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Singapore Airshow 2008
19 Feb (Tues) marked the opening of the inaugural Singapore Airshow. “Airshow” and “Aerospace Exhibitions” are usually euphemisms for ‘defence’ exhibitions. I’ve been going to the airshow since I joined the NCC Air back in secondary school. I’m not that much of a military geek, but I was infatuated with aircraft for a while after watching Super Dimensional Fortress Macross.
RAAF Roulettes
I would collect as much collaterals and brochures of armaments, platforms and military-related hardware. I wanted my mech designs to look as realistic as possible, using those as reference materials. I ever wondered if I will find Anaheim Electronics or ZEONIC at such exhibitions. For the first time in twenty years, my wish had been answered. Yesterday’s Science Fiction has become today’s Reality.
The Singapore Airshow is the successor of the biennial Asian Aerospace. The latter air show was the longest running aviation/arms exhibition in Singapore (The most significant in Asia, and third biggest in the world). Due to disagreements with the Singapore government over the development of the new exhibition site, the organisers of Asian Aerospace packed their bags and moved to Hong Kong. This offered the Singapore government the opportunity to host the Singapore Airshow in place.
The Singapore Airshow is held at the newly built Changi Exhibition Centre, a convention site built specially to host aviation -related events. One of the distinctive architectural feature of this building is the control tower that overlooks the apron.
Changi Exhibition Centre
The weather was ideal on the opening day, blue skies and fair winds. If you stood too long on the tarmac, you’d bake in the sun.
The first sight that greet visitors isn’t the aircraft, but the static display of land defence hardware – to be specific, the assortment of sea, air and land platforms that support Army operations in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).
Land Defence Exhibit
In the foreground, that’s the Bronco towing the 120mm SRAMS (Super Rapid Advanced Mortar System) module. Behind it is the Primus 155mm self-propelled howitzer. Next to it on the extreme right is the air-mobile Pegasus Light Weight Howitzer. [We'll visit the background clutter in a while]
SLWH Pegasus
This 155mm howitzer can be airlifted using either a Chinook helicopter or a C-130 transport plane. The howitzer pops open like a switch-blade upon deployment. The green markings on the ground make it look like an active icon on a RTS game map.
Next to it, is supposed to be the SAF’s new king of the battlefield. But who is the real king and queen of the battlefield, Armour or Artillery? The Armour guys refuse to acknowledge it even though the Artillery guys have longer guns that can shoot further and with greater lethality. It’s about male pride (read: penis size).
Leopard 2A4
I have heard/read about Singapore having its own fleet of Main Battle Tanks (MBT) – the British Centurions although I’ve never ever seen them ever. This is the SAF’s first official MBT, the Leopard 2A4. I wonder how does the Leopard fare against Malaysia’s PT-91?
If I’m calling the shots, this would be an irrelevant question, because I’ll make sure the PT-91s don’t even get to leave camp when the battle start. But look, I don’t think you’ll ever get that kind of Rommel vs Patton kind of battle in our terrain, there’s hardly any armour manoeuvring area.
I’ve always wondered about the wisdom of using MBTs in our terrain. The MBTs will be bogged down by soft ground, or slowed down by bridges that can’t carry their weight. And it’s kinda silly to deploy these high value assets along main axes because they’ll be picked off by air-to-ground missiles (unless they’re used as baits by anti-aircraft teams). And if they moved among the plantations, they’re likely to be stuck between the trees….And in densely built up urban areas, they can always expect death from above.
RSN’s Fast Interceptor Craft
I’ve never seen this before. By the fact that it’s painted in green, will it be used in riverine operations?
AH-64D Longbow
The distinguishing feature of a Longbow variant of the Apache attack helicopter is the radome above the rotor blades. It looks like a turban. The Apache is often called upon for tank busting operations.
Here’s the upgraded version of the first home-grown armoured vehicle – the Bionix armoured fighting vehicle.
BIONIX II
As I’m not from the Armour formation, I’ve never rode in an armoured vehicle before. The closest adventure is jumping out of a C-130 with a parachute on my back and 20kg of equipment strapped to my feet. The equipment that gathered around the legs of my pants is to prevent my balls from dropping out when I’m standing by the opened aircraft door at 1,000ft up in the sky.
Defence Contractors Village
In the shimmering distance, are the chalets. It’s like a gated community of defence contractors. I didn’t bother going in because of the security checks.
Right outside the Lockheed Martin chalet is the replica of the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II. It has the RSAF roundel painted on the fuselage. The flags of the countries in the development consortium are painted near the air intake.
F-35 Lightning II and JASSM AGM-158
The Joint Air to Surface Stand-Off Missile (JASSM) is displaced next to the air platform. A fighter is practically useless unless it’s armed. The JASSM is a cruise-missile that belongs to the family of precision munitions.
Pratt & Whitney X Rolls Royce
Beside the F-35 replica is the Pratt & Whitney engine axial-connected to the Royce Royce thrusters that enable the F-35 for short-take offs and vertical landings. Another variant of the fighter is configured for aircraft carrier operations.
I’m more interested in the following exhibition – the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). This class of aircraft is one of the realisations of sci-fi – flying robots. UAVs are intelligence assets deployed to conduct surveillance; as well as by the operations community to call in strikes on targets. Even if you have the most powerful and lethal arsenal, you can’t hit what you can’t see. That’s one of the jobs of those from the intelligence community, to tell the guys with the fingers on the triggers where to point their guns.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
The MQ-8 Fire Scout and the RQ-4 Global Hawk are parked right before their maker – in front of Northrop Grumman’s pavilion/chalet. The cockpit-less, unmanned platforms looked like soul-less Xenomorphs.
MQ-8A Fire Scout
This unmanned helicopter is the MQ-8A variant used by the US Navy. The MQ-8B variant has pylons for mounting weapons.
