 m; Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier with André Giroud de Villette, in Paris.
 * 1783-11-21: 1000 m; Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier with Marquis d'Arlandes, in Paris.
 * 1783-12-01: 2.7 km; Jacques Alexandre Charles and his assistant Marie-Noël Robert, both of France, made the first flight in a hydrogen balloon to about 610 m. Charles then ascended alone to the record altitude.
 * 1784-06-23: 4 km; Pilâtre de Rozier and the chemist Joseph Proust in a Montgolfier.
 * 1803-07-18: 7.28 km; Étienne-Gaspard Robert and Auguste Lhoëst in a balloon.
 * 1839: 7.9 km; Charles Green and Spencer Rush in a free balloon.
 * 1862-09-05: about 29,500 ft; Henry Coxwell and James Glaisher in a balloon filled with coal gas. Glaisher lost consciousness during the ascent due to the low air pressure and cold temperature of -11 °C.
 * 1901-07-31: 10.8 km; Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring in the hydrogen balloon Preußen, in an open basket and with oxygen in steel cylinders. This flight contributed to the discovery of the stratosphere.
 * 1927-11-04: 13.222 km; Captain Hawthorne C. Gray, of the U.S. Army Air Corps, in a helium balloon. Gray lost consciousness after his oxygen supply ran out and was killed in the crash.
 * 1931-05-27: 15.781 km; Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer in a hydrogen balloon.
 * 1932: 16.201 km -Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns in a hydrogen balloon.
 * 1933-09-30: 18.501 km; USSR balloon USSR-1.
 * 1933-11-20: 18.592 km; Lt. Comdr. Thomas G. W. Settle (USN) and Maj Chester L. Fordney (USMC) in Century of Progress balloon
 * 1934-01-30: 21.946 km; USSR balloon Osoaviakhim-1. The three crew were killed when the balloon broke up during the descent.
 * 1935-11-10: 22.066 km; Captain O. A. Anderson and Captain A. W. Stevens (U.S. Army Air Corps) ascended in the Explorer II gondola from the Stratobowl, near Rapid City, South Dakota, for a flight that lasted 8 hours 13 minutes and covered 362 km.
 * 1956-11-08: 23.165 km; Malcolm D. Ross and M. L. Lewis (U.S. Navy) in Office of Naval Research Strato-Lab I, using a pressurized gondola and plastic balloon launching near Rapid City, South Dakota, and landing 282 km away near Kennedy, Nebraska.
 * 1957-06-02: 29.4997 km; Captain Joseph W. Kittinger (U.S. Air Force) ascended in the Project Manhigh 1 gondola to a record-breaking altitude.
 * 1957-08-19: 31.212 km; above sea level, Major David Simons (U.S. Air Force) ascended from the Portsmouth Mine near Crosby, Minnesota, in the Manhigh 2 gondola for a 32-hour record-breaking flight. Simons landed at 5:32 p.m. on August 20 in northeastern South Dakota.
 * 1960-08-16: 31.333 km; Testing a high-altitude parachute system, Joseph Kittinger of the U.S. Air Force parachuted from the Excelsior III balloon over New Mexico at 102800 ft. He set world records for: high-altitude jump; freefall diving by falling 16 mi before opening his parachute; and fastest speed achieved by a human without motorized assistance, 614 mph.
 * 1961-05-04: 34.668 km; Commander Malcolm D. Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather, Jr., of the U.S. Navy ascended in the Strato-Lab V, in an unpressurized gondola. After descending, the gondola containing the two balloonists landed in the Gulf of Mexico. Prather slipped off the rescue helicopter's hook into the gulf and drowned.
 * 1966-02-02: 37600 m; Amateur parachutist Nicholas Piantanida of the United States with his "Project Strato-Jump" II balloon. Because he was unable to disconnect his oxygen line from the gondola's main feed, the ground crew had to remotely detach the balloon from the gondola. His planned free fall and parachute jump was abandoned, and he returned to the ground in the gondola. Nick was unable to accomplish his desired free fall record, however his spectacular flight set other records that held up for 46 years. Because of the design of his glove, he was unable to reattach his safety seat belt harness. He endured very high g-forces, but survived the descent. Piantanida's ascent is not recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as a balloon altitude world record, because he did not return with his balloon, although that was not the feat he was trying to accomplish. On this second attempt of "Project Strato-Jump", Nick Piantanida took with him 250 postmarked air-mail envelopes and letters. At the time, these letters were the first covers to have ever been delivered by the U.S. Post Office via space. The habit of taking cover letters to space continued with the Apollo Program; in 1972 there was a scandal involving the Apollo 15 astronauts. It is unclear if any of the "Project Strato-Jump" covers survived, and were eventually mailed to the intended recipients.
 * 2012-10-14: 38969 m; Felix Baumgartner in the Red Bull Stratos balloon. The flight started near Roswell, New Mexico, and returned to earth via a record-setting parachute jump.
 * 2014-10-24: 41424 m; Alan Eustace, a senior vice president at the Google corporation, in a helium balloon, returning to earth via parachute jump during the StratEx mission executed by Paragon Space Development Corporation.

Uncrewed gas balloon
During 1893 French scientist Jules Richard constructed sounding balloons. These uncrewed balloons, carrying light, but very precise instruments, approached an altitude of 15.24 km.

A Winzen balloon launched from Chico, California, in 1972 set the uncrewed altitude record of 51.8 km. Its volume was 47,800,000 ft3.

