I mean, what’s the catch?

Public days are pathetic with many exhibits empty. Ticket price went up with each event but you essentially sees the same static military displays. The flying display is the only thing worth going for and this you don’t need a ticket, just go to the nearby beach. Of course don’t do it on public days. I caught the Black Knight on Wed and frankly I wasn’t impressed. Till today I cannot forget the US Airforce Thunderbird’s display when they performed along East Coast park in the 80s.

This year’s aerospace exhibition is backed by the government of course all the PR materials would claim it to be bigger and better. Bigger and better in what sense? Definitely not for the static displays which is pathetic compared to all the previous Asian Aerospace exhibitions.

Prior to the event, I’ve been visting the Singapore Airshow website daily for info on the aircrafts on static display and I couldn’t find any. This to a military nut like me is a clear indication that this year’s event would be smaller and worse than before. And I was right.

I was at there on friday & unfortunately was dragged by my friends & girlfriend to be there on saturday too. Having experienced the trauma that was on friday, even meeting at 10am to queue up & hop on the shuttle bus from Pasir Ris, we found ourselves stuck in probably a queue that we could enter into the guiness book of records.
Even taking a cab to the airshow took us 45 mins to get there & $20 poorer.

Im not really impressed by the false advertising of it being bigger & better than previous asian aerospaces. Even the black knights couldnt lift madness that was of the airshow. I really felt that the organizers should have pulled out all the stops at least to bring the red arrows, the thunderbirds or the blue angels to come in for the flight display. Even previous asian aerospaces had staged the flight display twice or 3 times a day so that the crowd wouldnt cluster during a specific time.

With all the hype, there was not much of planes that a fan would want to see… instead, private jets took up most of the exhibits… one might wonder what a F-22, one of the fiercest looking fighter planes berthed in one corner whereas the SAF took up as much space as they could with stuff we can find in the army.

Going back home was just as bad as going there. I cant complain about the crowd control… the police & the stewards did their best to ensure everybody got on the bus as fast as they could… It’s just that the planning & organisation of the crowd entering & leaving the airshow wasnt much to be desired. Imagine touchwood, if there was a international incident or a terrorist attack, earthquake, etc… we definitely wouldnt be able to evacuate the crowd efficiently. What pisses me off is that the organisers just made this another money making opportunity for them with the transports. So much for Youth Olympic Games & the F1 this year… are we really biting off more than what we can chew?

i mean, somepeople bought 50 planes that day i went
compared tothe public rushing in with that few bucks for ticket..
it’s still peanuts unless the public days is for an entire week

cheers

Anticipating a huge crowd and crowded roads (from lastaerospace) and the extra $20 to pay for carpark, i parked in Pasir Ris to get on the shuttle bus to Airshow.

I started queuing at 11am. At that time, the queue was already long. One guy posted a pic on how the queue went around whitesands, past MRT and to end of interchange. All true man, except the situation was MUCH worse.

The organiser DID A VERY BAD job organising the crowd. The IC ( a 40 yrd old middle age man) there has no clue what to do. He just stood ard, made phone calls, and his ka kia, all temps, just stood ard, doing nothing. It got so bad, that lines were cutting all over, and people exiting MRT station got into the queue, resulting in a virtual standstill of queue.

The police had to be called in, and poline lines were erected. Still it took some time for them to get their act right, for the queue was so long and so bad, that it was nearly impossible to erect a long enough lines to contain all of the queue.

Any case, after queuing for 2 hours, i took the bus (wih 2 foriegn colleagues) at 1pm. We still hoped that we can catch a glimpse of the dynamic display.

The bus took 35-45min, it felt better than queuing as u dont see people cutting all over. We did see the disply, but from the bus.

Thinking that we already scanned our tickets prior to bus, we thought it will be a smooth ride to the venue. Still, we queued YET again. this time 1/2 hour after arriving, to check on SECURITY.

So by the time we cleared security, herded like sheep, we actually see our first display was 2.30pm there abouts.

And lo and behold, we were done with all the displays in 45 min. The exhibtors were not all there, just empty exhibits. There were more people sheltering from the heat than anything interesting.

Left at 3.30pm after squeezing and queuing our way out. Fortunately the bus out was much faster, although messier than coming in.

In conclusion, the fault lies not on SMRT or the POLICE, cos they sent enough buses and policemen. The fault lies squarely on the organiser. Despite all the nice posters above, who probably got complimentary tickets, i paid a good $60 (for 3), the show imo was a disaster. it was hardly worth the effort, the organisation was bad from the get go, there was nothing to see, crowd control were non-existent from the organiser, shows were weak, and i definitely will not go to any Singapore Airshow ever.. period.

Uniquely Singapore and “world class hub”. I am going to a vacation overseas come Youth Olympics 2010 where half the planet will be here in Singapore and it wouldn’t be so crowded overseas. LOL!!!!