Kai Tak Remembered

More when compared to a decade has recently passed since the former Hong Kong International Airport at Kai Tak closed for business on July 6 1998 to be replaced by the superb new facility built on reclaimed land at Chek Lap Kok on Lantau Island. Both airports are like chalk and cheese; one futuristic, the other was long past its sell by date; but you may still find plenty who mourn the demise of the old place. Most are pilots who readily recall the adrenalin rush as they guided their aircraft along the instrument guidance system (IGS) a few hundred feet above densely populated Kowloon tenements towards the infamous orange and white painted checkerboard. When this was because and the aircraft correctly aligned at a height of just 675 feet (206 metres), a sharp 47 degree turn was required to take the aircraft by way of a sweeping curve before levelling out 150 feet (46 metres) from the runway threshold.

At night, a unique lighting system set precisely at 400-foot intervals on rooftops and specially built gantries guided pilots towards the runway centre line. As final approach was imminent the spacing between the lights decreased to 200 feet. The necessity to use lights to guide pilots in this manner, enforced a ban on flashing neon signs throughout Hong Kong in order to avoid distracting inbound pilots. The elements was often bad; typhoons, microbursts and severe crosswinds put into the workload of pilots and in many respects Kai Tak was a crash waiting to happen. Several errant aircraft did end in the shallow waters of Kowloon Bay and it was indeed fortuitous that no commercial planes ever came down on the crammed dwellings of Kowloon or missed the turn to end up ploughing into Lion Rock. This was due mainly to extremely good aviation skills, excellent air traffic control and, more specifically in the first days, an amazing part of luck. The airport certainly had its share of incidents and many aviation enthusiasts could have seen the video on 'You Tube' that presents how close a Korean Air Boeing 747 found disaster during an extreme weather landing.

Mr Kai and Mr Tack

The story of the airport goes back to the 1920s when two businessmen, Sir Ho Kai (a tuned medical doctor) and Mr Au Tack* (owner of a photographic business) formed the Kai Tack Land Investment Company Ltd to reclaim land they intended to use to build new homes. The project failed due to the fact few people wanted to live on land that has been still infested by mosquitoes. The reclaimed area was left vacant until it was taken over by the federal government. In November 1924 the Royal Navy ship HMS Pegasus found its way to Victoria Harbour carrying four Fairey IIID seaplanes that were used to conduct aerial photography. They were flown on aerial reconnaissance missions over Mires and Hias Bays, the known haunts of notorious pirates that plundered shipping on the South China Sea. Sir Reginald Stubbs flew in one of these aircraft and in so doing became the first Governor of Hong Kong to survey his territory from a seaplane.

There was obviously the necessity for a military facility within Hong Kong but under the 1021 Washington Agreement the British weren't permitted to establish a base east of Singapore. The British Government candidly found a remedy because they build an airfield for civil use on the webpage that could also be used at Fleet Air Arm aircraft. In January 1925 American dare devil Harry W Abbott, was granted permission to start out a flying school on the webpage that he called Kowloon City Field. On Lunar New Year Day he announced the inauguration of his school by firmly taking off in a Curtiss Jenny with fire crackers mounted on his rudder. However the fireworks didn't ignite and this was considered bad fung shui by the watching spectators. His colleague, the Chinese-American pilot Henry Yee Young, performed a number of aerobatics before Abbott returned to the air with Richard Earnshaw aboard who made a parachute decent. But things went badly wrong and Earnshaw landed in the harbour, got tangled in his parachute and drowned. A number of incidents continued to court Abbott and by August he was broke and forced to sell his aircraft.

The Royal Air Force took over the airfield on March 10 1927 and apart from the Japanese occupation during the War remained in some form until 1993. The posting had not been popular at first because of the pungent odours emitting from the local nullah (open drain) that competed with the smell of lard from a factory situated near by. The pungent nullah continued to greet passengers aboard arriving aircraft right up to the final days of the airport.

On November 18 1928 a flight of Shorts Southampton flying boats touched down in the harbour and were linked with special moorings in Kowloon Bay. This is the famous Far East flight of Group Captain Cave-Brown-Cave that was being flown from Singapore to Australia that later evolved as 205 Squadron. In order to haul the aircraft from the water a concrete slipway needed to be built and a steam crane was used to hoist the planes onto dry land. Things had started to develop and the Legislative Council set money aside for improvements and maintenance at the facility. By 1930 the runway had been levelled and re-turfed and a metal hanger was completed to replace the matting structures that were susceptible to catch fire. In September Mr A J R Moss arrived from London to take up the positioning of Aerodrome Superintendent followed by his assistant Erik Nelson five years later to influence the development of the airfield.

