Almost a century ago, a Glasgow RAF pilot narrowly escaped death in a fragile open-cockpit biplane as he became the first man to fly over Mount Everest.
Air Commodore Sir Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, fought low visibility and freezing temperatures to navigate the terrain around the south side of the mountain range, soaring 40,000 feet above ground.
Lord Clydesdale, as he was know, along with "observer” Stewart Blacker, took off at around 8:30am on April 3, 1933 - just nine years after the climbers George Mallory and Sandy Irvine had disappeared in their bid to summit Everest.
READ MORE: The Glasgow mum-of-two who used her hair salon as a post box for Nazi spy ring
At just 30-years-old, the 14th Duke of Hamilton was already a talented aviator, having become Squadron Leader in 1927, commanding 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron.
Still, the journey from Lalbalu airstrip in the Indian state of Bihar to high above the mountain stretching between Nepal and Tibet was a challenging one.
The world’s eyes were watching - and the young men were determined not to fail.
Although the Houston-Westland, with its supercharged Pegasus engine and inbuilt electric heating, was a marvel of its time, it was barely able to cope with a fearsome downdraft that almost sent the pair plunging to their deaths.
"We were in a serious position," the Duke later wrote, until a counter updraft of similar strength caught under the wings and the plane was able to clear the summit by just 100 feet.
The duo became the first people to ever fly over the top of Everest, a terrain that had never been explored or mapped.
Sign up to our Glasgow Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to capture the historic moment on the camera. A second aircraft, carrying Flight Lieutenant David McIntyre and photographer S.R. Bonnett, had been equipped with a fully automated Eagle III Williamson aerial camera to take the very first images - but dust had flawed the plan.
Given that they had narrowly escaped death on their first try, Air Commodore Peregrine Fellowes, the leader of the expedition, deemed a second try too risky. But the Duke was set on completing the mission - with or without permission.
Sixteen days later, on April 19, the two planes flew once again.
This time, they cleared the 29,029-foot-high summit without trouble and captured the images that would help guide Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to the top of Mount Everest by foot nearly two decades later in 1953.
