It was Singapore airshow last weekend and we were lucky to get our hands on the ticket and even balloted for a ride on Chinook! Till date, I can't believed that there were 80,000 tickets made available for the weekend for Singapore airshow and it was a sold out.
A little profile about the Singapore airshow
Singapore Airshow is Asia's largest and one of the most important
aerospace and defence exhibitions in the world. It is where the latest state-of-the-art systems and equipment,
together with their related technologies and
developments, are displayed by top aerospace companies around the world. 2014 marks the third edition of the biennial event.
With security checks and having to battle through a large crowd, the transfer trip to the show took quite a while. We were lucky enough to still be able to catch the aerobatic show by Singapore's RSAF Black Knights. The show was not bad, but not amazing. While I would like to support our very own local talent, I actually prefer the aerial show by South Korea's ROKAF Black Eagles later in the afternoon. Not a fair comparison, because the Black Eagles probably get more air time practice, but as an audience, you can only compare what you see.
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| Performance by RSAF's Black Knights. The sun was super glaring. |
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| You suddenly realised that EVERY Singaporeans seem to own a DSLR. |
The event space was HUGE. A quick Google revealed that the site boasted a 40,000 square metres of fully air-conditioned exhibition hall, 2,000 parking lots for trade visitors and motorists as well as 100,000 square metres of outdoor space for exhibitions and functions. Being the usual bad-at-directions person, I didn't realised it was so near to the terminals.
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| The new F35. Very sleek. |
We had to queue for about an hour each to get onto the planes for photography. Given the limited amount of time, we had to be strategic in our decision and decided on the Apache and a cool F16 fighter jet.
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| It felt like a theme park. We had to queue for the ticket to go board the planes, which took us about an hour each. |
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| The F16 fighter jet. Noticed the lady on the plane? Apparently she's the second female pilot in Singapore! *Salutes* |
I wanted to take a photo of this because this is what we are going to ride on later! Chinook!
We had to ballot for tickets to get the tickets for the ride and I have to say that we were really lucky. It was another shuttle ride to the place to the board the Chinook, and we got to ride through the restricted area. No photography was allowed, but just looking at what's inside the restricted area is already an eye-opener by itself. There's street soccer and basketball courts, and plane shelters that you only get to see in movies like Pearl Harbour.
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| On board the Chinook, where they lowered the loading ramp to reveal a magnificent landscape view. |
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| The inside of a Chinook. |
And then we were back on land after being airborne for 30 minutes. This time, to catch the next round of aerobatics flying show.
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| Performance by South Korea's ROKAF Black Eagles. |
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| The Black Knights having their eyes on the Black Eagles. |
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| An arrow through the heart? Aww~ |
Time flies, and it was already late in the afternoon. Seeing the queue heading back to Expo MRT. We decided to spend some time in the exhibition halls in hope that the crowd will lessen by the time we join the queue.
Despite having to suffer from sunburns and having asked a lot of what-appears-to-be-dumb questions to my friends, e.g. why can't an aeroplane land on a helipad, preconception that planes parked underground in a desert so that the planes do not get covered during times of sandstorm, why can't planes be loaded with more fire weapon, etc., it was, all in all, an eventful day.
Thank you for reading.
♥ ZM & Kim
