Are there any mapping enthusiasts out there who have access to this map/diagram which is a pre-war air pilots aid to finding and landing at Kai Tak aerodrome?
Dated 1937, it was produced by SHELL AVIATION, an off-shoot of the SHELL OIL Company.
SHELL initially create and distributed airfield diagrams for the many new aerodrome being constructed around the UK, and when fliers started flying further afield, the company started producing them for airfields overseas. Prior to this, pilots made their own hand-drawn route maps and airfield diagrams
I came across this low-resolution image by accident while wandering around the internet looking for other things, as you do.
It was on a web-site of map examples,
However, I didn’t bookmark its location.
I have been trying to relocate it but to no avail, in order to try and acquire a higher resolution scan from whoever posted it on the internet so that the lettering can be better interpreted.
The 1937 SCMP accompanying report suggests that the diagram was supplied loose in Shell Aviation News folders, so most copies of it probably ended up as rubbish on an aeroplane cockpit’s floor at the end of a flight and discarded.
Extensive searches on the internet and historical aviation libraries have been made for the original Shell publication and the diagram but no luck yet. Even Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation department does not appear to have one.
Comments
A little more legible
The lettering can at least be read, just. (open the image in another tab then zoom!)
IDJ
Herostratus
Thank you for the more legible image.
I can now work out what most of the lettering says except some below the area of the aircraft silhouette in the triangle.
Given time I'll probably redraw the whole diagram