|
Houston–Mount Everest Flight Expedition
The first Mount Everest flight expedition was undertaken by Sir Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Clydesdale and David McIntyre in April 1933. They took off on an open cabin flight at 8:25 am on 3 April from Lalbalu Airfield and returned at 11:30 marking it as the first successful flight over Everest. It was financed by Lucy, Lady Houston and organized by Stewart Blacker. Background The idea for a flight expedition over the Mount Everest was proposed in 1918 by a British mountaineering physiologist, Alexander Kellas in his journal "The Possibility of Aerial Reconnaissance in the Himalaya." The attempt could not be made without significant funding and in September 1932 Lord Clydesdale visited Lady Houston at her Scottish shooting estate, Kinrara, to ask her to fund the expedition. He impressed her by dressing in his kilt for dinner. The strongly nationalistic Lady Houston was delighted with the idea that Clydesdale put forward, that the conquering of Everest by air would streng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Everest
Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow height) of was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities. Mount Everest attracts many climbers, including highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the "standard route") and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as altitude sickness, weather, and wind, as well as hazards from avalanches and the Khumbu Icefall. , over 300 people have died on Everest, many of whose bodies remain on the mountain. The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. As Nepal did not allow foreigners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke Of Hamilton
Air Commodore Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton and 11th Duke of Brandon, (3 February 1903 – 30 March 1973) was a Scottish nobleman and aviator who was the first man to fly over Mount Everest. When German Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess made his surprise landing in Scotland in May 1941, he claimed to know Hamilton, who denied that although both were believed to have met at the Berlin Olympics and had possibly remained in contact. Hamilton was, however, declared in Parliament to be innocent of any breach of security. Early life Hamilton was born in Pimlico, London. He was the son of Alfred Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton and his wife Nina (née Poore). He was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a Blue in boxing, this in turn, led to his winning of the Scottish Amateur Middleweight title. He also represented the university in rowing. Styled Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale before he succeeded his father as the Duke of Ham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucy, Lady Houston
Dame Fanny Lucy Houston, Lady Houston, Baroness Byron ( Radmall; 8 April 1857 – 29 December 1936) was a British philanthropist, political activist and suffragist. Beginning in 1933, she published the '' Saturday Review'', which was best known for its attacks on what the paper labelled the "unpatriotic" National Governments of Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. She has been acknowledged as an aviation pioneer and "the saviour of the Spitfire" because of her support for its predecessor, the Supermarine seaplane. Early life Fanny Lucy Radmall was the fourth daughter of Thomas Radmall, a woollen warehouseman and draper, and Maria Isabella Clark. She was born at 13 Lower Kennington Green, Lambeth, the ninth child of ten children. This Surrey suburb was across the Thames from the City, but now forms part of Inner London. As a young woman, she was a professional dancer, a chorus girl known as "Poppy". At the age of sixteen, she took up with a wealthy man twice her age, Frederi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stewart Blacker
Lieutenant-Colonel Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker OBE (1 October 1887 – 19 April 1964) was a British Army officer and inventor of weapons; he invented the Blacker Bombard, from which was developed the Hedgehog anti-submarine spigot-mortar – and laid the basis of the PIAT anti-tank weapon. A descendant of Valentine Blacker (1778–1823), he was born in Cheshire to Major Latham Blacker of the Indian Army. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Bedford School, before going to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After passing out from the college in 1907, he was commissioned into the Indian Army himself. He served in Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Russia, earning several mentions in dispatches. He served with the 69th Punjabis, Queen's Own Corps of Guides, and 57th Wilde's Rifles. He had learned to fly in 1911, receiving Certificate No. 121 from the Royal Aero Club, and at the start of the First World War he was attached to the Royal Flying Corps. He was shot down a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Kellas
Alexander Mitchell Kellas (21 June 1868 – 5 June 1921) was a British chemist, explorer, and mountaineer known for his studies of high-altitude physiology. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland.Jill Neate, ''High Asia: An illustrated guide to the 7,000 metre peaks'', The Mountaineers, 1989, . Himalayan Club Vice President Meher Mehta characterized Kellas' papers ''A Consideration of the Possibility of Ascending the Loftier Himalaya'' and ''A Consideration of the Possibility of Ascending Mt Everest'' as "key catalysts in driving scientific thinking into climbing big peaks. His studies included the physiology of acclimatization in relationship to important variables like altitude, barometric pressures, alveolar PO2, arterial oxygen saturation, maximum oxygen consumption, and ascent rates at different altitudes. He had concluded that Mt Everest could be ascended by men of extreme physical and mental constitution without supplementary oxygen if the physical difficulties of the mountain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westland PV-6
