BMW?s first world record... 90 years ago

The cruising altitude of modern airliners ranges from 30,000 to 40,000 feet. It is hard to imagine that a pilot managed to breach those heights a full 90 years ago. It happened with a BMW engine equipped aeroplane which, on June 17, 1919, propelled Franz Zeno Diemer to an altitude of 32,000 feet. If further proof was needed of the superiority of BMW?s high-altitude engines, it was furnished during that summer of 1919 at Munich?s Oberwiesenfeld airfield. No human had previously piloted an aircraft to a greater height.