Singapore retires its Super Skyhawks

Sad day indeed for the Singapore Aviation Community as well as for Skyhawk lovers worldwide. The decommisioning of 142 Sqn was unfortunately totally closed off to the public and press, for reasons best known to the RSAF. Thankfully, I lived in the area and managed to see the whole thing. With this, the last Skyhawk Sqn based in Singapore is now officially no more, with the AJT Detachment (150 Sqn) in Cazaux being the last RSAF A-4 unit to exist until it is disbanded in 2007.

Flying-wise, the day started with an F-16D Fighting Falcon (I presume the photo ship) taking off, followed by 12 TA-4SUs(!) Super Skyhawks. They disappeared for about 45 minutes, presumably to form up and wait for the speeches, do the photoshoots etc on the ground to finish before showing and making a flypast across the Tengah Airbase runway, in 3 diamond formations of 4 aircraft each. They then turned away to reappear in 4-ship echelons before landing singly. One aircraft did a touch and go before being the last 2 land, according to the local papers she had the Singapore’s Chief of Air Force, an ex-Skyhawk pilot, on board.

Some bits of trivia, 3 aircraft from the first diamond formation carried some sort of inscription on the starboard side, I think its some kind of commemorative words. Can’t make it out though. The 12-ship formation of all TA-4SU is a first, and is only beaten by the 25-ship flypast of A-4s during Singapore National Day in 1990.

Attached are some photos I managed to grab, sorry for the poor quality, but I was shooting from damned far away and the weather was hazy and overcast to boot.

Arrivederci Scooters. You’ll be missed 🙁