Off to DEUTSCHLAND, then results, medical then tekong. God help me

my K800i exploded. so i got a nokia 1650. it pwns because it has no camera (woo NS).

but it has a flashlight and RADIO. video would have been better though. because VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR.

i <3 1650 =D

oh happy day

Had my maiden F-16 flight today =D

after being delayed twice due to weather conditions, we were told to suit up. An announcement that only instrument-rated pilots were cleared to fly was heard over the 143 Squadron building's PA, and we took the bus out to the hangars. On a sidenote, my G-suit was really tight...must be all the food I had in Malacca over the past 3 days.

walked out with the pilot flying with me, Major Desmond (callsign was Demon. I guess he got it due to his name), and strapped in to F-16D tail #639. It felt so surreal when the canopy closed shut. Just us and the bird. The oxygen mask was rather laborious to breathe with though...but it really helped in the high-G maneuvers. The taxi out to the runway was rather fast compared to what I was used to, but that was just the beginning of everything fast.

"Ninja 1 cleared for takeoff"

The afterburner lit and the Pratt and Whitney turbofan roared to life, and the F-16D shook and thundered down runway 36 and into the air. The combination of the deep rumble and vibration of the jet and the extreme acceleration felt during the afterburner takeoff was simply exhilarating.

A few seconds after getting airborne, we did a 3-4G climbing turn to the right to avoid Malaysian airspace. It felt great after not feeling any sustained G forces for more than half a year. While proceeding to the training area over the South China Sea, we climbed through thick cloud formations. The sight of flying into cloud in a bubble-canopy aircraft is amazing...it felt as if we were on a magical flying carpet.

On arrival at the training area at around 20000ft, we did some basic aerobatics. A 4G loop, a barrel roll, an immelmann turn (or up-and-over), and a 7G turn. Somewhere along or between these maneuvers, we broke the sound barrier at 16:04:49 Singapore time, reaching Mach 1.03. The climax of the maneuvers was a descending turn which reached 8.9G. At that point my vision was all faded and blur, and my lower body muscles rather tired from all the straining.

The experience of high-G maneuvers in the F-16 cannot really be described but has to be experienced to fully...say...enjoy it, unenjoyable though they may be, but I will attempt to describe it. At the start of the maneuver, you feel the G-suit slowly inflating and squeezing your lower body and legs. Progressively, you feel your whole body being forced into the seat, and at 5-6G you tense all your lower body and leg muscles to stop blood from draining out of the brain and pooling there, in an attempt to stop the feeling of lightheadedness and preventing your vision from blanking out. And it just all increases in intensity as 9G is approached.

After all that, Major Desmond gave me control of the aircraft. I managed a 3-4G level turn, and flew the F-16 back to Singapore through the guidance of the waypoints in the multifunction display, and the "thing that looks like sperm" on the heads-up display. Over the island, he took back control, steepened the descent and landed back on Tengah runway 36, where we taxyed back to the hangar and shut down the aircraft.

It was an extremely eye-opening day for me, not to mention an adrenalin-rush filled day too.

Thanks be to God who makes all things possible. Thanks to the RSAF and SYFC for starting this programme, and to the men and women of 143 Squadron for organizing, accomodating, and flying us =)

here's to the F-16, the first aircraft which ever made me feel a little nauseous.

and history repeats itself.

arr plz dun clashzor