Very interesting. I flew many aircraft both ways on this route: MD80s /B737s / C500 / Citation Mustang / DA20s / LR31s / BE20s /BE90s / BAE31 / Piper Cheyenne 400LS and many others I have probably forgotten. This was during my decades delivering aircraft worldwide. It is a pity that it is no longer available, as it provided an easy transit between Asia and the US for shorter range aircraft. Earliest flight was in the 90's, things were in very poor shape - empty stores, crumbling ugly apartment buildings. By the later years' things had improved dramatically as the old regime loosened its grip. Weather forecasting, briefings etc. were always excellent. The runways, especially early on, were very rough. They had a novel way of deicing the runways - a jet engine mounted at 45 degrees downward on a truck, the hot jet blast routed through a narrow but wide outlet. This would be driven down the runway and taxi ways both clearing the snow and ice and drying at the same time. The noise was quite impressive. Never brought a Commander along this route but flew many across the Pacific and the Atlantic. Hopefully this lost routing will be opened again before too long.
