Evening star., 1933-04-26
BY LIEUT.. COL. L. v. STEWART
BLACKER.

BLACKER.
PURNEA, India (by mail, N.AN.A).
The time has come to marshal ones
original impressions of the great flight
and to set down its results and some OF
its lessons.
The object of the venture from its
first inception was the production OF
scientific results, chief among which
were to be the taking of photographs
showing the geographer the conforma-
tion of the inaccessible southern de-
clivities.
Briefly, the Photographic results, at
least as regards the 'obliques," have,
even on the first flight, surpassed ex-
pectations Partly due to the marvellous
clearness of the air. only tempered by
the passage of the airplane through the
cause of the excellence Of the cameras,
] was able to obtain 35 good glass mega
tives. Mention should be made here Oh
the excellent manner in which the
oxygen gear and heated clothing be-
haved. because without this the great
exertions called for from the operator
at attitudes of about $4,000 feet would
not have been possible.
Angle Is Problem.
A task was to measure the angle
of drift of the airplane and to set the
same angle on to the camera mount
ing in order to compensate for the
inclination which the machines center
line makes with its track when there
is a strong side wind. This sounds
easy, but in this case it involved strug-
Cling down from kneeling to lay
ing position, amid welter of tubes and
electrical leads, taking the utmost care
not to jerk or roughly handle any OF
them for fear of damage. However,
this was accomplished and I found the
angle to be 18 degrees, the wind COM
ing from the west and SO DETECTING
OUR tail to the starboard, that is the
east side.
These laborious tasks caused me to
lose touch with the ground over which
we were passing, but later, through the
open hatch in the floor 1 made out
first the outline of the long low Mahab-
harat range, which ran athwart our
course, along the southern frontier Of
Nepal, and soon afterward the three
rivers, Kosi, Arun and lamar. which
ran together almost to a single con-
fluence, a little to our left. A. a spe-
cial ill-luck would have it, the dust
haze drifting up from the plains was
ILLS NCIy anu, ~ plOHCd
rose up to literally phenomenal
height
In time we rose up through the haze
till the creeping altimeter needle
showed nearly 10000 feet, and at once
away to the east, to my right. there
leaped up the cleaning white summit
of Kanchenjunga, with our companion
machine showing sharply against the
deep blue above it. Here was a mark
for my camera. I had switched on
the heat into the clothing and was
comfortably warm, SO I opened the
cockpit cover and with little difficulty
exposed a plate or two.
Mount Everest Looms Up.
Almost before I had finished these,
and as the chill was striking into and
numbing my bare right hand there
rose up straight to the front, over the
leaping valve rockers of the great en-
gine, Mount Everest itself, with its
mighty companion, Makalu. I set to
work taking pictures of the ever-rising
mountains as We drew nearer.
During a pause I opened the floor
hatch again and looked down sheer many
thousands of feet straight on to a
great snow peak which must have been
the Chamlang range. To my left
showed vast and curving glaciers grimed
with ancient deposits. All was now
bare, the last trees were far below and
far behind, and the glaciers themselves
ran often in between sheer walls of
bare brown and ochre rock.
To my right there seemed less sheer
ice and more open snow in broader
valleys. 1t was a desolate scene. I
felt little .thrill of apprehension as
my imagination depicted the possibility
of sudden engine failure over those
iron crags and ice-bound cliffs There
came more work with both cameras,
interspersed with admiration for the
stright, steady course on which the
pilot held the machine. I looked down
to see the operation of the survey
camera, whose actuating lever moved
slowly around as I watched it.
Again I stood up through the open
top of the cockpit into soaring blast
of 70 degrees OF frost.
Ice Falls Into Cockpit.
Ice ratified into the cockpit, out of
the great frozen fume of the mountain
into whose heart we had ventured.
Slowly, very slowly, our magnificent
machine made headway against the
great wind from the west, now allied
with the immense overfal of air COM
ing Gown over tne crest. FTantlcalIy 1
exposed plate after plate. Somehow my
fingers worked Alright on stop and shut
ter release and plate carrier. AS the
airplane swung round, now my eyes
were filled with the majestey of Mount
Everest, and now with the incredibly
astonishing whiteness of Makalu. I
could look straight down to the glacier
by which the climbers of 1924 hao made
their high bivouac.
Then I crouched down to struggle
with the second magazine of the survey
camera, which demanded a tuSsle to
make 1t fit in its CONSTRUCTED quarters.
Reaching. next for the reserve spool of
film for the cinematograph camera, I
found, to my disgust, that it had frozen
and become brittle, flying into splinters
as I touched it. This was the more
remarkable, because the plate camera,
warmed by the same current, had main
tanned an admirable temperature. I
had to fall back on the plate camera
again, and was soon taking picture after
picture of those amazing cliffs of black
rock and those terrific ice slopes.
I felt that this was the acme of the
tolls on which I had labored for 10
long, hard months, and the task was
achieved on which had set my heart
for years. Whatever happened now,
Mount Everest was inviolate no longer.