Comments on: Around the World–Job Done! http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475 Online perspective from the editors of "AOPA Pilot". Sat, 18 May 2013 17:56:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Chris http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475&cpage=1#comment-4416 Chris Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:00:18 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475#comment-4416 Actually, just to be technically clear, from an aviation perspective, Hong Kong is NOT China. Hong Kong is symbolically part of China, but according to Hong Kong’s constitution Hong Kong maintains fully independent executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government under the One Country Two Systems. The governing law in Hong Kong is English common law, NOT China law. The currency in Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Dollar, not the Chinese RMB. Cars in Hong Kong drive on the left (China on the right). Hong Kong and China have completely separate passport control (flying from Hong Kong to China is an international flight). Hong Kong people have Hong Kong passports, NOT China passports. Similarly, Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department is completely independent, and follows the UK system (in fact, the Hong Kong FIR uses imperial feet altitudes, whereas China uses metric altitudes). The two official languages in Hong Kong are English and Cantonse (not Mandarin). The aviation language (including the regulators) is only English. In fact, the CAD includes British staff, including ATC.

]]> By: T. Schumer http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475&cpage=1#comment-4383 T. Schumer Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:11:10 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475#comment-4383 Actually there were twelve pilots who participated in the RTW flight, we also went to Morocco and Santorini, Greece. There were two TBM 700′s, the second was flown on only a few legs of the trip and joined us in Asia. We didn’t make it into China, but we did spend a wonderful week in Hong Kong. We had a few instances- some pretty scary ones, when we lost the AHARS, but the good thing was we had excellent steam-gage back-up so we were still able to fly the ILS.

]]> By: chris doyle http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475&cpage=1#comment-4377 chris doyle Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:29:46 +0000 http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?p=475#comment-4377 Hong Kong is PRC ().

Did you have a Mandarin speaker with you?

If you need help getting through the bureaucracy, my daughter may be able to help.

The Chinese are very wary about foreigners who can’t speak the language with a high degree of competency. They also look for a fair understanding of the cultural differences. This is for your own safety.

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