Talk:Kai Tak Airport

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This may be a dumb question and I don't mean to offend. Why is/was the airport "popular"? Compared to what? It was the only civilian airport in Hong Kong for a long time. Is it popular now? Popular to whom? More popular than the new one? tess 20:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

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If anyone wants to use the "External Link" picture I put in the External Links area in the actual article body, be sure to get permission from the people who have the picture. ~ WHISPERTOME - WhisperToMe 01:47, August 13, 2003 (UTC)

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What was the handling capacity (passenger and cargo) and the actual utilisation of Kai Tak before it was closed? How long was the runway extended in the 1970s? Was it named 13/31? — Instantnood 12:44, Feb 13 2005 (UTC)

Answered now... Oldie 18:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Oldie. — Instantnood 15:08, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

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When was the Kai Tak Airport renamed Hong Kong International Airport? — Instantnood July 6, 2005 14:29 (UTC)

North or northwest?

Hi, I was reading a page call Kai Tak International Airport of Hong Kong. The encyclopedia said "the airport was located north of Kowloon Bay"

This is the diagram of the geography:

__________
airport   |                        NW    N
--   -----                           \   |
  \  \    \                           \  |
   \  \    \   Kowloon Bay       W ____\_|______ E
    \  \    \                            |
     \  \    \_______________            |
      \_/                                |
                                         S

I changed a word north to northwest. but u guys change it back. I thought that my imformation was pretty accurate since I have lived in Hong Kong for a long time and I am pretty good with geography. So can i ask why u change it back? Thank you very much. (Anon, via an email to the Board) - Angela 20:54, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Here's (the top right quadrant) an old map showing the old coastlines that I've found (compare with a recent satellite picture). The apron, passenger terminal and cargo terminal were actually built on reclaimed lands in the northern part of the bay, and the runway extends from that area towards the southeast into the bay. — Instantnood 17:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I think what Anon refers to is Kowloon Bay the district. Even the Kowloon Bay article is talking about the district and body of water interchangingly. I have raised a discussion in that article. We need to clarify that we are referring to Kowloon Bay the body of water here instead. --Kvasir 06:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Kowloon Bay never a district, but an area/non-administrative neighbourhood that have disputed boundary. While Kowloon City District has it official / legal boundary. Matthew hk (talk) 12:11, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This article, not sure for what reasons, has been existed under this title since it was created. Nevertheless, the airport itself has never been called "Kai Tak International Airport". It was originally known as "Kai Tak Airport", and was later renamed "Hong Kong International Airport". Despite the official name was changed, the old name remains popular, and is frequently used to differentiate from the new airport of the same name which replaced it.

I would like to propose to change the title as "Kai Tak Airport", which was one of the names that the airport has been known as. (I understand this move can be performed with the move button, but since this article has been here with this title for more than 2 years, I'm not too sure if the move would upset anybody.) — Instantnood 17:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

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Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support. — Instantnood 17:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, why bother? and "Kai Tak International Airport" was used as well, I don't know if it was an official name, nor do I know if Kai Tak Airport was an official name. As long as redirects exist, it's a pointless move, as it no longer exists anyways. SchmuckyTheCat 17:54, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

• Moved from WP:RM as per WP:RM policy:
  google "kai tak international airport" on site:hongkongairport.com comes up with a hit for the term. The official airport authority uses the term (I have no idea in what context), but it's not like this article is currently at a the wrong name. This discussion is continued at the talk page of the article, not here. SchmuckyTheCat 18:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • In response to user:SchmuckyTheCat's comment at WP:RM [1]: the former Hong Kong International Airport (i.e. Kai Tak Airport) has never been managed by the Airport Authority, the owner of www.hongkongairport.com. The Airport Authority was set up for the new HKIA. FYI, the one hit in the Google search you have tried is the main page of the website [2]. (If you look into the source code of www.hongkongairport.com/index.html, you would know the words Kai Tak do not even appear.) — Instantnood 18:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  Ok, I still don't see how the current name is wrong, it seems to be KTIA or KTA, and since it was international.... Why don't you just provide a cite, a real cite by the controlling business or license or charter, or whatever, that backs up the necessity to change it. It's really not that important, so if you can provide a proper cite, nobody is going to disagree. If you can't, you're just proposing moves because you like to do so. SchmuckyTheCat 02:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  • The Civil Aviation Department, which was responsible for running Kai Tak, calls it "Kai Tak Airport" [3] [4]. — Instantnood 07:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Decision

Page moved as requested. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 20:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Untitled

Airports often have several different names, the official one under-which it is known to the local civil aviation authority that issues the aerodrome operator's licence and which is on the actual licence, and another name given by the airport operating company. That is why airport names sometimes change for marketing purposes, although the 'proper' name that is on the operator's licence usually will not, as that will also be the name by which the airport is known to the ICAO.

For example, the operators of Liverpool airport changed its name from "Speke Airport" to "Liverpool John Lennon Airport" a while back, although I suspect the operator's licence still refers to it as 'Speke Airport'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.145.115.127 (talk) 11:07, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Language in article

Some of the language in this article seems a little inappropriate for an encyclopedia entry - hijackers 'taken down'...the view of the turning aircraft being 'quite the thrill'

ahpook 15:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The 13 approach

"Another challenge for the landing is the relatively short runway for large aircraft"

The article also says the runway was 11,122ft long -- that is a relatively long runway for any aircraft. By comparison, the longest runway at KLAX is 12,091ft, the longest runway at KEWR is 11,000ft and these are both major US airports that serve heavy traffic. Even if 11,000ft was short, it wouldn't be a factor for the landing distance since runway length is a more significant factor for takeoff roll distance.

