Chronology of Aviation in the Everest region

This is a list of known flights over, from, near or associated with Mt Everest, which were planned to be undertaken without the benefit of a pressurized cabin and other salient dates such as the building of airfields.

1924
Aeroplane		Sir Alan Cobham, UK
1932
Aeroplane		Richard Halliburton and  Meyro Stevens, USA
1933
Aeroplane		Houston-Westland Expedition, UK
1933 - 1934
Aeroplane		Maurice Wilson, UK
1951
Aeroplane		John Jordan, UK
1960
Airfield		Mingbo airfield built by Sir Edmund Hillary, and abandoned.
Aeroplane		Pilatus PC-6 Porters arrive in Nepal for the first time
1964
Airfield		Lukla airfield built by Sir Edmund Hillary
1985
Gliders		Himalaya Soaring Expedition flew in the Anapurna region.
1986
Microlights		Dudh Kosi Kites and Kayak Expedition, Simon Baker, David Young & Malcolm McBride; UK
HangGlider		Steve McKinney, USA.
1988
Paraglider		Jean-Marc Boivin; France
1990
Balloon		Michio Kanda, Sabu Ichiyoshi and Etushi Saito; Japan
Paraglider		Jean Noel Roche and Roche Bertrand; France
1991
Balloons		Chris Dewhirst, Leo Dickinson, Andy Elson, Eric Jones; UK
1993
Microlights		Himalaya High International Ultralight Expedition, Jan Bem; Czech Republic
1998
Paraglider		Elvira Nasonova + 1; Russia
2001
Paraglider		Roche Bertrand and Claire Bernier Roche; France
Balloon		David Hempleman-Adams; UK
2002
Paraglider		Wilco van Rooijen and Hans; Holland
Future projects
Aeroplane		Wings Over Everest; UK

 

Postscript

On page one in his first book Richard Halliburton states his ultimate happiness would be to sail off into the sunset.  That was exactly what he eventually did.  In 1939 he left Hong Kong in the “Sea Dragon”, a Chinese junk he’d had built to sail to San Francisco in time for the World's Fair but disappeared without trace in a Typhoon.

Dick Ellison, the last known living survivor of the Houston Westland expedition and reserve pilot who flew with Bonnett on the Kanchenjunga flight was interviewed in 1990 by Leo Dickinson for his book Ballooning over Everest.

John Jordan is now 80 and living a graceful retirement at his mill in Bedfordshire.

Simon Baker runs a flying school and has been enormously successful in competitions, winning the Microlight World Championships in 1996, 1999 and 2003.

 David Young flew 7000 miles around West Africa in 1987 with the famous author and explorer Christina Dodwell and now runs a successful microlight flying school.

Besides being a hang glider pilot, Steve McKinney was one of the World’s leading speed skiers.  He was killed by a drunk driver in a car crash in 1990. 

Larry Tudor set a whole host of Hang gliding records in the 1980’s and 1990’s and is now ‘semi retired’ from competitive gliding.

Michio Kanda made the first balloon flight from China to Japan across the China Sea in February 1993 and flew with Hiro Takezawa over Mt. Naga Parbat, 8125m Pakistan on 14 October 2000.

Sabu Ichiyoshi made the first flight by balloon from Korea to Japan in September 1994

Jean-Marc Boivin was killed BASE-jumping the Angel Falls in Venezuela in 1990.

Andy Elson was on board the Cable & Wireless balloon which flew in March 1999 over 12,000 miles for 18 days to set an outright world endurance record for an aircraft in the earth's atmosphere while attempting a circumnavigation.  More recently, with the ‘Edge of Space’ project he has been attempting to break the world altitude record for manned balloon flight by flying with Colin Prescot to 130,000 ft in the biggest balloon ever made.

Jan Bem is living in Florida, is usually the Czech team leader at Microlight championships, and is still flying all sorts of aircraft including Microlights.  He led an autumn 2000 expedition to Anapurna and flew a microlight from Pokhara to more than 8,000m. near the mountain.

David Hempleman-Adams recently set a World speed record for hot-air airships.