This Other Eden

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Airshow

yesterday went for the Singapore Airshow with my eldest sis. we took a taxi down to aviation road near Changi Ferry Terminal where the airshow was held. there was a long queue of taxi waiting for the passenger to alight, and chartered buses was thoroughly checked by the police, similarly to the security check at the airport where a police officer will board the bus and check for suspicious bag, but this time more police officer boarded the police because the bus is fully packed. then as we alight, alamak, there was a super long queue, about 500m long. luckily the queue is moving at a slow pace and we are under shelter. if you look closely at the first pic, one of the flag was upside down...

we thought when we enter the registration gateway, we could start exploring the area. but we were wrong, there was another queue inside for the security check. everyone knew that the airshow is not free at all, $20 bucks person, and in the end, no one check our tickets meaning we can go in for FREE, but her brother in law later told us that those boarding the shuttle bus to the airshow had their ticket checked. at last, after queueing for almost 45mins, we are finally inside.
So many people, a staggering 40000 visited on Sat. my real intention for the airshow was the aerial display and to explore the A380 airplane. there was army tanks, apache on display, but none of those interest me. i search profusely for the jumbo jet and luckily, the jumbo jet tail caught my attention. it was hidden behind the exhibition hall and it was really really huge, but shorter in length than i had expected.



A380 powered by 4 Roll Royce engines

shortly after we explore all the plane around, we went to the field to watch the aerial display. first on the show was the black knight, performed by six pilots using F16, and one of the pilot was Zoe Tay's husband. six of them



mirror image, look closely, one aircraft is directly upside down closest view of the F16

then the other performance by the foreigner pilot include a F16, F18 and the China made airfighter showing some of the toughest skill that the aircraft is capable of. because the show was more than a hour long, everyone seems to be getting tired and started to sit on the floor. thanks to the sunny yet cloudy weather, the afternoon glaring sun was blocked and everyone was able to watch the show excitingly. and the final moment of truth, the A380 aircraft appear....... but it was approaching us at a very slow pace....








the aircraft manoeuvre around in a clumsy manner.....

after the entire show, we went into the exhibition hall for the air con. we got many posters and brochures about the planes and the ST engineering, Airbus and the Boeing company received the highest visitor rate i supposed because everyone is crowding aroung the respective company to look at the lastest model of the plane. too bad Boeing 787 dreamliner and the Airbus 350 is not build yet and not present.

the jumbo returning to the display area.



the jet engine was just directly above our head when it was parking and some of the tall guy could actually touch the engine.

we thought that we could actually view the jumbo jet, but we heard someone saying we are not allowed to view the plane. so sadly, we walk away and walk to the exit. oh my god, entering was already a headache, exiting was even worse. many people was trying to go home and we were confused at where the queue for the bus to pasir ris mrt station was. so we just queue at a place where people boarded the bus to pasir ris. but the queue caused the people who actually queued at the correct place to jam at the area. we were queueing at the area where the bus was heading to expo instead, but people were queueing and boarding for the pasir ris one instead. some of the unhappy people who were queueing at the correct place were shouting ' hey, why are we stucked here when we are queueing at the correct place?' i don't blame for the unhappiness of the people because people was confused at where they should queue and they the management should expect large amount of people could visit and they should expect most people to be travelling to pasir ris or expo. so after about an hour of pushing and squeezing with the people, my sis and i were finally on board the shuttle bus.

overall, the airshow was worth a visit despite the long queue. picture with darken surrounding is taken by my handphone, the rest is used by my sis's camera.

Posted by k€lvin at 7:26 AM