Hi all,

As a quick look at my profile would probably suggest, I am rather a large fan of the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport (closed in 1998), and indeed FlyTampa's Kai Tak scenery was my first (and remains my most treasured) piece of Addon Scenery. One video of Kai Tak which I'm sure you're familiar with is this landing from the flight deck of a Cathay Pacific 747-400.

You'll notice that at circa 4:06 the Radio Altimiter calls out "60", an unusual callout but indeed one that was available as a custom option if requested by a customer. This callout was used by Cathay Pacific while they operated out of Kai Tak, and was dropped following the move to Chek Lap Kok. Although it does not initially appear to be available in the options of the PMDG 747 QOTSII, the callout is indeed included among the sounds in the aircraft in the P3D sounds folder.

So, if you are a frequent flyer into Kai Tak, consider adding this callout to your Cathay Pacific 747-400 to be fully authentic for the time period. To do so, simply edit the .ini file for the relevant aircraft (located in [SIM-LOCATION]\PMDG\PMDG 747 QOTS II\Aircraft) and scroll to the GPWS section, above where it reads "GPWS_50=1", simply place above it: "GPWS_60=1", and then edit your other callouts as desired (as seen in the video, the callouts used at the time before landing were "60", "30", and "10".

Cheers,

Martin

Edited May 22, 20206 yr by SimeonWilbury

(I have just realised that this would perhaps be far better placed in one of the PMDG user-to-user forums, my apologies, if one of the Mods wishes to move this topic to the appropiate forum I would have no objections)

1 hour ago, SimeonWilbury said:

Hi all,

As a quick look at my profile would probably suggest, I am rather a large fan of the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport (closed in 1998), and indeed FlyTampa's Kai Tak scenery was my first (and remains my most treasured) piece of Addon Scenery. One video of Kai Tak which I'm sure you're familiar with is this landing from the flight deck of a Cathay Pacific 747-400.

You'll notice that at circa 4:06 the Radio Altimiter calls out "60", an unusual callout but indeed one that was available as a custom option if requested by a customer. This callout was used by Cathay Pacific while they operated out of Kai Tak, and was dropped following the move to Chek Lap Kok. Although it does not initially appear to be available in the options of the PMDG 747 QOTSII, the callout is indeed included among the sounds in the aircraft in the P3D sounds folder.

So, if you are a frequent flyer into Kai Tak, consider adding this callout to your Cathay Pacific 747-400 to be fully authentic for the time period. To do so, simply edit the .ini file for the relevant aircraft (located in [SIM-LOCATION]\PMDG\PMDG 747 QOTS II\Aircraft) and scroll to the GPWS section, above where it reads "GPWS_50=1", simply place above it: "GPWS_60=1", and then edit your other callouts as desired (as seen in the video, the callouts used at the time before landing were "60", "30", and "10".

Cheers,

Martin

Thanks for that Simeon. Have that PMDG 747-400, but must get around to acquiring that FlyTampa Kai Tak but keep putting it off as I see other developers offering VHHH, etc, etc.Kai Tak is most certainly a challenging approach. Bet that 'Chequerboard' has been a real aid for many a flight crew on those 747-400s

3 hours ago, vc10man said:

Thanks for that Simeon. Have that PMDG 747-400, but must get around to acquiring that FlyTampa Kai Tak but keep putting it off as I see other developers offering VHHH, etc, etc.Kai Tak is most certainly a challenging approach. Bet that 'Chequerboard' has been a real aid for many a flight crew on those 747-400s

It is indeed a challenging approach, even more so when you have a strong crosswind (though I believe Cathay pilots developed a habit of turning left off the localiser when visual, which gave more space for the final turn). I can understand the attraction with other offerings of the new VHHH scenery etc. but so long as Navigraph continues to include navdata for Kai Tak I intend to continue to quietly pretend that it never closed!

Even if you don't use the airport itself though, the scenery for Hong Kong Circa 1998 provided by the Flytampa Scenery is cause enough to purchase it imo, it still looks stunning today even when compared to far newer scenery.

51 minutes ago, SimeonWilbury said:

It is indeed a challenging approach, even more so when you have a strong crosswind (though I believe Cathay pilots developed a habit of turning left off the localiser when visual, which gave more space for the final turn). I can understand the attraction with other offerings of the new VHHH scenery etc. but so long as Navigraph continues to include navdata for Kai Tak I intend to continue to quietly pretend that it never closed!

Even if you don't use the airport itself though, the scenery for Hong Kong Circa 1998 provided by the Flytampa Scenery is cause enough to purchase it imo, it still looks stunning today even when compared to far newer scenery.

In fact, Simeon, I have almost every FT airport bar TNCM(St Maarten) and Kai Tak.as I reckon they are really, really good. Waiting for one of their sales to pick up.

Pity my RAF posting did not take me to Kai Tak except Changi.

53 minutes ago, SimeonWilbury said:

Cathay pilots developed a habit of turning left off the localiser

This slightly confuses me. I thought they did a turn to the right once they spotted that 'chequerboard', -----unless I am getting mixed up with a localiser elsewhere--- and they headed to the runway. Pity that video was bit of a jump-here-jump-there footage.

Something I’ve been wondering: 

Does the Navigraph nav data still include Kai Tak procedures? 
 

The charts app definitely doesn’t have Kai Tak charts. Does the FlyTampa download provide the old charts? 
 

I’ve been wanting to get this for ages. 

5 hours ago, flycln said:

Something I’ve been wondering: 

Does the Navigraph nav data still include Kai Tak procedures? 
 

The charts app definitely doesn’t have Kai Tak charts. Does the FlyTampa download provide the old charts? 
 

I’ve been wanting to get this for ages. 

They don't include the Charts for Kai Tak, but the nav-data is very much there, it's what I use for my flight planning in PFPX Certainly. Flytampa does provide a set of charts, and somebody on their forums even provided a set of Jeppensen Charts I believe.

5 hours ago, vc10man said:

This slightly confuses me. I thought they did a turn to the right once they spotted that 'chequerboard', -----unless I am getting mixed up with a localiser elsewhere--- and they headed to the runway. Pity that video was bit of a jump-here-jump-there footage.

The right turn was done on short final to line-up with the runway, but since this was a pretty tight turn if you were following the Localiser, it would actually be significantly easy to pull off if you were actually slightly to the left of the localiser, as this helped make the final turn a bit more shallow and easier to control.

7 hours ago, SimeonWilbury said:

It is indeed a challenging approach, even more so when you have a strong crosswind (though I believe Cathay pilots developed a habit of turning left off the localiser when visual, which gave more space for the final turn).

Not just Cathay. We used to operate 747-200s and then 400s into Kai Tak and also adopted the same method of drifting left of the LOC after visually acquiring the checkerboard.
Some operators would "cut the corner" and this would certainly make life very difficult. Fun days for sure

In V5 the scenery from 4.5 has changed the airport no longer exist Hong Kong has been updated, but in V5 some new added airports to the database like VTBS .

Edited May 23, 20206 yr by G-RFRY

1 hour ago, G-RFRY said:

In V5 the scenery from 4.5 has changed the airport no longer exist Hong Kong has been updated, but in V5 some new added airports to the database like VTBS .

Yep! Its now a cruise terminal for cruise ships. Its quite interesting to take a stroll on the quayside and look around the city skyline and mountains reimagining what it felt to fly in there in the Queen.

When I was an F/O on the B707-320C freighter I flew into Kai Tak on a regular basis from the late 1970's to the early 1980's.

Kai Tak was a Captain only approach for us.