Editor's Letter

Next year sees 100 years since the first mountain crossing by an aeroplane, which led to the next hundred years of mountain rescue by air. Professor Leslie Symons, author of the story, says that this seems relatively trivial compared to the first aerial crossing of the English Channel, at least to the British; but is that true?

To me, mountains, with their high peaks and frighteningly indiscriminate weather patterns, with their potential for immediate change, seem much less inviting than the mellow, welcoming sea. However, to some pilots even a flat, calm sea seems like a siren’s lure that is simply waiting to pull them in to a watery death. In truth, a lot of our fears and strengths come from what we are used to compared to what we do not know. Thus, coming from a relatively flat island I have spent far more time over water than in the mountains; hence I am more used to the variations of the deep than to those of the high, but does that make the history of mountain rescue any less compelling than that of the first sea crossers?...