It wasn’t scary, but the first time I flew into Heathrow was a real eye opener. Sitting at a window seat, on a beautifully clear crisp day, and just going fuuuuck! at the number of planes that were in the sky.
I always thought Dulles Airport in the DC area was weird, with those big people mover quasi-bus thingies they use to ferry people across the tarmac (often interacting with taxiing aircraft) to the terminal.
I’ve flown in there (as a passenger, I mean), and yeah, it can be scary - and so can taking off.
The basic list is below. Again, click on the link here to see the descriptions.
- Paro Airport, Bhutan
- Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten
- Reagan National Airport, Washington DC
- Gibraltar Airport, Gibraltar
- Matekane Air Strip, Lesotho
- Barra Airport, Barra, Scotland
- Toncontin Airport, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
- John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York
- Madeira Airport, Funchal, Madeira
- Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Netherlands Antilles
As for the old Kai Tak Airport, I still have an old Lonely Planet Hong Kong guide from that era squirreled away, and it says this about it:
“Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport is named after a Mr. Kai and a Mr. Tak, who once owned the land. As airports go, it has an unusual set of problems. To begin with, it’s the fourth busiest in the world, and the single runway has to accommodate one landing every two minutes (the maximum permitted by international regulations). Furthermore, it was designed in the 1930s, before the skyscrapers were built and when aircraft had propeller engines. The result is that nowadays high-rise residents get to look down on approaching jumbo jets! The gridlocked air traffic and heart-in-teeth landings among the skyscrapers may have you wishing you’d purchased extra life insurance, but Kai Tak in fact has a good safety record.”
Thanks for those links. The first one especially is amazing.
The inclusion of Reagan and JFK are pretty damn weak since the only danger there is crossing an invisible artificial line in the sky… oh noes! On the other hand, the other airports look scary because you could bloody well crash into the hills or skyscrapers the planes are dodging between or shoot off a cliff, into the ocean or a densely populated area because the runways are too short. I don’t want to read too much into the inclusion of Reagan and JFK, but they seem wildly out of place by comparison.
I flew into Hong Kong, although mercifully late at night when I was too tired and too drunk to care… self medicated in preparation.
I have been in a plane that has landed at Madeira Airport and it wasn’t too scary. Mind you, I had read about it before and knew what to expect.
You can see such a landing here on YouTube (sorry about the crap music!):-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd13rh_BguY
The worst part is that before the actual landing you fly parallel to the runway and then make a sharp 180 degree turn.
I ***loved ***landing at Kai Tak and have done so at least 100 times. The new airport is nice but just not the same.
A colleague had a flight that tried to land 3 times as a typhoon was comining in before aborting and going to another airport. That would not have been fun.
The Bhutan airport sounds like it would be scary. China’s Jiuzhaigou Huanglong airport is at 3447.65M and requires a specially made high altitude airbus for the route. The flight path goes up a narrow mountain valley that narrows as the peaks get higher and higher. You land on a leveled off mountain top. It is a spectacularly beautiful short flight. The air currents off the mountains buffet the plane quite a bit.
Obligatory St Maarten clip.