Navy Open House 22 – 23 May 2010
Visited the Navy Open House 2010 few days before it is open to the public. Quite an eye opener. I guess it is going to be impossible for me to cover everything in a blog post. So I’ll just talk about a few highlights during my visit.
One of the highlights for the Navy Open House is the Naval Sea Display. It’s a performance by our elite Naval Divers on what to expect during a hostage rescue mission. Things like jumping into the sea from a Chinooks, storming into a building to rescue the hostage and finally link up with a submarine. Pretty impressive. The Naval Sea Display occur twice daily. For 23 May, the show time is 11:30am and 3:30pm. Be sure to arrive early to grab a good seat. This is definitely something you don’t want to miss at the Navy Open House 2010.
Divers jumping out of the Chinooks.
Storming into the building. When you see this, you know you should put down the weapon and surrender. No point fighting back lah.
Assault boat giving fire support and also pick up the divers and rescued hostage.
Hostage rescued. Link up with the Submarine. Very “James Bond” hor? 
Another highlight is the Frigate Guided Tour. We had the rare opportunity to tour the RSS Steadfast. The RSS Steadfast is a Formidable class multi-role stealth frigate and the latest surface platforms to enter into service with the Republic of Singapore Navy. There is a total of 6 ships in the Formidable class and RSS Steadfast is the 3rd to be built.
During the guided tour, we get to visit the bridge, cabin, cookhouse, etc etc. I think we got to tour almost 50 – 70% of the ship. I think. By the way, when you are inside the ship, there will be no mobile phone signal. Totally nothing. I guess there must be a shield that blocks all radio signal from entering/exiting the ship. That’s how they maintain stealth during mission. But can you imagine the crews having no handphone signal when inside their cabin? Poor thing. Want to talk to loves one need to go to the deck.
You can park a Helicopter inside here.
The high tech bridge.
The stairs in the ship are pretty steep.
Officers’ bunk. May look small to you, but it’s already quite a luxury on board. I’m sure the rest of the bunks are a lot smaller.
The cookhouse. And the most important person on the ship. Make him angry and you will have to go hungry. Hahaha…. Kidding kidding.
The narrow corridor inside the ship.
But due to time and space constrain (Trust me, they really tried to pack everything possible inside the ship), you need to ballot for tickets to the Frigate Guided Tour.
Besides the Naval Sea Display and Frigate Guided Tour, there are also other exhibitions and display. If you are interested, you might also want to try the Ship Cruise or Duck Tour. The Navy Open House 2010 is happening this weekend. If you are interested in visiting, head down to the Singapore Expo where there will be transport to bring you to Changi Naval Base. Drivers can park their cars at the Singapore Expo and take the transport too. No parking is allowed at the Changi Naval Base.
Oh, and do wear comfortable walking shoes as there will be lots of walking. Sandals, slippers and heels are strongly discouraged. Ladies are advice not to wear skirt if they intend to broad the ships. Some of the stairs are not skirt friendly. Sunblock and a bottle of water will be good. But don’t worry, there are food and drinks stalls at the Navy Open House. Camera is allowed at the Navy Open House. In fact, you should bring camera when you are there. It’s one of those rare opportunity for you to enter a Naval Base with camera. Take more photos. There is a photo taking contest where the first prize is $300 cash voucher.
For more info, check out Navy Open House 2010 website or Facebook page.
PS: I didn’t photoshop the photos. We are lucky to have very beautiful sky on the day of our visit. And I’m lucky to be able to borrow my Bro-in-law’s Canon 500D. 
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[...] naval helicopters in Singapore already? I visited Changi Naval Base few months ago during the Navy Open House but didn’t get to see it. But I did went onboard the Formidable class multi-role stealth [...]
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Hey, your pics look distorted. Something is wrong with the aspect ratio or the blog image insert is not using the image size dimensions and resizing to fit a specific size and stretches it to fit.
.-= Chester Chen´s last blog ..Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort Panorama =-.
Chester: is it? Didn’t notice. My eyes not trained to see such distortion.
Might be the pictures too big for the template. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.