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Victoria Button

Recreational pilots are in crisis amid a drop in numbers, soaring clubhouse rent and Chinese military restrictions on their flying time.

The SAR's sole recreational pilot organisation, the Hong Kong Aviation Club, will ask members to vote on Tuesday on closing its historic facilities at Kai Tak.

This would represent the end of an era of recreational aviation at the site which started in the 1920s, said club president Alex Yan Tak-chung.

More than a dozen staff employed there - after up to 30 years' service - could lose their jobs.

The closure could also potentially ground their members who fly helicopters and deprive plane pilots of a venue to meet and share their experiences, an important part of flight safety.

However, flying of fixed-wing planes and pilot training would continue from the Chinese military air field at Sek Kong, Mr Yan said.

Club membership had fallen from 800 to 380 since the main airport moved to Chek Lap Kok, as their clubhouse location was no longer as appealing, he said.

However, Mr Yan said the Government had failed to help the club find an alternative site and had also raised the rent from a nominal value to unaffordable commercial levels of more than $500,000 a year.

He said this was unfair as other recreational clubs had not seen similar increases.

'Everybody is sad. I don't want to be the president to do this, but our committee has to face reality.'

Mr Yan said members were grateful to the Chinese military for making the unusual concession of allowing them to use the Sek Kong airfield, even though the military had restricted recreational pilots to flying only at weekends.

However, he said this restriction sometimes made it difficult for pilots to log enough flying time to maintain their licences. It also resulted in a waiting list for flying lessons.

Mr Yan said that local children already were not exposed to a culture of aviation and the difficulties faced by the club deprived them of the chance to develop an interest which could lead on to a career in commercial flying.

This is not the first time recreational flying in Hong Kong has faced difficulties. A succession of clubs on the Kai Tak site have been formed, then faded away.

According to the book Wings over Hong Kong, An Aviation History 1891-1998, the Hong Kong Aviation Club was established in 1981 and took over the assets of other clubs which dated back to the 1920s.

The first plane flight in Hong Kong did not take off from Kai Tak, but from the Sha Tin tidal flats in 1911, when Belgian enthusiast Charles van den Born took off in his Farman biplane.

vbutton@scmp.com

SMP Pictures



Aviators to vote on closure of troubled Kai Tak flying club