The Westland Wallace was a British two-seat, general-purpose biplane of the Royal Air Force, developed by Westland as a follow-on to their successful Wapiti. As the last of the interwar general purpose biplanes, it was used by a number of frontline and Auxiliary Air Force Squadrons. Although the pace of aeronautical development caused its rapid replacement in frontline service, its useful life was extended into the Second World War with many being converted into target tugs and wireless trainers. In 1933 a Westland Wallace became the first aircraft to fly over Everest, as part of the Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition. Design and development In 1931, Westland produced the PV-6, a private-venture development of its successful Wapiti. This updated aircraft embodied a number of improvements including a lengthened fuselage, brakes and wheel spats on the undercarriage and a new engine. By this time both the appearance and performance differed considerably from the standard Wapit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westland PV-3
The Westland PV-3 was a British two-seat torpedo bomber of the 1930s built by Westland Aircraft Works. The aircraft was a private venture development and based on the Westland Wapiti. It never entered production. The aircraft is best known as one of the first two to fly over Everest as part of the Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition. History The PV-3 design was produced in 1930 as a private venture two-seat aircraft that could be used as either a carrier-based torpedo bomber intended to carry a new lightweight torpedo being developed by the Admiralty, or as an army-co-operation aircraft.Mason 1994, p.221. As such, it was a development of the Wapiti, with an all-metal structure and folding two-bay wings. It was powered by a 575 hp (429 kW) Bristol Jupiter XFA radial engine, having a defensive armament of one forward-firing Vickers machine gun and a Lewis gun on a Scarff ring on the observer's cockpit. It could carry either the planned 1,000 lb (455 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purnea
Purnia ()(also romanized as Purnea) is a city that serves as the administrative headquarters of both Purnia district and Purnia division in the Indian state of Bihar. Total geographical area of Purnia Urban Agglomeration is which is next only to Patna. Population density of the city is 3058 persons per km sq. making it the 4th largest city of Bihar by population. It is nearly 302 kilometres from Patna, as well as 171 km from Siliguri, 90 km from Bhagalpur.It is 640 km from Guwahati (Approx.) and 450 km from Kolkata, the capital of the adjacent state of West Bengal and the largest city in East India. Purnia district covers 3202.31 sq. km of the state of Bihar. The Indian Army, Indian Air Force, and three of five branches of India's Central Armed Police Forces – the Border Security Force (BSF), the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) – have bases around the district. Etymology Several possible origins for the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker
Lieutenant-Colonel Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker OBE (1 October 1887 – 19 April 1964) was a British Army officer and inventor of weapons; he invented the Blacker Bombard, from which was developed the Hedgehog anti-submarine spigot-mortar – and laid the basis of the PIAT anti-tank weapon. A descendant of Valentine Blacker (1778–1823), he was born in Cheshire to Major Latham Blacker of the Indian Army. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Bedford School, before going to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After passing out from the college in 1907, he was commissioned into the Indian Army himself. He served in Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Russia, earning several mentions in dispatches. He served with the 69th Punjabis, Queen's Own Corps of Guides, and 57th Wilde's Rifles. He had learned to fly in 1911, receiving Certificate No. 121 from the Royal Aero Club, and at the start of the First World War he was attached to the Royal Flying Corps. He was shot down and wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and concurrently as Ambassador to Nepal. Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school. He made his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator during World War II and was wounded in an accident. Prior to the Everest expedition, Hillary had been part of the British reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 as well as an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which he accomplished with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953. ''Time'' named Norgay one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Early life There are conflicting accounts of Tenzing's early life. In his autobiography, he wrote that he was a Sherpa born and raised in Tengboche, Khumbu, in northeastern Nepal.Tenzing & Ullman In a 1985 interview with All India Radio, he said his parents came from Tibet, but that he was born in Nepal. According to many later accounts, including a book co-written by his son Jamling Tenzin Norgay, he was born in Tibet, at Tse Chu in the Kama Valley, and grew up in Thame. He spent his early childhood in Kharta, near the north of the country. Norgay went to Nepal as a child to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wings Over Everest
''Wings over Everest'' is a 1934 British short documentary film directed by Geoffrey Barkas and Ivor Montagu. It won an Academy Award in 1936 for Best Short Subject (Novelty). It described the 1933 Houston-Mount Everest flight expedition, in which Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, otherwise known as Lord Clydesdale, piloted a single-engined biplane on 3 April 1933, just clearing Everest's southern peak by a few feet, having been caught in a powerful downdraught. The film used mixture of real footage of Everest from the record-breaking flight and theatrically produced scenes using the actual people rather than actors. The flight used two aircraft that took off from Purnea, India on 3 April 1933. One aircraft was Westland PV-3 which had undergone some additional changes, and the other aircraft was a Westland PV-6. Lord Clydesdale flew the PV-3 and Lieutenant David McIntyre in the PV-6. The aircraft were not pressurized but they did use bottled oxygen. As men ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Lucy, Lady Houston")
