Brief history of Asian Aerospace (AA): The Asian Aerospace is a bi-yearly event organized in Singapore at the Changi Convention Hall, almost beside Changi Airport. This year, 2006, the organizers somehow announced that this year would be the last Asian Aerospace that would be organized here in Singapore. There are talks of a new aerospace event similar to AA but under a different name of course.
Asian Aerospace is popular among locals here in Singapore who, despite paying S$21 (US$13.26) for entry for adults, come with their children and many air cadets from various secondary schools attend this event. All hope to get a snatch of the many available souvenirs, which include nice giant posters of airplanes, the ever popular collar pins of aircraft, pens, caps, plastic bags (with companies logos on them), lanyards (those around the neck) and even air fresherners... The most popular items are the collar pins, posters and caps.
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Decided to attend the event on a saturday, as most people would go on a Sunday which would make it even more crowded and squeezy.
Left the house at 9am in the morning, with dad in tow, after parking the car at the Mass Rapid Station (MRT), took the train all the way to Pasir Ris Interchange, where we joined the queue to wait for the shuttle bus which would take us to the event venue. Met a classmate on the train, a female one, suprisingly also going to the Asian Aerospace. :)
At the bus interchange we queued up patiently for the complementary shuttle bus ride. Boy! We had to squeeze into the bus for a 5 minute ride to the security checkpoint, where they scannedthe belly of the bus for bombs using mirrors and stuff; we had to disembark in the meantime.
Finally reached our drop off point, but not after having to wait for other buses to drop off their loads and make a big circle turnabout.
Gaped at the long queue that awaited us at the entrance (at least 300 people in the queue)... Thank god that the stringent security we went through (like those metal detectors at the airport) was fast and efficient and well-managed, getting through was a breeze of 10 minutes.
Hurriedly snapped a few photos of the Apache Longbow AH-64 helicopters that Singapore just ordered from the USA. Very impressive and it was situated right in front of the main entrance to the exhibition halls, obviously a major crowd. (Pictures of Apache Longbow AH-64 below:
Picture of Apache Longbow AH-64 (head-on):
Picture of Apache Longbow AH-64 (left flank):
Picture of Apache Longbow AH-64 (right flank):
Picture of Apache Longbow Ah-64 (specs board):
Whew! It's hot and sunny in Singapore. Temperatures hit at least 33-34 degrees celsius (91-94 fahrenheit). Just a few minutes out in the sun and I was perspiring heavily!
A laarrgge crowd greeted us as soon as we stepped into the exhibition hall. It's like a rugby match you know. People elbow, bash, push, nudge each other to get along. Not that violent of course but body contact is maximum.
Immediately ran to the Airbus booth, where they were displaying large models of their newest plane, the A380. Snapped a few photographs quickly before the crowd pushed the both of us onwards. Later hanged around this booth and managed to get a few nice posters and souvenirs... (A few pictures of the A380 models below):
Picture of A380 model (head on):
Picture of A380 model (cut-away, side):
Picture of A380 model (seats, zoomed in):
My! The exhibition hall is so large and there are a few of them! Inside one they even had a Super Puma helicopter (a real one) inside the hall and a howitzer! Walked over to Airbus' competitor - Boeing. They too had their newest plane to compete with Airbus' A380, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner! Cool shaped and nice models. Alas, Boeing had no souvenirs to hand out while I was there but managed to pested the American there to give me an A4 sized poster. Not really what I would like, but nevertheless colourful and detailed. (Some photographs of Boeings various civilian and military plane models):
Picture of Boeing 787 Dreamliner model:
Picture of Boeing military aircraft (F-15 Eagle in the foreground):
Walked past a booth from Europe. Saw one exhibitor giving out collar pins to children only. Was hoping to get one but was too shy to do so. Eventually my father asked the guy for one and I got it! Its a shiny golden fighter jet collar pin. (See the pictures of the souvenirs all the way at the bottom).
Spotted Garmin's booth (Garmin is a producer of Global Positioning System {GPS}receivers), but unfortunately it was not manned. Probably open only during the trade days and not the public. Was VERY (I'll say this in bold, italics and underlined) that the US Department of Defence (DoD) booth was not open. At the past Asian Aerospace exhibitions, this booth had many burly soldiers from the Air Force and the Army, who would give out very nice souvenirs like large posters of US Air Force planes, and also a cute DoD collar pin with its crest on it. Rather sad that it was not open while we were there. People would also pose with the soldiers, quite amusing because we asians would end up looking like imps as compared to these over 6ft chunky soldiers. Nevertheless, the soldiers would be sporting and smile and pose while getting photographed.
Moved on again to another hall. Saw the booth for Sheares Marketing, a shop in Singapore that satifies Singaporean's cravings for high-end knives and flashlight from the United States. Some brand include Kershaw, Ka-bar, SOG, Spyderco, Cold Steel, etc. (for knives) and Surefire, Pelican, Streamlight, Princeton Tec, etc. (for flashlights). They had some neat guns including sniper rifles which I tried mounting. Checked out the other cool pistols, batons and security stuff. Took a photo of the Surefire booth and diplay cabinet.
