Visit Phil Parker's Hong Kong Air Traffic Control for an interesting history of Kai Tak (we reprint an extract below) and some spectacular photographs of Kai Tak "approaches" that were less than perfect. No CX examples, we're glad to report.

"The first flight into Hong Kong was by balloon at the site of the Happy Valley RaceCourse on January 3rd 1890. The first powered flight was made by a Belgian by the name of Charles Van den Born on March 18th 1911 in a Farman biplane at Shatin (about 3 N.M. North of where Kai Tak now is). The next flight of an aircraft into Hong Kong was not until 1915 in a floatplane to be followed in 1919 with a flight of an aircraft from Happy Valley, which crashed in a timber, yard. After the First World War there was a steady increase in flying activity with operations from various parts of the Territory. In 1922 a Mr. Ho Kai & Mr. Au Tak formed the Kai Tak Investment Company with the object of reclaiming part of Kowloon Bay for building purposes.

In 1924, a private group, later known as the Hong Kong Flying Club, started flying in earnest by developing a grass area about 300 x 400 metres to serve as a flying school and aero club. The portion of land was rented by the club from the investment company on reclaimed land and became known as Kai Tak. In 1927 the military started flying operations from there, where the Royal Navy operated Fairy Flycatchers. In 1936 a civil part of the aerodromAfter the Second World War, when British forces re-occupied Hong Kong, the military initially looked after the aerodrome. In 1946 the Civil Aviation Department was formed to regulate civil aviation and Kai Tak operations. They inherited an airport with two runways, one 4686' and one 4755' in length. Although concrete, they were poorly constructed as they had been built by prisoners of war, who had deliberately sabotaged their work. Weight limitations had to be imposed on aircraft using them. The runway positions were also a limitation as each could only be used in one direction for landing and the other direction for take-off due to the very close proximity of the 2000' range of hills, which run along side the airport. 1946 also saw the recommencing of operations by BOAC and the airline Cathay Pacific commenced operations. e opened at the western end of the Kai Tak reclamation. This heralded the first public transport flights to and from Hong Kong when Imperial Airways commenced flights on March 24th of that year. 1937 saw Pan American Airways commence operations with Sikorsky S-42B flying boats, a company called Eurasia Aviation extended flights from Beijing to Canton on to Hong Kong and Imperial Airways extended their operations to the UK and Australia. Imperial Airways became BOAC and in 1940 suspended operations due to problems in Indo-China. In December 1941, all civil operations at Kai Tak ceased due to the Japanese occupation. The Japanese occupation led to the expanded development of Kai Tak from a 180-acre grass field without runways to 380 acres with 2 concrete runways 13/31 & 07/25.

In 1947 the responsibility for ATC was handed over to the Civil Aviation Department and the controllers operated from the RAF Tower. VHF and HF radios were available as well as DF equipment and some navigation aids. There were 5,500 movements that year and 82,000 passengers and 1000 tons of freight carried. In 1948 the staff moved to a new control tower. From 1947 until 1952, traffic steadily built up and a number of world airlines commenced operations. Due to the severe limitations of the two runways, the Government decided to look at options for a new airport. After extensive survey work, it was decided that the best and cheapest option was to build a single runway on reclaimed land in Kowloon bay on the Western edge of the current airport. This would enable Hong Kong to be able to take jet aircraft. To save money approval was only given to build the runway 8000' long. This was false economy as in 1970 approval had to be given to increase the length at great expense to the present 11,130'.

The new runway was 13/31 and was positioned to enable aircraft to be able to depart straight ahead on RWY13 with a curved approach for landing, or straight in RWY31 with a curved track for departure. The new runway was officially opened on September 12th 1958. The old runways were closed and now form part of the apron, cargo complex and maintenance area. Because of the position of the new runway, a temporary tower was built near the runway and was in operation until 1962."

Phil Parker, Hong Kong ATC