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  • pagen01

Edmund Hillary RIP

Got a lump in my throat when I heard that this great explorer passed away today. Not aviation news in itself, but conjurs up a time of when Great Britian was truley great and still had the pioneering spirit. Thats when he conquered Everest (at the time of our last Coronation).
Edmund was a navigator on Catalinas in the New Zealand airforce during the war. He has many other links to aviation aswel.

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By: Grey Area - 11th January 2008 at 17:44

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We already have a thread on this subject, chaps.

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By: Pondskater - 11th January 2008 at 13:49

He was, of course, a New Zealander, and a great man.

I didn’t know he served in Catalinas – thanks for that. Channel 4 News today described him as an explorer, which I thought was right.

He was also, IIRC, the first man to the South Pole (in 1958) after Amundsen and Scott. He was supposed to wait for a rendevous with the Sir Vivian Fuchs’ Trans-Anarctic expedition but he wasn’t the sort to sit and wait so he made a dash for the pole and met the main expedition there.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=19831&cid=15&cname=Politics

Great loss.

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