We Knew That. We Must Have Known That. 

We must have been thinking about certified vs Experimental, or something, when we wrote yesterday, "In 1991 a Diamond HK36 Dimona set the altitude record by climbing to 11020 meters (36,188 ft), a record which still stands today." That information, from a proud Diamond Aircraft, made it past our fact-checkers -- probably because of that mindset (certified/experimental).

The record, though, isn't set up that way. It's more straightforward: if you do it, you get the record. Heck, we covered the records! Bruce Bohannon holds that record in his Exxon Flyin' Tiger, as we were quickly reminded by ANN Reader Michael R. Pablo, who is Assistant, Contest & Records, at the National Aeronautic Association, which certifies such records.

Here's what's what:

Mike wrote, "The ...record you mentioned, an altitude flight set by Austrian Peter Urach in January of 1991, has actually been beaten twice by Bruce Bohannon in his Exxon Flyin' Tiger - once at Sun 'n' Fun in 2002 (top), and then he beat that performance at the AOPA expo in Palm Springs in October of 2002 (right). 

That altitude, 41,611 feet, is the current official world record for class C-1.b, Group I (FAI-speak for piston landplanes weighing between 500 and 1000 kilograms), the same category of the recent Stoler/Sirimanne record. The altitude record for all piston aircraft stands at 56,046 feet, set by Italian Mario Pezzi all the way back in 1938."

An easy mistake -- after all, who is in the same class as Bruce Bohannon?

(Sorry, big guy!)

FMI: www.naa-usa.org