Anyway, it's been a long time since i last blogged and a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff have happened since. Since I'm not one to dwell on past happenings (read: lazy), I shall just blog on something that just recently happened. Well, on Saturday, i went to...

No, not the United Nations but ...

the INAUGURAL Singapore Aerospace 2008. I figured that since its an inaugural singapore-organised show, and since Mark had free tickets, why not?

So, at 10am, mark, aaron, amos and I met at church and then met up with some of Mark's juniors (6 malay kids) on the bus to Pasir Ris. There was supposed to be a free shuttle from pasir ris and we figured since we set off at 10am, we should be able to beat the crowds.

Well, apparently, the rest of Singapore thought the same, so we were wrong. You know you're kind of in deep shit when you see a queue with no beginning, and everyone is telling you it starts at different places. Well, we tried to jump queue but failed miserably. Then we started walking away from white sands and finally found the start of the queue. But after seeing that the queue went one round around white sands and then through half of the bus interchange and onto the junction of the road that leads to white sands, we kinda decided to just take a cab instead.

But, that was what many other people concluded as well, Since the demand for cabs was way higher than the supply of cabs, QtyCab was invariably small. So after agonising wait of 10 minute, Taufiq (one of Mark's friend) shouted from across the road. In front of him was a white van. We quickly scurried across, extremely puzzled, but we hopped on anyways. Turned out that a kind uncle who was bringing his family to the airshow decided to give us a ride. Yes, very amazingrace-ish.

So, we next worried about how to get there. Since the airshow was in an entirely new location, we weren't sure the road that led up to it. Finally after driving along Loyang Ave until near Changi village, we met with an impossible jam. We must be in the right direction.

After 45 minutes stuck in the jam, we finally got off at the road leading into the aerospace venue. The uncle just dropped us as he had to park someplace else cause he didnt have a label or something. I felt quite bad that he had to go so far off then walk back, and he was so kind to just drop us at the nearest point. Well, nearest is quite relative since when we began walking in, I realised it was a super long walk. As I said to mark, it was like crossing the causeway on foot.

At least we had the Black Knights performing for us as we walked in, doing their stunts, formations, which were really very impressive. The six planes flew like they were one, large plane. There was also a special stunt, where they made a heart shape and an arrow through it, very artistic indeed.

By the time we reached the registration tent, it was some trainer jets that were doing stunts and we got bored. So we entered to find an enormous crowd of people waiting for bag checks. We got out soon enough and entered this open area with all the SAF hardware on display and got to see the RAAF Roulettes performing. The Roulettes were using single propeller, PC-9 planes. And I liked their performance more because it was so unique and classy. And for a propeller plane, their manoevres were much harder.

After watching performances, we went in to the air-conditioned area to see the exhibits. At first they were quite interesting, stuff from ST, SAF and stuff. Then it got super boring because all those companies selling engineering parts really didn't interest us much. We quickly filed out to the open air display area and saw lots of airplanes, and even more people. The queue to get onboard most of the planes was impossibly long and queues to buy food and drinks were enough to kill our appetites.

In the scorching heat, it was amazing we did not faint as we kept walking and walking and walking. I couldn't even be bothered to take a good look at the planes since it was so damn hot and so damn crowded. Back inside the indoor airport pavillion and land defence pavillion, it was another mad squeeze. By then, we had concluded the airshow was bullshit and decided to leave around 4pm.

And the airshow decided to leave the best for the last. Apparently, the rest of singapore decided to leave at 4pm also, so there was this mad queue to get out. Fine, it wasn't even a queue, it was a mad squeeze that was largely stagnant. After a while, it will move, then it will stop. After i do not know how long, we reached the queue for the shuttle buses, only to be greeted by a throng of SOC red-beret policemen, all with their glock pistols and nice t batons, ready to stop anyone cutting queue or killing each other in the heat.

When we finally got on the bus, it was another agonising half an hour bus ride, standing, back to Pasir Ris.

I think the above headline by Asiaone best captured what the Singapore Aerospace was like on Saturday. I went to see planes, but i think i saw more cops instead.

In my humble opinion, I think the organisers did a very bad job. The news may be reporting good stuff like how many billions of dollars changed hands, but it did not much criticise how poorly-organised the whole thing was. Making vehicles pass through Loyang Ave and Changi Coast road that were at some points essentially single-lane was stupid. Failing to set up proper queues at Pasir Ris was a bad way to start. If profits were the only thing in the mind of the Singapore Aerospace, then the organisers probably succeeded, since the public is hardly going to buy any planes. But that would be incredibly short-sighted. If the Singapore Aerospace is to truly become a Singapore-based airshow, then it should have at the very least, support from Singaporeans. And if Singaporeans are to be counted to support the airshow, then the organisers should have tried their best to accomodate to the convenience and comfort of Singaporeans (and charging 20 dollars per ticket should more than enough allow for these provisions).

If the airshow were truly to belong to Singaporeans, then this inaugural attempt was a feeble attempt. It would take a lot more convincing and a lot more incentive to make me want to go for the airshow the next time.