Went to RSAF open house at paya lebar airbase. It was nice being back at paya lebar, as the last time I went for an air force one was in 2001, a few weeks before the PSLE.
besides having the usual lineup of currently active aircraft at the main display area, there were the legacy aircraft just at the entrance...One Hawker Hunter, One UH-1H Huey, and the newest addition to the retired fleet, a TA-4SU, with the kewl tandem cockpits.
The aircraft that were displayed in the main display area were the Block 52 F-16s (C, D, D+), F-5S/Ts, AH-64D Apaches, AS332 Super Pumas, CH-47SD Chinooks, a C-130H and a KC-135R. Long queues everywhere just to sit in the cockpits of the fighters, or just go into either the helicopters or the huge transport aircraft. It was 5 years ago that I first sat (not been. i had been in a A310-300 cockpit when i was younger, courtesy of SIA =D) in a cockpit, and it was the cockpit of an F-5S. Lovely little thing. Except that back then, I was too short to see over the instrument panels of the F-5.
The main attraction (for me at least) had to be the aerial display. It started off with a scramble demonstration, where some air raid siren thing was sounded and the pilots and groundcrew of 2 F-5Ss and 2 F-16Cs ran out from dunno where and started up the aircraft. Shortly after, a single F-16D+ roared down the runway and did a vertical climb, followed by a roll in the vertical and leveling off inverted. The 4 scramble aircraft then followed, with the 2 F-16Cs doing a vertical climb after takeoff too.
I always loved these 'muscle climbs' or so they're called, by F-16s or any other fighter aircraft, where the high thrust to weight ratio of these aircraft are evident. I would definitely love to do these sometime in the future.
Everything else was quite cool too, the solo aerobatics by the F-16D+, which displayed its rather high rate of turn and small turn radius, though if my memory doesn't fail me, i've seen the F-16C do better. There were attack runs performed by the 2 F-16Cs and 2 F-5Ss, and those were quite spectacular. They should have dropped live munitions instead of just detonating some charge on the ground though. But i suppose they'd rather not, safety concerns and all. They also did some aggresive maneuvering after the run, which was supposedly to show how they would evade ground fire. They should have fired off flares at the same time to make it look nicer, and possibly more authentic. But it would cost the air force some $$ i suppose.
The heavy lift capability of our CH-47SD chinooks were displayed as always, by lifting 2 jeeps, and then the new pegasus 155mm howitzer. Then the apaches came out from behind the treelines, reminiscent of the Cold War era doctrine of attack helicopters popping in and out of terrain in the European plains. They demonstrated rather nice maneuvering, though i rathered they have at least gone inverted at least once, and should have fired a few flares too.
There was also an aerial refueling demonstration, consisting of a single KC-130B and 2 F-5s, but they didn't really connect to the tanker. It would have been cooler if they did, but i suppose other considerations prevented them from doing so. Pok.
There was a rather amusing part, where the Super Pumas and the Chinook dropped off infantry and 2 jeeps, and then these 2 APCs also came from nowhere and they all started firing at these 6 guys who were firing back. After wondering what was happening for a while, the 6 guys 'died', some with rather animated death sequences. It was clearly overkill, having 2 APCs and 2 jeeps with heavy machine guns, and 2 infantry squads vs 6 guys. But still, quite amusing. Then the Red Lions and their parachutes came. Its quite cool how they're able to flare at the last moment and land so gently.
anyway, i shall put up some pics =)
The interesting person who was there with me.
The aircraft that were to be scrambled
F-5 taxiing after being scrambled
Aerial Refueling
