For any of you who ever lived in or visited Hong Kong before 1997 and were fortunate to land at the old Kai Tak Airport you will love this!! For any of you who missed this experience you may still get an idea of what skilful pilots were needed to land a large plane on a narrow strip of land that ran out into the Hong Kong Harbour. Often we joked that we could look in the window of apartment 39 B and see what they were having for their supper upon our approach.. Someone did a fantastic job of compiling different shots of many flights at various times of the day. Good memories. The Old Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong...The Most Exhilarating Landing Experience in The World. Click the address below and make sure your speaker are on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PCOcyt7BPI&NR=1=/a Enjoy!
Oh, you want to straighten out before you hit the tarmac? Sorry, you can't. That looks like it must have been murder on the landing gear.
Ya, I was on that plane!. I have done that landing so many times that I must have been on one of them. Thanks for this I really enjoyed it. Dan
Loved it. Flew in and out of Kai Tak many times. Those landings were always hard because half the time there was a cross wind. Unfortunately the video does not give the true experience that you get as a passenger of looking out of the window at apartments buildings that were above you as you headed into Kai Tak. It also does not show the fact that halfway down the approach, the plane had to make a sharp right hand turn to line up with the runway, and if it did not make that turn at the right place, you were likely to hit a building. As a air force buddy who flew for Cathay Pacific told me, the first time into Kai Tak was frightening, but after 100 landings, it got a little boring. I have found that one approach into the new airport, from the north, still has a run over parts of the new territories and gives an idea of what it was like heading into Kai Tak. You fly down a valley and have buildings on both sides of the plane, but they are nowhere as near as they were on the Kai Tak approach.
amazing difference in the buildings [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTfD2pztbK0&feature=related"][/ame]
Tight approach, nasty crosswind. I really liked seeing the Concorde coming in - I rally miss that airplane!
Wow, I remembered the ramp area where that Viscount was parked and how the passengers walked from the terminal building to board the aircraft! The family was living in Manila then and we would fly to HKG for short vacations & shopping. Thanks for posting! Brings back plesant memories...being only 7-8 years old then.
