i'm back from the RSAF open house! it was damn fun! and interesting! and enriching! and so totally worth my time!

feast your eyes on these photos taken by me!



the mighty black knight #1


the butt of the mighty black knight #1


the reflection of the mighty black knight #1 on its own tail


SYFC's very own piper warrior. think! one day i'll be flying it :D i can't wait already! i went to ask about the height requirement, and this cca trainer (don't ask me if she's a flight instructor or not), who is shorter than me by the way (the irony), said that even if i didn't meet the height requirement, i could still give it a shot. "just try," she said, and then gave me this syfc collar pin. :D


the chinook



the tail of the inappropriately named fokker 50.


the E2C hawkeye. xiwen's dad used to fly this.



inside the c130 hercules



the kc135's cool nose



f16 fighting falcon on standby for the aerial display



f16 fighting falcon taxiing to take off. i tell you, the sound of fighter jets taking off is a sound like nothing on earth. the sound will shake your whole body, reverberating deep within you and the feeling is marvellous. amazing stuff.



me making full use of the shiny reflective nose of the c130.

i saw super puma and apache helicopters, and also the f5 fighter, but i somehow forgot to upload those pictures too. haha.

anyway, we went to the flight simulator centre where we had a video presentation of the facility and had a tour of the flight simulators. there's a room with 6 consoles, and it was like in an arcade but without the flashy lights and colourful machines. training on a flight simulator is basically playing an expensive and extremely realistic computer game. we went into 2 real flight simulators and watched 2 pre-recorded flights.

the first flight was a mission involving taking off from paya lebar airbase and intercepting and killing an enemy aircraft. the 2nd flight began with the f16 aircraft completing its refuelling from a kc135 and killing another enemy aircraft. and you know what, in the 2nd flight i was in the cockpit! i was standing beside the ladder leading up to it and the pilot on top said to me 'would you like to go up?' and dad, being supportive of my pilot ambition, quickly hurried me up.

i was apprehensive at first but then i became sure that the pilot was actually referring to me so i climbed up and got into the cockpit awkwardly. and as i leaned back on the 30deg inclined seat, the fact that i was vertically challenged hit me really hard. i couldn't see the bottom part of the HUD (head up display - the green figures in front of the pilot showing his airspeed, altitude, g force etc)!! and even if i sat up straight and craned my neck, i could only barely see the numbers.

i explored the cockpit while the demonstration was going on. i could recognise the DG (directional gyro), and that was it. haha. don't laugh. and when the plane was landing the pilot talked about the 'circuit' and the 'downwind leg' and i grinned. thanks to the 'your pilot's license' book, i know all about it. haha. i felt smug sitting up there.

we watched the aerial display (again) after that and it was amazing. i especially liked the shells that the f16s and f5s dropped, causing fireballs and plumes of black smoke.

as we were going home this volunteer suddenly approached us and asked us about the open house. 'the aerial display was brilliant', i said. and he said 'you wanna be a female pilot' (or something along that lines) and i replied 'yes, i'm going to be' with a hint of pride in my voice and he said that there were 4 female chopper pilots and 10 fighter pilots. i told him my height (158 - don't smirk) wasn't the minimum 162 required. he told me not to worry and that i had a chance.

do i have a chance?

I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :O

WE'RE FLYING SQ TO FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? THIS MEANS WE'RE DEPARTING FROM TERMINAL 3 (SOMETHING I'VE DREAMED OF EVER SINCE I WENT TO ITS OPEN HOUSE), WHICH MEANS I CAN VISIT THE FIFA STORE, FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so the olympics have ended. i think i'll miss it quite a bit. i thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the athletics, gymnastics, swimming and diving events. now i have 2 things to look forward to every 2 years - euros + olympics and the world cup + ... i don't know, the airshow?

speaking of airshows, i'll be at paya lebar airbase this sunday for the RSAF OPEN HOUSE!!!!!!!!! :D i mean, how can you miss these kinds of events! there'll be aircraft rides, flight simulators, zillions of phototaking opportunities, the chance to TOUCH fighter jets, OMG IT'LL BE DAMN SHIOK!!!!!!!!!!!!

and it'll be from 9-7, which is 2h longer than the singapore airshow!!!!!!!!!

WHOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'll enjoy myself so much! haha! i can't wait already!



a random picture of a helicopter! :D

the teachers' competition just now was kinda anticlimatic but we had fun nonetheless!!! the teachers (SNFC - st nicks football club) 'won' the 1st match without kicking a ball cos the other team didn't turn up! so YAY SNFC scored 3 goals without scoring! (walkovers are won 3-0)

me, joey, angeline and xw were there! we were screaming so loudly the other side of the field could hear us! even the supporters from the other school (5 or 6 in all) couldn't come close! you know of all the teams, only we and the other school had supporters! SEE WE ARE SO SUPPORTIVE OF THE TEACHERS :D

we braved the rain just to cheer the teachers on and as a result my shoes are wet and dirty. haha, déjà vu. but i've been through worse and my shoes have been dirtier so we continued screaming by the sidelines. haha.

and for the 2nd match mr seow scored a goal and at the last few seconds the other team equalised D: and since a group has only 3 teams and we tied with the other team on top of the group with 4 points each and the GD level, it was down to the penalties. and we lost 1-3. but even if we had won, we couldn't come tmr anyway. the teachers will be busy tmr so they can't come. :(

haha! and that was all! just 2 matches - a walkover and a 15min match! and we went there so early - 3pm and the teachers only started playing at 4plus --"

but they were damn nice! they kept thanking us for going to support them. especially mr ng! :D mr ng rocks! we named our robot programme 'MrNgRocks'! this shows how much we love him! ahhhh!!!

am getting ready to go to the airport... fb is going home tonight... :( and after that life is back to normal and i'll be sleeping in my room again. funny how time flies. of course there were the frustrating moments (like how i missed the diving finals because fb wanted to visit the temple) but this exchange programme is mostly fun. hehe.

took some pictures (not much though) and i'll post next time! i'm having a headache now. just now i fell asleep watching the brazil vs latvia women's bball. when i fell asleep latvia was leading 62-61 and when i woke up it was 70+. but i didn't catch the end of the match. now there's japan vs netherlands men's footy on tv. but i'm not watching cos i don't know any of the players. olympic football sucks. all the good players not playing, bah.

makes me miss euro 2008 all the more...

so far the ned-jpn match is goalless. boring...

yesterday, i struck gold at the national library.

borrowed 2 aviation books: 'international air band radio handbook - the guide to worldwide air traffic control' by david j smith and 'your pilot's license - bestselling guide to getting your wings for over 25 years!' by jerry a eichenberger.

the former is full of aviation jargon and abbreviations and it took me awhile to understand some parts but overall it's quite readable to me. but the 2nd book, it's THE book for me, with explanations on how to control the aircraft (read: how to control roll, yaw, pitch, how to use the spoilers, rudder, elevators under what conditions, how to draw wind vectors etc etc) the best thing is that it's jargon free! :D yay i am so happy.

we went to changi coast road (i simply had to show my fb that place) and when we reached there we saw the a380 take off! at night!!!! :O whoohoo!!! went crazy for a few minutes after that. then we went to changi beach to plane spot for a while but it became evident that the fb was bored (who could blame her) so we went home.

haha. i shall end this post and continue reading my books! hehe

ps i so want the canon eos 1000D!!! -faints