Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Soldier, Soldier - Robson Green (1992) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

A quick glimpse of Kai Tak as Jerome Flynn heads off to meet his new wife in the form of Holly Aird. At this point, for most foreign film companies would cut to the obligatory aircraft on its final approach over Kowloon, but with Soldier, Soldier we just jump straight to the tarmac and also get a quick shot inside the terminal.

3 comments:

gweilo8888 said...

I'm pretty sure the first image was filmed from the observation deck, just a bit to the right of the Cathay TriStar in this image:

http://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/hkplaces/AllItems/images/201107/t20110722_41087.html

It's also visible in this shot, right around the empty bay between the Cathay and Japan Airlines 747s:

http://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/hkplaces/AllItems/images/201107/t20110723_43622.html

I was a bit of an aviation nut back in the day (still am now, to a lesser extent), and spent a whole lot of time up there, so I'm very familiar with the angle.

The first shot has two Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-300s and a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A300. The second shot is also a Cathay 747-300.

Cathay had a total of six 747-300s, all delivered between 1985 and 1988. All but one of them were leased to Pakistan International Airlines from April to July 1997, and finally all six were sold to PIA in late 2002.

Of the six, only one is still in service. That's AP-BFY, ex-B-HOM and VR-HOM. Two others have been broken up in Karachi, and three more were stored last year. As for the Garuda jet, I'm not sure if it's an A300-B4 or -600; they had both at the time.

Oh, and my dad's HATS truck-mounted airstairs make an appearance in the second shot, as do his baggage carts in the third one. ;-)

Phil said...

I can always rely on you to fill out some detail in the airport and ship pictures, many thanks.
When you say "your dad's", do you mean he designed them?

gweilo8888 said...

Not designed, but he may well have been the one who chose them. (And he certainly chose the color scheme on the airstairs!)

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