[rswail]

I was travelling to HK a lot in 1995/6. I was lucky enough to sit in the cockpit (ah, pre 9/11 days) on approach/landing to Kai Tak in a 767 and then a 747.

The most amazing thing was that the guidance (the famous checkerboard) basically directed the automatic landing to fly the planes into the mountain.

So they'd be on automatic pilot until a certain point, when the pilot took full manual control to do the right turn over Kowloon to land.

Things I remember most:

There were no flashing lights allowed in Kowloon advertising etc, up in the cockpit, the pilot pointed out that there were guidance lights flashing upwards along the flight path in Kowloon that you couldn't see from the ground.

A 747 is big. I remember the 767 automatic voice announcement as we got close to the ground, 500 feet, 400, 300, 200, 100, 50... I was expecting the same in the 747, but it's much bigger so I felt us touch down well before I expected.

The amazing feeling watching the pilot making slight movements and the entire plane banking. There was this hidden power that was pretty exhilarating.