The Imperial Link

In 1932 the flying club members became embroiled in a disagreement that forced its closure. Vaughan Fowler, the prominent manager of the Far East Aviation Company, suggested reforming the club also it became the ASIAN Flying School with a fleet of aircraft comprising one Avro Avian and three Avro Cadets. The business enterprise employed a staff of ten Chinese, ten English and had 44 engineering students; an indication of how fascination with aviation had progressed. 2 yrs later the airfield was further developed with the addition of a sea wall, a surrounding fence and a ramp for sea planes. Work was also completed on accommodation for the RAF on the eastern side of the old runway where buildings were erected on a dirt track that resulted in the fishing village of Lei Yut Mun. These had a commanding view over a sandy beach and stood 30 metres above the airfield on land where blocks of high rise flats would later dominate the background on the eastern side of the airport. There have been also plans to tarmac the runway.

In 1928 the British and Hong Kong governments promised to spend �200,000 to convert Kai Tak right into a modern facility. In London the Colony was still given only secondary consideration and it took until 1935 for a civilian control tower and offices to be built and for the first fire engine to be acquired. On March 25 1929 the long awaited first commercial flight arrived once the de Havilland DH 86 G-ACWD Diana Class 'Dorado' of Imperial Airways touched down. This had operated the inaugural feeder service from Penang and Saigon that had connected with the delayed UK to Australia (Empire Route) flight that had departed from London on March 14. The experienced Imperial Airways pilot, Capt J Lock was in command when he reported seeing three sharks basking in the waters of the South China Sea below his aircraft as he neared the Colony. Sweeping via an area referred to as Magazine Gap at around 11.30am the magnificent vista of Victoria Harbour opened before him and he was escorted on his approach by way of a squadron of aircraft from HMS Hermes. Awaiting the flight was the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Andrew Caldecott and 200 VIPs who expected to greet just the crew once the aircraft came to a halt. There is an element of surprise once the first commercial passenger ever to land at Kai Tak emerged from the plane. Ong Ee-Lim, an enthusiastic amateur pilot, had squeezed between 16 bags of Her Majesty's mail after flying their own aircraft from Kuala Lumpur to Penang specifically to be on the flight.

The Imperial Airways DH 86 had visited the Colony before when Capt Armstrong had flown the aircraft in a series of proving flights the prior year. Individuals of Hong Kong had followed the progress of these flights for some considerable time and when poor weather threatened the first of the, Armstrong not desperate to disappoint the people or risk losing the precious mail contract flew 1852 miles (2980 kms) from Penang in a single day (September 16). Once the route opened to regular traffic it slice the 34 day sea journey between England and Hong Kong to ten days by air. Later, when agreement was reached with Siam (now Thailand) the shorter route via Bangkok cut an additional day and a half from the journey. By the time Imperial Airways had started operating C Class flying boats to Singapore, the 15,000 mile (24,140 kms) route had been reduced to 5� days with the DH 86 providing the final link between Singapore and Kai Tak. Today, due to the progress made in establishing over-flying rights, shorter routes over Russia, Siberia and China have substantially reduced the length between London and Hong Kong to around 6,000 miles (9,856 kms) that modern jets can cover non-stop in less than twelve hours.

Between your Wars many famous long distance and round the world record breaking pioneers landed at Kai Tak even though regular commercial services were slow to commence. During 1932 the Compagnie Fran�ais Air Orient designed to connect Hong Kong making use of their Marseilles-Saigon service but plans were dropped. Two years earlier the Sino-Deutsche Luft Hansa owned Eurasian Aviation Corporation had also proposed a mail route between Kai Tak and Europe but this idea fell by the wayside, but later extended its Peiping (Beijing)-Canton service to Hong Kong on June 29 1937 using the versatile Junkers JU-52. Then, on August 10 1938 Air France arrived from Paris in their Dewoitine 338 tri-motor F-AQBF 'City of Vientiane' in six days before setting a fresh record between Hanoi and Hong Kong in 3 hours 20 minutes.

