Kai Tak museum dream more than a flight of fancy
Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1960s, the six Chin brothers were well ahead of their time. When most youngsters were dreaming of owning Cadillacs or Fords, the brothers were taking flying lessons and dreaming of the planes they would own.
The Chins owned the 100-horse-power Beagle Pup, a midget plane loved by flying enthusiasts to this day. Theirs was the 14th to roll off the production lines at Beagle's plants in Shoreham and Rearsby, in Britain. The plane was hailed as a triumph for British aviation design and engineering when it made its maiden flight in 1967, but by 1969, the company was financially doomed, with the cost of manufacturing the Pup greatly exceeding its selling price.
When the Chins heard in the early 70s that Beagle would be closed for lack of support from the British government and the Royal Air Force, the brothers decided to make a statement.
'Knowing that the Beagle Pup was the best light aircraft at that time and should not be in such a predicament, we decided to fly it from England to Hong Kong to prove its worth and reliability,' recalls Francis Chin Yiu-cheong, who was 21 at the time. He and his older brother, Dominic Chin Lo-chong, decided to take on the Brits and to show them that the Beagle Pup was a plane worth saving.
Two of the brothers decided to make the flight, even though they had not clocked much flying time in their logbooks - just 61 hours for Dominic and 55.05 hours for Francis. It took them from December 9, 1971, to January 8, 1972, to make the journey, covering 28,182km.
'[We flew] through the Syrian Desert, the Israeli-Arab war, the Indian-Pakistan war, the Vietnam war ... receiving amazing hospitality and friendship all along the way,' Francis writes in a memoir on his website, designed with the help of his 13-year-old twin sons.
There were hiccups, of course. An oil cooler gasket leak; running out of fuel 16km out of Bangkok International Airport; crossing Mount Victoria at 3,044 metres in an aircraft certified to fly only up to 3,039 metres; and cruising the vast ocean from Borneo to Hong Kong with only two standard life-jackets.