GKN MISSION EVEREST: THE DEBRIEF
Two paramotors, one mountain and half a million dollars! Bob Drury goes behind the scenes of the GKN Mission Everest expedition
As a young boy Gilo Cardozo dreamt of flying his paramotor over the summit of Everest. The boy became a man and, for the self-taught designer of Parajet paramotors, the dream grew to become the focus of his attention and the worthy adversary of all he had learnt as an engineer. But how could Gilo ever realise his dream?
Enter Bear Grylls, arguably one of the UK’s most successful media machines in the world of adventure sports. Coming from the military, and with a successful ascent of Everest behind him, Bear has slowly manoeuvred himself into the role of respected media star, and recently began presenting TV programmes like ‘Born Survivor’ and ‘Man vs Wild’. With Bear’s energy and connections behind them the expedition began to take shape, giving Gilo just seven months to build two paramotors that could fly above Mt Everest.
The odds seemed stacked against him. The flying and engineering world said he couldn’t do it: even getting a paramotor off the ground at 4,500 m (14,500 ft) was deemed impossible, never mind then climbing to 9,000 m (29,500 ft). The designer and builder of three ‘Round the World’ balloon projects gave the mission less than a 30% chance of success and it’s even rumoured that a world record-breaking microlight pilot told the UK’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper to cease coverage of the project before it was hopelessly abandoned.
It wasn’t just the mechanical difficulties involved in creating an engine that could fly so high that were tricky to surmount, the logistics involved in keeping the pilots alive and safe at such altitudes were also going to take some serious consideration. While mountaineers can acclimatise to the altitudes of the summit of Everest with time and training, Gilo and Bear wouldn’t have the luxury of slowly exposing themselves to the rarefied atmosphere of 9,000 m. Instead, complex oxygen systems would have to be used, failure of which could potentially lead to the pilots blacking out.
Pilot safety aside, the logistics and paperwork involved in what they wanted to do soon showed themselves to be even more insurmountable than the mountain itself. The Nepalese CAA refused them permits to fly over the summit. In 2005 a French Eurocopter had landed illegally on the summit for a few minutes to take the FAI world record for highest ever take-off and to prove the aircraft’s potential as a high-altitude rescue craft. Although the Eurocopter was working in cooperation with the Nepalese government, and had been helping them with some high altitude rescue work, it seems they’d cleverly omitted to mention that they’d be landing on the summit for two minutes to claim the record. Although Gilo tried hard to convince them that a paramotor couldn’t do the same, his pleas fell on deaf ears. The CAA also argued that they don’t even allow the tourist flights that go up to look at Everest to pass beyond the Nupste face and into the amphitheatre of peaks that include Everest, Nuptse and Lhotse.
With their original permits declined the team changed their plans. In an interview in The Daily Telegraph, Bear stated, “We now have our permits from the Nepalese authorities to attempt this Everest flight. But the conditions are tight. The Chinese-Nepalese border runs straight through Everest’s summit and the danger of straying into Chinese airspace has been made very clear. If we get blown into China we’d risk possible imprisonment and fines that would bankrupt us all. In light if this we are changing our intended route up towards Everest. Our base camp is moving higher and closer to the southern flanks of the Everest. From here we aim to try to keep several miles between us and the most dangerous of the mountain faces as we fly up towards the summit height. Apart from the Chinese implications, the reason for this new flight path is the prevailing wind direction and the danger of the Nuptse wall, just south of Everest.â€
With their new goals stated, Gilo continues the tale…
To read all of “GKN Mission Everest: The Debrief”, and the rest of issue 2, subscribe to Paramotor Magazine here at Paramotormag.com. Every new subscription receives a free DVD!