(shrapnel damage-note the door is thick steel)
I promised to post pictures of the hangar door of my hangar at Seletar Airport, Singapore but never really got down to doing any blogging. It's been busy here lately, despite the gloom and doom that most people seem to focus on. Everyone knows that Second World War saw a fair bit of action in South East Asia and the Japs over ran the British base at Singapore quite easily, taking them by surprise, using cycles to come in from Malay peninsula. The British had moved their (by then already obsolete and slow) Aircraft out of Seletar Air Base, further down to Indonesia.
(Bullet holes perhaps from a field gun)
Seletar is in the North Eastern part of Singapore and the air base within shelling range from the Malay peninsula and therefore saw a lot of damage inflicted on the facilities there. I am now occupying one of the hangars that was then a storage area and apparently had British troops occupying the place. The Japs attacked with guns and mortar and inflicted damage and casualties. Going on a search of the world wide web, one can read into great detail of what went on. Wikipedia has some details, a bit old but interesting pictures of the place and also interesting links and pictures of the airplanes that used to operate in the days of the Second World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Seletar).
About a year ago, the previous occupant of the hangar where I have my offices now, came to me with an interesting story of a British serviceman, now really old, who came to see the hangar. He had been inside it when the Japs started pounding them with artillery and guns. This old man was surprised to see that the back door of the hangar had never been changed or even repaired since the Second World War! As for me, I am not going to cover it or repair it although many people suggested that I cover up the "ugly" door. It's a part of history. When they tear the hangar down in two years to pave the way for new facilities as part of the Aerospace Technology Park, I hope to bid for the doors and keep them in our new facility, as a reminder of what happened those many years ago and how people died saving the place.
In my hurry to blog, I did not take my camera and used my phone to take the pictures that appear here. The picture above, is of my plane taken from the back door area of the hangar.
Despite the gloom and doom that plague aviation in many places, the middle east is still seemingly the only place where activity is still on the upswing. Dubai is hosting the Middle East Business Aviation event from the 16th to the 18th of November and yours truly is going to be there. I will know the pulse of the market there as well as interact with aviation experts in all areas of expertise. That will be a blog soon, once I return.
