I was fortunate enough to have been posted to Kai Tak Ops in '73. One of the pleasures of that posting, other than my son being born in BMH Kowloon, was being able to cadge trips with the RHKAAF (known to us as the Honkey Tonks) like TTN I managed deliver quite a few newspapers around the NT and the islands in the Alouettes. My "bomb aimer" capabilities appear to have been somewhat better than TTN as all mine arrived dry. I wonder though, if TTNs experience led to the papers being sealed in plastic bags just in case of a repeat. My favourite memory though was the 5 1/2 hours in the BN islander doing civil Air Traffic Controller training
This particular Islander, IIRC was fitted with extra fuel tanks in order to have a SAR capability, with, again IIRC 13 hrs.endurance. Sadly I can't remember the name of the pilot. He was a Flt. Lt. RAF and was so laid back he was almost supine. That of course explains as to how i was allowed over 4 hours on the controls and giving the Controllers near heart attacks as I tried my hand at flying PARs. Unfortunately I would have drowned at least three times, trying to land on the centreline approach lighting that sticks out into the harbour. The photo below shows a properly flown approach while I took some photographs. We're about to pass through the Lei Yue Mun gap. Notice the fairly sheer high ground on the right. When doing a PDR it was great fun to pull the left throttle and turn in towards the high ground simulating a left engine failure. The voice of the controller under training usually went up at least three octaves as he desperately instructed us to turn back on track and climb.
Below is a Cathay Pacific 707 on departure, going through the afore mentioned gap with a good view of the high ground. The CV panel was used to eject the pilots apple apple after lunch was had from box provided.
The Austers that TTN mentioned had been replaced by Musketeers when I was there. Their main job, according to the crews was to provide ridge hopping recce information for the current garrison when they came forward to throw the PLA back across the border. Of course the reason they didn't invade, no matter what the historians say, is that the resident battalion was the Black Watch and HK at the time was host to the Brigade of Gurkhas. Just one last photo. Below is a Canadair CL 215 which was being considered by the HK government for forest fire fighting.
As part of my campaign to fly in anything that I could blag my way onto, many years later I managed a trip in one of these whilst on detachment to Goose Bay. Many thanks to the crew of Tanker 252. Apologies for the state of some of the piccies but this entry has convinced me to use the remnants of Covid lockdown to use Affinity Photo to clean everything up. Oh yes...I got my second jab today