2600027 C.S. 20A
CONFIDENTIAL
SAVING RAXX Despatch
From the Governor, Hong Kong
To the Secretary of State for the Colonies
Repeated to:—
Repeated to:-
e
27th February, 1969
My Reference........
CR 13/951/68
Vreign Affairs
3.
Your Reference....
197
calth
No.
No.
No.
Instrument Approach System
6.
The new instrument approach system proposed is intended for Runway 13. There is already an instrument approach system operating for Runway 13. It was installed in the early 1950's and consists of a
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beacon on Cheung Chau and another on Stonecutter's Island. The present p
system suffers from the following defects:-
(a) It is not very accurate because the equipment
is not sufficiently modern and sophisticated.
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
It provides no guidance after Stonecutter's Island when aircraft are still three and a half miles from the runway.
It requires aircraft to make a sharp turn in order to land. (Please see red line in Figure C attached at Enclosure 3 }
Because of (a), (b) and (c) it is still necessary to space planes generously when they are coming in for landing as a safety precaution, thus imposing a limit on the rate of movements.
Because of (a), (b) and (c) and because of surrounding hills it cannot be used when visibility is under two miles and/or the cloud base is under 700 feet.
Wind conditions dictate that ideally most planes should land on Runway 13 and take off from Runway 13. Such a flow of traffic enables movements to be handled more quickly. However, when the weather conditions described in (e) arise, planes are forced to land on Runway 31 utilizing the precision radar for an instrument landing. This causes delays because a plane landing on Runway 31 has to be completely cleared before another plane can take off on Runway 13 or vice versa.
7/6
©
/7. Experience over
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