In February 1930 Juan Trippe's Pan American Airways staked a 45 % share to create the Chinese National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) in collaborated with the Chinese Ministry of Communication. On October 8 they opened a flying boat service linking Shanghai, Wenchow, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow and Canton with Hong Kong using Sikorsky S-38s. 2 yrs later they flew the route twice-weekly using Douglas Dolphin amphibians, later introducing the Douglas DC-3 as passenger traffic increased.

Pan Am had been keen to include Hong Kong to their trans-Pacific operations and on April 28 1937 this was achieved with the arrival of the Sikorsky S042B flying boat (NC16734) 'Hong Kong Clipper' on the extended service from SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA and Manila. By then japan were already overrunning parts of China and by July Peking had fallen. Because of this, commercial flights over China became inherently dangerous and regularly came under fire from japan. CNAC courageously continued to fly and in 1938 a Douglas DC-2 of the business was shot down near Macau killing all 14 on board. The aircraft was returned to Kai Tak by barge, repaired and put back into service. In October 1940 and could 1941 two more DC 2s were shot down with fatalities while flying the Chunking-Kunming-Hong Kong service. The airline's final pre-war flight departed from Kai Tak on December 12 1941 just as the Japanese prepared to bomb the airport. The British military had already declared Hong Kong indefensible and when the enemy invasion commenced on Monday December 8 1941 the RAF had only three Vickers Wildebeests based at Kai Tak and two Supermarine Walrus amphibians tethered offshore. The airport stayed strafed destroying six parked airliners and Pan Am's 'Hong Kong Clipper' that has been at anchor. Four more airliners miraculously survived a bomb that experienced the roof of these hanger but didn't explode. On the next two days CNAC aircraft relentlessly evacuated airport personnel to China while the RAF detachment moved to Hong Kong Island before the British surrendered the territory on Christmas Day. JAPAN took Kai Tak for military use but flights operated by Greater Japan Air Lines that had served the airport in peace time continued. Two tarmac runways of around 4,266 feet (1,300 metres) long were constructed by prisoners of war. Kai Tak was bombed many times from 1942 tom 1945 by American forces with considerable success nonetheless it was deemed impractical to mount any prolonged effort to eliminate the occupying forces.

Japan surrendered on August 15 1945 and the British re-established their presence. Although Fleet Air Arm Grumman Hellcats and Avengers flew into the airport on August 29 the runways were still full of bomb craters and the debris of wrecked enemy aircraft. By mid-September the RAF had began to re-establish a presence with a squadron of Supermarine Spitfires and by Christmas four squadrons had become operational. Short Sunderland flying boats and Douglas DC-3 Dakotas were put into the mix of aircraft using Hong Kong. British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) had expressed their intention to establish their flying boat services from Hythe to the Colony that were postponed at the outbreak of war. These services, using the Hythe Class Short Sunderland commenced on August 24 1946. During the same year a significant typhoon hit the area wrecking several parked aircraft. This was followed in quick succession by way of a Douglas Dakota military aircraft crashing onto Kowloon Tong after take off.

RAF squadrons came and went throughout a lot of the post war period bringing using them a variety of aircraft including de Havilland Venoms, Hawker Hunters and various helicopter types that were used for a range of duties including search and rescue. The British military also deterred a threat from Chinese Communist forces in the Pearl River Delta in the late 1940s and played a job in helping to quell the Hong Kong riots of 1967. From 1993 onwards the airport was home to the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force, the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps Air unit and later the federal government Flying Service. The Hong Kong Aviation Club also had their facility at a corner of the airport near to the threshold of runway 13 that in old age provided an interesting viewpoint for enthusiasts.

Cathay Pacific and Post War Developments

In October 1945 a former CNAC pilot, Roy Farrell, who had flown the infamous eastern Himalayas 'Hump' between China, Burma and India during the War bought an ageing Douglas C-47 that he had converted for civilian use as a DC-3. He flew the aircraft from the united states via a roundabout path to Shanghai where he met his old pal, former Australian war ace, Syd de Kantzow. The friends formed an airline that in February 1946 started operating cargo flights out of Shanghai. The aircraft was registered VR-HAD and named 'Betsy' and the name they adopted the company, Cathay Pacific Airways, became a legend. Another DC-3 (VR-HDB) named 'Nikki' was added and the enterprise quickly became extremely profitable causing trepidation amongst their Chinese rivals. The problem had become 'unhealthy' in the old Chinese city and Farrell and de Kantzow saw the wisdom of moving their operation to British controlled Hong Kong. After advertising for air hostesses Cathay Pacific began making trial passenger flights to Manila, Bangkok and Singapore. A year later five more DC-3s and two Consolidated Catalina PBY 5a amphibians were acquired second-hand as more destinations were added. Catalina, VR-HDT 'Miss Macao' made history when it was subjected to the initial act of air piracy. On July 17 1948 four Chinese attempted to manage the aircraft between Macau and Hong Kong in the fact that gold bullion was being transported. One of many hijackers was said to have had a simple understanding of flying the aircraft type but things went wrong when a struggle ensued and Captain Dale Cramer was shot in the top. The aircraft went out of control and crashed in to the Pearl River Delta with a crew of three and 23 passengers aboard. One of many hijackers was the only survivor. On June 15 1972 an additional incident occurred whenever a bomb aboard one of the company's Convair 880s destroyed the aircraft over Vietnam.