On September 20, 2013, JAXA launched an ultrathin film balloon called BS13-08 made of 2.8 μm thick polyethylene film with a volume of 80,000 m3 (60 meters in diameter). The balloon rose at a speed of 250 m per minute and reached an altitude of 53.7 km (187,992 ft), surpassing the previous world record set in 2002

This was the greatest height a flying object reached without using rockets or a launch with a cannon.

Gliders
On February 17, 1986, The highest altitude obtained by a soaring aircraft was set at 49009 ft by Robert Harris using lee waves over California City, United States. The flight was accomplished using the Grob 102 Standard Astir III.

This was surpassed at 50720 ft set on August 30, 2006, by Steve Fossett (pilot) and Einar Enevoldson (co-pilot) in their high performance research glider Perlan 1, a modified Glaser-Dirks DG-500. This record was achieved over El Calafate (Patagonia, Argentina) and set as part of the Perlan Project.

This was raised at 52172 ft on September 3, 2017 by Jim Payne (pilot) and Morgan Sandercock (co-pilot) in the Perlan 2, a special built high altitude research glider. This record was again achieved over El Calafate and as part of the Perlan Project.

On September 2, 2018, within the Airbus Perlan Mission II, again from El Calafate, the Perlan II piloted by Jim Payne and Tim Gardner reached 76,124 ft, surpassing the 73,737 feet attained by Jerry Hoyt on April 17, 1989, in a Lockheed U-2: the highest subsonic flight.

Piston-driven propeller aeroplane
The highest altitude obtained by a piston-driven propeller UAV (without payload) is 67028 ft. It was obtained during 1988–1989 by the Boeing Condor UAV.

The highest altitude obtained in a piston-driven propeller biplane (without a payload) was 17083 m on October 22, 1938, by Mario Pezzi at Montecelio, Italy in a Caproni Ca.161 driven by a Piaggio XI R.C. engine.

The highest altitude obtained in a piston-driven propeller monoplane (without a payload) was 18552 m on August 4, 1995, by the Grob Strato 2C driven by two Teledyne Continental TSIO-550 engines.

Jet aircraft
The highest current world absolute general aviation altitude record for air breathing jet-propelled aircraft is 37650 m set by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Fedotov in a Mikoyan-Gurevich E-266M (MiG-25M) on August 31, 1977.

Rocket plane
The record for highest altitude obtained by a crewed rocket-powered aircraft is the US Space Shuttle (STS) which regularly reached altitudes of more than 500 km on servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The highest altitude obtained by a crewed aeroplane (launched from another aircraft) is 112010 m by Brian Binnie in the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne (powered by a Scaled Composite SD-010 engine with 18000 lb of thrust) on October 4, 2004, at Mojave, California. The SpaceShipOne was launched at over 43,500 ft (13.3 km).

The previous (unofficial) record was 107960 m set by Joseph A. Walker in a North American X-15 in mission X-15 Flight 91 on August 22, 1963. Walker had reached 106 km – crossing the Kármán line the first time – with X-15 Flight 90 the previous month.

During the X-15 program, 8 pilots flew a combined 13 flights which met the Air Force spaceflight criterion by exceeding the altitude of 50 mi, qualifying these pilots as being astronauts; of those 13 flights, two (flown by the same civilian pilot) met the FAI definition of outer space: 100 km.

Mixed power
The official record for a mixed power aircraft was achieved on May 2, 1958, by Roger Carpentier when he reached 24217 m over Istres, France in a Sud-Ouest Trident II mixed power (turbojet & rocket engine) aircraft.

The unofficial altitude record for mixed-power-aircraft with self-powered takeoff was 120,800 ft on December 6, 1963, by Major Robert W. Smith in a Lockheed NF-104A mixed power (turbojet and rocket engine) aircraft.

Electrically powered aircraft
The highest altitude obtained by an electrically powered aircraft is 96,863 ft on August 14, 2001, by the NASA Helios, and is the highest altitude in horizontal flight by a winged aircraft. This is also the altitude record for propeller driven aircraft, FAI class U (Experimental / New Technologies), and FAI class U-1.d (Remotely controlled UAV : Weight 500 kg to less than 2500 kg).

Rotorcraft
On June 21, 1972, Jean Boulet of France piloted an Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama helicopter to an absolute altitude record of 40814 ft. At that extreme altitude, the engine flamed out and Boulet had to land the helicopter by breaking another record: the longest successful autorotation in history. The helicopter was stripped of all unnecessary equipment prior to the flight to minimize weight, and the pilot breathed supplemental oxygen.

Paper airplanes
The highest altitude obtained by a paper plane was previously held by the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project, which was released at an altitude of 27307 m, from a helium balloon that was launched approximately 80 km west of Madrid, Spain on October 28, 2010, and recorded by The Register's "special projects bureau". The project achieved a Guinness world record recognition.

This record was broken on 24 June 2015 in Cambridgeshire, UK by the Space Club of Kesgrave High School, Suffolk, as part of their Stratos III project. The paper plane was launched from a balloon at 35043 m.

Cannon rounds
The current world-record for highest cannon projectile flight is held by Project HARP’s 16-inch space gun prototype, which fired a 180 kg Martlet 2 projectile to a record height of 180 km in Yuma, Arizona, on November 18, 1966. The projectile’s trajectory sent it beyond 100 km (62.14 mi), making it the first cannon-fired projectile to do so.

The Paris Gun (German: Paris-Geschütz) was a German long-range siege gun used to bombard Paris during World War I. It was in service from March–August 1918. Its 106-kilogram shells had a range of about 130 km with a maximum altitude of about 42.3 km.