"Consequently, aircraft must land accurately at the landing spot at where the runway starts or face the risk of overrunning the runway and end up in the sea.

This is not an unusual characteristic for an airport. KBOS, KSFO, KJFK, etc, all have runway configurations that are adjacent to water. It would be good to get a pilot who has flown into this airport to edit this article; it seems to be be written more by observers and lacks the technical accuracy that would be more valuable for an encyclopedia. Dbchip 01:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

87.17.224.154 14:13, 23 September 2006 (UTC)Paul On short final pilots perform a Visual Approach, instead of VFR. This means that they don't change the flight rules (they still remain within IFR rules, but they conduct the final approach visually.

Future plans for the site

This section describes scaling "down" from 133 hectares to 166 hectares. I'm not used to dealing with hectares, but I'm pretty sure units of measurement of area follow natural laws of mathematical increment and 166 hectares is in fact larger than 133. This would make the following mention of being further scaled down to 133 hectares sensible, except that 133 is the original number. I don't know where to find further details on the plans for airport site land reclamation, so perhaps someone with better familiarity with this project could clean this up.

Golf course

Is it still used as a golf course? - jlao ⁰⁴ 08:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Businesses at Kai Tak

Were these businesses really there? Are they still? I thought the airport site has been razed. In any case they seem rather irrelevant to this article.

• DFS Kai Tak Market
• Hagen Das (sic)
• Tin Tin Airport Restaurant

--tess 22:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

ICAO

I changed the ICAO name back to VHHH. It had recently been changed by a user to VHHX. The only time I remember VHHX being used was during the last 2 week cycle in the navigation database. Hong Kong kept the ICAO VHHH identifier for the new airport and pilots had to have a way to make sure the plane "went" to the correct airport. It was just a database thing. airboyd (talk) 18:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

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I made a few changes to dates and rearranged sentences into more ordered structure. I have added links to several diaries, blogs and historical photos which confirm particular facts about the history of the airfield. airboyd (talk) 21:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Your evidence/source? I thought it had always been known as VHHX because when the ICAO codes went from three to four characters, every airport had an X added to the end. So the airport went from VHH to VHHX. The new airport has always been VHHH because there was no reason to keep the X, and two airports cannot have the same code. This same reasoning applies to airports like KLAX. http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html Yos233 (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong. Very very wrong. I have no clues what you're talking about. HkCaGu (talk) 10:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Aviation databases have a 14 day cycle. The new airport and the old airport could not have the same 4 letter identifier. The FMS had both VHHH and VHHX for a short time period. Both airports were named VHHH, but only when open. airboyd (talk) 23:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Special pilot qualifications?

I have heard more than once that pilots required special qualifications or seniority to land at Kai Tak. The article refers to the challenges of the approach, but never mentions any restrictions. Is anyone aware of the correct factual position? If true, it should probably get included. --Legis (talk - contribs) 08:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Video on YouTube of a BA Concorde 'greasing in' at Kai Tak back in 1996 here: [5] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:33, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

All pilots flying into the old Kai Tak airport had to have special simulator training for that specific IGS 13 approach. Then, for a Captain to command a flight to Kai Tak, he had to have "Special Airport" IOE (initial operating experience) training, with a certified "Check Captain" sitting in the right seat. Then, he had to be signed off as qualified to fly that approach, once he came off "high minimums" (after an initial amount of time in that aircraft, usually 100 hours). EditorASC (talk) 09:20, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Final flight

This article contains conflicting statements regarding the final departure from the airport on closing night. The list of 'lasts' has it departing at 01:05 but two paragraphs later it is described as departing at 01:28. Either one is wrong, or the different times require clarification (e.g. 01:05 was the time it started moving and 01:28 was the moment its wheels left the ground). Rich (talk) 00:54, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

CPA crash

I know the airport pages of Wikipedia seem to be heavily "policed" so rather than going straight in and editing, I'm going to point out something here in talk.

Is the 1967 Cathay Pacific crash mentioned here - https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Cathay_Pacific#Accidents_and_incidents - missing from Kai Tak incidents? It does seem to be a "real thing" as my mother lived there near the time and it was mentioned enough to me that it's been repeated to me a lot.

Thanks Escottf (talk) 12:17, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Cantonese romanisation

I changed the romanisation of 啟德機場 in the infobox from Yale to Jyutping, which is the modern de facto standard, but it was reverted back. Any reason this is the case, or is there a previous discussion that I missed? Vatnið (talk) 10:55, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Very final last?

When I first saw this, I started to correct "very final last" to simply "final," but then I noticed the repeated use of the phrase further along in the article. I then noticed that the article is written in "Hong Kong English." However, I didn't see this phrase or anything similar as an example of something unique to HKE. Could someone tell me if "very final last" would be acceptable in HKE and thus preferred in this article to "final"? Rontrigger (talk) 23:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)