Landing at 18,700 feet still a record?

[mary meagher]

Just finished Ed Viestur's book, "No Shortcuts to the Top".

He is a serious mountain climber, achieved WITHOUT OXYGEN EQUIPMENT
all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks in the Himalaya mountains.

I quote, from page 200, "Eiselin's team...used a Pilatus PC-6 aircraft (flown by a very bold pilot) to land tons of gear and personnel on a glacier at l8,700 feet, beneath the northeast ridge (of Dhaulagiri). Those landings remain today the highest ever performed by a fixed-wing aircraft anywhere in the world. The Pilatus eventually crashed on one of the load-hauling forays. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt. The wreckage of the plane is still visible on the lower approaches to the mountain."

Does anyone know if this record still stands?

Have helicopters done any better? Viesturs also mentions hiring a Russian Mi-17 to transit from Kathmandu to Annapurna base camp at 14,000 feet. He compares it to a flying school bus. Presumably a rescue helicopter, possibly lighter, could go higher?

[172driver]

Not sure about fixed wing (you kind of run out of flat surfaces up in those mountains... ), but for helicopters look here and here

I vaguely recall there was some controversy surrounding the Everest flight, but cannot remember what it was about.

[AdamFrisch]

This gentleman posted in the Rotorheads forum about his experiences doing underslung magnetic survey in Argentina with a Huey. At 25.000ft! It looks pretty scary in the videos someone else posted. I've flown a few hours in helicopters and already at 5000ft you can start to feel the controls getting pretty mushy. I can't imagine how it would be at 25000ft - must have been absolutely terrifying.

http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/197...icopter-9.html