A week late, but better late than never! Last week I went to the Air Force Open House. I hadn't actually remembered it, but a colleague mentioned it on the Friday just before, so I thought Why not? And it dovetails quite nicely with my current Transformers obsession.

There had been some initial fears over it being rainy, but it was blue skies. Blue, HOT skies.

Most of the people say that it's not worth queuing to sit in the planes, especially in this sort of weather, and I had to agree. But I couldn't pass up a chance to sit in one of the F-16s.

The F-16s however were the most popular, especially since they'd just performed at the last National Day. While waiting for my turn, I actually had time to take photos.

I had wanted to quiz the pilots on the dashboard display and have a photo taken with them, but it was my turn JUUUUUUUUUUUUST as the airshow was starting! So I literally scrambled on and off the plane. I did manage to take some nice photos of the parachuters, and of myself in the plane, of course.



Note that out of the whole set here, these two are the only ones taken with a digital camera. The rest were with my camera phone. This will be important later.

The airshow however, was ENTIRELY WORTH IT. They had a pseudo battle scenario, and though I was late I managed to wander into the grassy patch some distance away from the landing strip. And then... my digital camera with the superior zoom died. Luckily, I had my camera phone with me, but I now understand why there are so many complaints of grainy handphone photos, because the zoom just cannot cut it. A case in point:


Anti-aircraft missiles, but you can see it JUST barely. Still, it took some pretty awesome shots such as this one:


F-16s however, are FAST. And can turn on a dime. They did a "bombing" exercise where they dropped flares and then got the hell out of dodge. They literally seemed to pivot 180 degrees just to do so! Because they were so fast, the majority of my photos are of the helicopters. Here's an example of a failed photo of the F-16s:


But just watching the airshow was good. I really wonder how fast F-22s are though, since they have the latest technology? Later we just walked around and looked at exhibits and took a lot more photos, but I think I'll save everyone from the photo spam here.

Conclusion: It was fun!