Welcome to Episode #1 of The Thermal. I’m your host Herrie ten Cate.  On this show, Perlan chief pilot Jim Payne will tell us what it was like to break the world altitude record for gliders while flying the Antarctic wave in Argentina.   And an interview with Richard Carlson, the Chairman of the Soaring Safety Foundation to talk about what they’re doing to increase gliding safety.  Closing the show will be one pilot’s first-hand account of tangling with a massive thunderstorm and living to talk about it.