Word: runway
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...roof of the airport parking lot I joined a hundred or so spectators and watched in awe as huge, wide-bodied jets made seemingly impossible turns on the famous, curved approach to Runway 13. Aircraft banked an improbable 90?, almost skimming the tops off the neighboring apartment blocks. The scene was straight out of sci-fi: huge, metallic birds coming home to nest with a demented roar...
...both together. More smoke was produced from those tires on the tarmac than in the whole of Haight-Ashbury in 1967. Further entertainment was still to come, courtesy of a rattled Biman pilot. He made the turn early and as a result ended up out of position on the runway. I could hardly bear to watch...
...Chris Armstrong, an engineer who now lives in Britain, worked in Hong Kong for more than three years and many of his weekends were spent at Kai Tak. "I arrived for the first time in Hong Kong via a Runway 13 approach, and it never ceased to amaze me how close you got to the houses," he says. "It's a special place. There is nowhere in the world to equal it." Meanwhile, his friend David England had worked on the design of the Airport Railway Link and his Kowloon Bay office overlooked Kai Tak's southern runway. "I kept...
...There were several good vantage points for watching the final approach and turn onto Runway 13. Ironically the Spectators Terrace above the main terminal building was not one?its glass was thick and usually too dirty to see through. According to Armstrong, "a thrilling experience was standing in the street under the approach in and around Kowloon Tong. There was a shopping center there and the planes turned directly over you. It felt like you could touch them...
...Meanwhile, back at Kai Tak, David England still works in an office in Kowloon Bay that overlooks the old airport's runway. From his window he can see a fleet of double-deckers in a Kowloon Motor Bus livery, on the site where Concordes used to park. "That," he sighs, "is not really the same...