As you can tell from CO's icon, CO is an avgeek. In order to celebrate CO's 350th found, CO decided to place a cache near something aviation. You are now standing on top of the Checkerboard Hill, which is a visual reference for runway 13 approach in Kai Tak.

~~~ Congratulations to AirQ for FTF this cache. ~~~

The Runway 13 Approach

The landing approach for planes using runway 13 at Kai Tak was considered spectacular and was infamous, not just amongst aviation enthusiasts but amongst the general public as well.

The approach initially begins to the south-west of the airport, heading 270 at a minimum altitude of 6000 ft. At this beginning stage of the approach, the aircraft should be passing above Cheung Chau - a small island just off Lantau Island. After that, the aircraft was required to proceed up to "Point Golf", which was on the south side of Lantau Island and directly south of the current Chek Lap Kok Airport. Approaching aircraft then had to make a right-hand U-turn in order to intercept the localiser for the Runway 13 IGS, which generally happened above the current Chek Lap Kok Airport site. The IGS was, in essence, a heavily modified ILS system designed uniquely for Kai Tak Airport, otherwise functioning identically to a normal ILS. At roughly ~2500 ft, the autopilot was disconnected, and the rest of the approach was flown manually. The aircraft then descended below 1000 ft and shortly afterwards reached Kowloon Tsai Park and its small hill. Upon reaching the small hill above Kowloon Tsai Park, which was painted with a large "aviation orange" and white checkerboard, used as a visual reference point on the final approach (in addition to the middle marker on the Instrument Guidance System), the pilot needed to make a 47° visual right turn to line up with the runway and complete the final leg. The aircraft would be just 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) from touchdown, at a height of fewer than 1,000 feet (300 m) when the turn was made. Typically the plane would enter the final right turn at a height of about 650 feet (200 m) and exit it at a height of 140 feet (43 m) to line up with the runway. That demanding manoeuvre became known in the aviation community as the "Hong Kong Turn" or the "Checkerboard Turn". For many airline passengers on planes approaching and landing on Runway 13 at Kai Tak Airport, it became referred to as the "Kai Tak Heart Attack", because they were often frightened to be turning at such close proximity to the ground, which, at less than 150 ft, or 45 metres, was generally less than even the Boeing 767's wingspan, which is considered a medium-size airliner. The turn was so low that passengers could see television sets running in people's residences near the airport.

Handling the runway 13 approach was difficult enough with normal crosswinds because, even if the wind direction was constant, it was changing relative to the aircraft as the plane made the 47° visual right turn, meaning that what would be a headwind heading directly east on the IGS would become a crosswind and begin to push the aircraft over and off the runway alignment without correction. The landing would become even more challenging when crosswinds from the north-east were strong and gusty during typhoons. The mountain range north-east of the airport also made the wind vary greatly in both speed and direction. Watching large aircraft banking at low altitudes and taking big crab angles during their final approaches was popular with plane spotters. Despite the difficulty, the runway 13 approach was used most of the time due to the prevailing wind direction in Hong Kong.

Because of the turn required during final approach, ILS was not available for runway 13 and landings had to follow a visual approach. This made the approach unusable in low visibility conditions.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Tak_Airport

Points to Note

• Please be stealth.
• Please beware of muggles from all direction.
• Please bring your own pen.
• Safety first, you do not have to climb any fence to get the cache.