Many thanks to IDJ for sending the brief magazine article below. He believes that the short lived, mid 1970’s, helicopter company may have been based on Lamma island. Can anyone verify this? The image shown below accompanied the magazine article. The smart Bell 206B helicopter sometimes encountered in flights around the Colony is operated by Sim Air Ltd., and flown by […]
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Tymon Mellor: Construction of the Kowloon Canton Railway included the excavation of the Beacon Hill tunnel through the Kowloon hills. At the time, the tunnel at 7,212ft or 2,198m was the longest tunnel in China and the fifth longest tunnel outside Europe. The southern and northern portals were remote from existing villages and sickness among the workers was common. To […]
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HF: Shatin Airfield was a small military airfield which had a single concrete runway. It was built in 1949 for use by the British RAF and demolished in the early 1970s as the Shek Kong Airfield was consolidated, and was later re-developed as part of the New Town project for Shatin. The 28th May 1954 edition of Flight magazine contains […]
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Tymon Mellor: At the end of the nineteenth century, the great world powers were all trying to expand their spheres of influence within China. The approach of the British was to use Hong Kong as a marine trading hub, enhanced with the provision of a railway network thus extending the Colony’s commercial reach into the Chinese hinterland and connecting with […]
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James Chan: The article, The Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Ltd – Timeline, got me thinking about KMB buses in the 1960s. I found this: 1954 Model introduced. The AEC Regent V was a front-engined double-decker bus built by the Associated Equipment Company between 1954 and 1969. The Regent V had AEC’s own frontal design and concealed radiator as standard, It was […]
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF HONG KONG AIR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED Hong Kong Air, the Colony’s only commercial helicopter service, commenced operations in August 1970 and initially was based at the Flying Club. The Club made its hangar available to Hong Kong Air until the present hangar near the HAECO complex was completed. The first helicopters in the Hong Kong Air fleet […]
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Tymon Mellor: In 1904, as the Hong Kong Island tram system was readying for operation, attention focused on the opposite side of the harbour on the development of a tram network for Kowloon. After many false starts, just when it seemed that work was about to start on a Kowloon tram network, the Government had a major change of approach […]
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York Lo: Far East Motors – distributor of Chevrolet, Cadillac, Holden and Standard automobiles and operator of Avis Rent-A-Car in HK Left: Used car ad from Far East Motors in 1938 (Gwulo); Right: Cadillac ad in 1949 from Far East Motors Recently, articles have been posted about Far East Aviation and Far East Flying School in which FEA’s auto dealer […]
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CM Fung: Dan Waters’ recollections: Dan Waters said “he remembers that when he arrived in HK in the 1950s it was possible to be taken up Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan) on Lantau island in a sedan chair. $30 to the top; or $15 half way up which Dan seems to remember was quite common.” Fung Chi Ming’s feedback: I […]
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‘At his shop in Yau Ma Tei, Mak Kam-sang’s walls are covered in calligraphy signs he has written. Passers-by stop and peer into the store, curious about what it sells as it is so different from everything else in the area Mak is the last calligrapher in Hong Kong behind the red and blue signs informing would-be passengers where a […]
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