1955 airports

[Bernard]

I have backdated Michael Schneider's Vienna Schwechat scenery to what it seems to having been beginning fifties. Sorry Sabi that I "massacred" your nice creation! Of course it's still completely there in the later years.



Bernard
]

[Tom/CalClassic]

Looks pretty small, compared to the later airport in less than 10 years.

[Bernard]

Based on the satisfying vintage landings at Kai Tak shawn in Jorge's thread "Platinum Wings - Christmas 2023 Beta release", I tried to adapt it for use with 1955 traffic.


First I had to "erode" considerably the north of Kowloon. Due to the nearby hills there is no way to use the west / east runway. Unless I would creat x-wind runways - landing on one runway, takeoff on the other.




Nevertheless the AI does an acceptable turn reaching the runway




But the touchdown remains catastrophically!




Well, two weeks work for almost nothing. That's live. Let's see what's coming next!

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

That is a tough one, I never attempted it.

[Jorge]

Nice work, Bernard! I like it! It reminds me of a few scenes from a documentary I saw a while back on Kai Tak when it was the 20th Anniversary of the shut-down (2017 or so?). Can't remember what channel it was on, but it was definately a treat!

Regards,

Jorge
Miami, FL

[Bernard]

Thanks Jorge. As Tom said, Kai Tak is a quite difficult thing. I decided to backdate the CalClassic scenery “Kai Tak 63” to what the airfield might have looked like during the later expansion. I also included your PW scenery from Hong Kong and partially used the old part of the airfield. Historically, this variant is purely fictional, I admit it. But the unchanged use of Kai Tak 63 with 1955 traffic would not be contemporary either.







Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

Cool idea. Sort of an "interim airport" layout. New runway but old terminal, with old runway 7/25 being used as a taxiway between them. The new runway didn't open until 1958, so this also could be used for 1957 traffic.