Picture of Surefire booth:
Picture of Surefire diplay cabinet (with A2 aviator, M3, L4, etc,):
Picture of Gladius Ops Torch by Night-Ops (a very, very expensive US brand torch at US$200, but an excellent quality light):
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Walked around other booths, grabbing and collecting whatever leaflets and brochures that I could. Most of them had nice pictures of airplanes and some event had the plane's specs on them. Managed to get a pen and some car stickers from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF). Saw many missiles on display from China and the many airplane engines that nearly reached to the ceiling.
Looked at my watch and... OMG! It was time for the aerial diplay and we were till indoors, I thought as I head the first fighter jet scream and roar through the thick metal canopy of the exhibition hall.
We headed out and got out just in time, missing 1 flypast, but the plane would make a few more passes. So nothing much missed. Scouted for a good shot to snap a few photographs and videos with my pathetic digital camera with such a small screen. Had to push aside many umbrellas.
This is the order for the airshow:
- Hermes 450 - MALE UAV (Israel)
- F-16C Falcon - Multirole Fighter (USA)
- T-6B - Military Basic Trainer (USA)
- PC-21 - Military Basic Trainer (Switzerland)
- Heron 1 - MALE UAV (Israel) *PICTURES below*
- M-311 - Miltary Basic Trainer (Italy)
- F-15C Eagle - Multirole Fighter (USA) *VIDEO below*
- A380 - Commercial Airliner (Europe) *VIDEO below*
Here are 2 pictures ( Heron 1 MALE UAV from Isarel). Sorry that they are a bit blur. Camera sucks.
Picture of Israel's Heron 1 MALE UAV (side view):
Picture of Israel's Heron 1 MALE UAV (back view):
Here is a video of USA's F-15C Eagle roaring past the crowd with afterburner's on. (BE SURE TO TURN UO YOUR SPEAKERS!):
Video of F-15C Eagle flypast, afterburners on. (From youtube):
And a video of the newest and largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380!
Video of Airbus A380 flypast, at LOW speed and doing a roll towards the crowd. Woohoohoo! (From youtube):
The airshow was simply dazzling! With the military trainer planes doing acrobatics and pulling 9 G's while doing a sharp turn, fighter jets roaring past and the A380 doing manuevers never seen before, this was a memoriable one for me!
We were hungry and decided to head to the small food area for lunch. As usual, food and drinks were slighly more pricely but affordable. We both had a burger and a nice cup of fresh sugar cane juice with ice to chill out.
After a short lunch, we headed for the static display, or in other words the aircraft on display around the area. We didn't go to see the aircraft on the other side, which required a shuttle bus trip and had such a long queue that I thought would take an hour to clear. However, some of the aircraft there were attractive, which included the B-1B Lancer (Stealth plane), the A380, F-15 & F-16 variants, C-130J, KC-135 Stratotanker.
Did view the aircrafts in the area we were in, and had many helicopters, luxury civilian planes and fighter jet. Managed to get a picture with the pilot of the F-15E plane. :)
Picture of me and the pilot in front of his plane, the F-15E:
Well... All good things have to come to an end. Getting late in the evening and tired after a day's walking, reluctantly left the Asian Aeropace 2006 exhibition, weary but happy.
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My father's friend's company had an exhibition booth at the Asian Aerospace 2006, so I was given some stuff that would normally not be so available to the public. At the end of the exhibition, he managed to grab a giant, more than 1m (3ft) in length poster on styrofoam mount for me! (He had to beg his bosses a bit though). Pictures:
Picture of Lufthansa plane in front of hanger (1m poster mounted on styrofoam):
Picture of Lufthansa A380 model (large 30cm length one):
Picture of Lufthansa collector's item keychain airplane red LED light:
Picture of Lufthansa neck lanyard:
Some additional pictures of the souvenirs and posters I got from the exhibition:
BIG posters:
Picture of CFM engine cutaway breakdown poster:
Picture of A320 side view half body poster:
Picture of A340 side view banking poster:
Picture of A380 poster:
Small posters (A3 size and below):
Picture of pilot's helmet poster:
Picture of A330 breakdown parts poster:
Picture of A330 performing mid-air refuelling for Royal Australian Air Force poster:
My uncle and aunt went a VIPs to the event, so they managed to get me a few souvenirs as VIPs. They were given these items while we public visitors had to walk around the halls to collect them and often camp at exhibitor's booth to wait.
Picture of cap with collar pins (front):
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Picture of cap with collar pins (zoomed in):
Picture of cap with collar pins (left and right side):
Picture of goodie pouch with freshening things inside:
Call it ''taiko'' (lucky), they also won the lucky draw that had a prize of a CAST IRON model of the A380! They gave this to me. :) A pity it is a bit small with the scale being 1:400.
Several pictures of the A380 model:
That's about all from me about Asian Aerospace. Hope you enjoyed reading this article and viewing the pictures and videos. :)