RQ-4 Global Hawk
If boys these days still play those card game which you compare the statistic of the train/fire engine/sports car/tank/air craft, I’m sure the Global Hawk card will be a trump since it will sure win on wing span.
BAE HERTI
The British Aerospace’s HERTI UAV looks cute like a mouse.
And then the next fenced up area features America’s air power:
Tail End of American Airpower
That’s a vulgar display of power. Yet, with that superiority in firepower, the Americans are still fighting a running battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, without a decisive end in sight…
F-15
F-18
I thought this looked like a fish with it’s mouth open:
Carp?
It’s the tail end of the heavy lift helicopter Ch-47 Chinook. I can imagine troops spilling forth from the ‘mouth’ like guppies.
RSAF CH -47 Chinook
RSAF F-16
Until we get the F-15s, the F-16 is the sharp end of the RSAF’s airpower.
Exhibition Hall
To me, I felt there wasn’t much to see inside the exhibition hall. No booth babes (in the past, many participating companies will hire eye candies to front their booth, though not in the race queen kinda costumes). Maybe they’re all kept away in the defence contractor village.
This time, I also didn’t bother going around booths to collect freebies like the cloisonnes pins and posters. There’s already too much clutter in my room, and I’m not much of an aviation nut. Among all the exhibits, I found Singapore Technologies’ exhibits to be the most interesting – and it has more to do with Land defence rather than aerospace.
There’s a display of mini-UAVs from ST Aerospace.
Mini UAV from ST Aerospace
I found the VTOL mini-UAV, the Fantail II to be the most cute-looking. Maybe it’s the phallic design.
Fantail II mini-UAV
But this sight was more interesting:
Representatives from the Vatican?
Are they from the Vactican? And why does the Catholic Church need that kind of firepower? Maybe that proves that having a military capability is the pre-requisite of all sovereign states.
The following product from ST Kinetics – the Light Strike Vehicle, is named the Spider. Already, I can think of all the SAF vocabulary associated with spider – kancheong spider, go f**k spider etc etc. [I wonder where the expression - go f**k spider originated from? Perhaps it's uniquely Singapore]
120mm SRAMS on Spider LSV
The Spider LSV is fitted with the 120mm SRAMS. This shoot-and-scoot LSV operate in pairs, one carries the shooter while the other carries the ammunition. There’s smart warheads distributed among the bomblets, meaning that you get more precise hits.
I found the next exhibit to be rather goofy – the Advanced Combat Man System.
Advance Combat Man System
Advanced? The whole thing looks clunky to me, no where near the Starship Trooper kind of future that I’m expecting. It looks like a first generation Zaku when the rest of the other countries’ Advanced Infantry programme prototypes looked like Geara Dogas. The awkward goggle is going give the user headaches – literally.
Personal Compact Weapon
This compact weapon looked like something that LRRPs and Scouts can carry for personal protection. Only that it’s gonna be difficult to salvage 9mm rounds in the field… logistics is gonna be a problem when the rest of the armed forces use 5.56mm rounds (including the other side). Maybe it’s meant for SWAT or Special Force use.
ST also showcased the variants from the SAR 21 family. Among them, is the ‘light weight carbine’. Just when you think the bullpup design can’t go any shorter.
SAR 21 Variants
According to the engineer, the SAR 21 light weight carbine is meant for close quarter combat. It’s supposed to be an alternative choice of sidearms for units using the MP-5. There’s a reflex sight in place of a magnifying scope. I think they’ve also done away with the LED laser pointer in the forearm grip.
Here’s another interesting item: the Terrex wheeled armoured vehicle. In this set up, they’ve configured it as an platform for tactical intelligence operations.
Terrex
Perhaps, this wheeled vehicle offers a new way for conducting Armour Recce operations?
Though its meant to be an intelligence gathering platform, it packs a punch. It’s armed with a remote weapon station.
Remote Weapon Station
In this configuration, the remote weapon station is mounted with the 7.62mm GPMG coupled with the 40mm automatic grenade launcher. The armaments look like its for more than self-protection.
As I went through the convention hall, I wonder, what’s on the defence scientists and engineers’ minds when they’re designing these weapons, when they try to improve the efficiency and efficacy of kill with each iteration of development. It’s said that mankind’s instinct for self-preservation leads to many innovations. Till today, the defence industries is leading technological advancements for mankind’s future. But what kind of future will that be?
AND FINALLY….
A hint that bipedal, humanoid (or battloid) mecha might not be a figment of the Real Robot 80s….
BEHOLD……
THE HOLY HAND OF GUNDAM!!
Among all the exhibits, this is the only artefact that stopped me in the tracks. I spent a few moments marvelling at it, imagining the possibilities…
Even though it’s got 4 fingers, it can still taunt the opponent with the middle finger since the fourth finger is actually a thumb.
Multisensory Robot Hand
DLR – German Aerospace Centre
It’s a German invention. If the Zeon Republic has Teutonic heritage…maybe…just maybe….this company might possess the DNA of ZEONIC.
The highlight of any airshows is usually the aerial acrobatics performance. As I arrived just after lunch time, I only managed to catch the RAAF’s Roulette. Though, I did catch a glimpse of the A-380 pulling Gs while I was travelling along Changi Coast Road.
RAAF Roulette
I didn’t get to see the RSAF’s Black Knights – flying for the first time in a full formation of F-16Cs. The previous incarnation saw a combined wing of A-4SU Super Skyhawks and F-16s. But you can still catch them in action on YouTube:
RSAF Black Knights
One of the pilots from the Black Knights, LTC Philip Chionh, is Zoe Tay’s husband.
Since this year is RSAF’s 40th anniversary, you can expect them to perform during National Day.
