Wings Over Everest

The film describes 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

The flight used two aircraft that took off from Purnea, India on 3 April 1933.^[4] One aircraft was Westland PV-3 which had undergone some additional changes, and the other aircraft was a Westland PV-6.^[4] Lord Clydesdale flew the PV-3 and Lieutenant David McIntyre in the PV-6.^[4] The aircraft were not pressurized but they did use bottled oxygen.^[4]

Aerial photos would go onto be used by mountaineers including Tenzing and Hillary's expedition which reached the summit on foot.^[5] The aerial photos were made on a second flight on 19 April 1933 as during the first flight there was a dusty haze that obscured the photographs from the 3 April flight.^[6]

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The flight itself is genuinely exciting, in spite of the difficulty of conveying a vivid impression of great heights by aerial photography, due to the expert camera work of S. R. Bonnett. Material has been well arranged without over-dramatisation, and the commentary is admirable. ... Occasionally a grotesque vista of rock breaks through the rolling waves of cloud, like an islet in the sea. Everest itself is dwarfed by the nonchalance of its conquerors."^[7]

Wings over Everest was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014, in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive.^[8]

The film received an Academy Award in 1936 for Best Short Subject (Novelty).^[9]

• List of media related to Mount Everest
• List of Mount Everest records