Ah, landing at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong used to be the life. From 1925 to 1998 it was the only airport with access to Hong Kong. Landing on Runway 13 always provided entertainment for the pilot and folks on the ground, but probably a lot of fear for those sitting in the back of the aircraft.
Today I am sharing four videos high lighting how exciting landing with large aircraft at Kai Tak Airport used to be. However, in 1998 a new airport was opened, Hong Kong International Airport and Kai Tak was closed.
VIDEO1: Shown above, shows a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 Freighter from the ground landing at Kai Tak Airport
VIDEO2: Shows from the city how the large aircraft looked flying over.
VIDEO3: Takes a look at the approach from the cockpit
I never had the opportunity to land at Kai Tak, anyone else care to share their stories in the comments?
I have been following Allegiant painting their new (to them) Boeing 757s from the begining. From the winglets to a partial shot of the body. Now I have gotten access to four more photos from a blogspot set up just to share these photos (there is actually a 5th pic there). Check out these pictures of the Allegiant livery on Boeing 757 N901NV (click for larger):
Although Allegiant has announced many new flights this week, none of them are for one of the Boeing 757’s. I have been told that they will continue to announce new routes next week, but not to expect any Boeing 757 routes…yet. It is expected that these 757s will fly to Honolulu, but nothing to date has been confirmed. Until then, we will just have to enjoy these photos of the 757’s.
The Boeing 757 already has such a clean look and this livery looks quite at home. If they do fly out of Bellingham to Honolulu, as expected, I think it will be worth the trip to see one of these planes in person (Bellingham is about 1.5hrs north of Seattle).
Mary Kirby on FlightGlobal.com highlights the new issues facing the Koito seats. Due to Koito’s lack of following proper procedures 150,000 seats flown all over the world could have unknown safety issues and now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have proposed airworthiness directives (AD) for the seats. The EASA proposal is a bit more strict than the FAA.
“The Japanese airworthiness authority (JCAB) has informed EASA that a review of the safety of passenger seats manufactured by Koito industries has disclosed discrepancies which include falsification of static, dynamic and flammability testing, as well as uncontrolled changes to production data (material and dimensional),” says EASA in its proposed AD.
“In addition JCAB confirmed that Koito records, showing evidence of falsification, could not be deemed complete. Examples include: fictitious dynamic test pulse plots inserted into test reports following failure to meet required certification requirements; flammability test coupons not representative of production parts, for instance by use of alternative adhesive not specified on the approved drawing; and fictitious deformation values entered in test reports when values exceeded the maximum allowed.”
Because of all the issues, the EASA has asked airlines to remove all Koito seats with-in the next two years. However, if additional testing shows the seats are safe, this could be changed to ten years. The FAA’s proposal puts it onto the airlines to test the seat’s safety. If airlines determine the seats are unsafe, they must be removed.
“Because this proposed AD will not require full compliance with every applicable regulation, seats on which the requirements of this proposed AD are completed successfully and are permitted to remain in service are limited in how they can be used. That is, unless they are shown to fully comply with the regulatory requirements, this proposed AD would restrict the installation of such seats and would require specific marking. These seats can be used as a direct spare for the same part number seat. However, any other use of such seats would be considered a new installation approval and would be required to comply with all regulations. Thus, seats not meeting all regulations could not be installed except as noted above, and if removed from an approved arrangement, would have to be destroyed or rendered unusable in some other manner acceptable to the FAA,” says the agency in its proposed AD.
The FAA estimated that its directive would affect 40,365 seats on 278 airplanes in the US with a total estimated cost of $875,000. However, I assume that the cost would be much higher than that.
Flight Global asked the FAA if they are concerned that unfavorable comparisons will be made about the their AD versus the EASA’s. An FAA spokesman explained, “Clearly the FAA doesn’t operate in a vacuum, but that said what we have to do is look at the safety impact and the safety issue and the proposed solution based on our environment, not the environment that exists in Europe.”
Most of the Koito seats flying in the US are on Continental Airlines aircraft. It looks like they anticipated this direction and have already started testing. “We’ve been working closely with the FAA over the past year in anticipation of the proposed rulemaking and have completed initial testing on the majority of our aircraft,” Julie King with Continental Public Relations explained to me via an email.
I started looking into this story because of the three Eva Air Boeing 777’s sitting at Paine Field, so I wanted to check in with them to see their status. They are still sticking with the, “no comment,” stance, which again, is not surprising.
So, what does this mean to you? Not too much, unless it turns out these seats are unsafe you end up sitting in one during an incident. However, as explained earlier, the chances of being in any airline seat during an accident, is very rare, being in a Koito seat is even less likely.
Santa Barbara Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-82 (YV153T)
Santa Barbara Airlines (or SBA Airlines) is based in Caracas, Venezuela. It was founded in November 1995 and is based out of the Simón Bolàvar International Airport. They have a fleet of about 20 aircraft ranging from the ATR 42 to the Boeing 767-300ER. They fly mostly in South America, but do have a flight to Miami, Portugal and Spain.
Their current livery fills the aircraft up a bit more than their previous one. They also promote going by “SBA” versus their full name of Santa Barbara Airlines.
Hartsfield’“Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the busiest airport in the world. Yet, they don’t have a heck of a lot of large aircraft flying in and out. You might catch an Air France Boeing 747-400 or Lufthansa Airbus A340, but you will mostly see smaller Delta Air Lines aircraft, like the Boeing 767 down to regional jets. This video was shot from the balcony of my hotel room while down in Atlanta last week. Originally it was about 15 minutes long, but sped it up 700%. Check out that DC-10 being towed near the end.