In 1948 one of many 'noble' British trading companies, John Swire and Sons invested in Cathay Pacific. Farrell sold his stake in the airline and returned to Texas in 1948 and de Kantzow resigned in 1951. The airline grew substantially and is now one of the world's foremost operators. Swire's main rivals, Jardine Matheson owned Hong Kong Airways that also operated from Kai Tak. BOAC had invested in this airline to link Chinese cities to its international routes, however in 1959 Hong Kong Airways merged with Cathay Pacific. The airline also established a highly reputable maintenance facility, the Hong Kong Aviation Engineering Company (HAECO) at Kai Tak and in more recent years it became a major shareholder in the two other Hong Kong based airlines; Dragonair and Air Hong Kong.

Since the War the structure of Kai Tak continued to change to meet up the rapid requirements of an ever changing airline industry. During the 1950s the airport witnessed a massive increase in regional and international operations. Many international carriers including BOAC, Pan American Airways, Qantas, Air India, Northwest and Canadian Pacific added Hong Kong with their schedules. Douglas DC-4s and DC-6s, Boeing B-377 Stratocruisers, Bristol Britannias and Lockheed Constellations were regular visitors and with the turbo-props came the necessity for an extended runway. In 1958 a fresh 8,340 feet (2,542 metres) x 200 feet (60.96 metres) runway was opened on reclaimed land at an elevation of 16 feet (4.87 metres) above Kowloon Bay with overrun regions of 750 feet (228.60 metres) at the northwest end and 300 feet (91.44 metres) at the water facing end. Over 3,000 workmen toiled on the project that commenced in January 1956 but completed on time for the arrival of the first flight on August 31 1958. A parallel taxi-way and a fresh passenger terminal building were also added. At the official opening of the runway on September 12th a Comet 4 of BOAC specifically flown to Hong Kong from the de Havilland airfield at Hatfield became the first jet airliner ever to land at the airport. By the end of 1958 4,773 aircraft had arrived and 19 airlines operated 184 flights a week to and from Kai Tak. On July 17 1959 a Cathay Pacific DC-3 officially opened night operations in to the airport after additional lighting have been installed.

In 1960 Pan Am flew the first B-707 into Kai Tak followed in the same year by the first DC-8 operated by Japan Air Lines. A milestone arrived once the first B-747, Pan Am 'Clipper One' touched down on April 11 1970 witnessed by way of a vast crowd. The arrival of the wide bodied era brought additional pressure to further increase the runway length. By 1974 an extension had extended this to 11,130 feet (3,390 metres) and further taxiways, turn-off and parking areas and a new fire station have been added. Traffic had increased to such an extent that by 1995-96 61 airlines using Kai Tak were contributing 2,850 passenger and cargo flights and 230 non-scheduled flights weekly. 78 per cent of the flights were wide bodied aircraft and this had increased the number of passengers passing through the terminal to 28 million. The facility had also end up being the world's second busiest cargo airport handling 1.48 million tonnes. With 31 scheduled movements per hour Kai Tak had reached maximum capacity and hundreds of extra requests for landing slots needed to be refused. It had been obvious that the brand new airport was essential and when it opened for business at 6.20am with the arrival of Cathay Pacific CX889 direct from NY it was not before time.

*For some reason the 'c' was dropped from the airport name although it did appear as Kai Tack on the original gates.

By Bob Bluffield

Robert 'Bob' Bluffield is really a regular writer/photographer and may be the writer of 'Imperial Airways - The Birth of the British Airline Industry 1914-1940' published by Ian Allan October 2009.