Just plane delight!

Being an aviation buff, I wanted to see the half-size replica model of the Bristol Boxkite, the first aeroplane that took off from Singapore on 16 March 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers made history's first powered flights on 17 December 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The Boxkite replica is currently on display at Changi Airport's T2 (pic below), so I drove there today in my Soo-soo Kee Sweet Pork (the Ah Beng rendition of the Suzuki Swift Sport). The Boxkite had a 70 horsepower Le Rhone rotary engine and could reach an airspeed of 40 miles per hour (about 64 kmh). My little hatchback car packs in 125 horses and can hit 100 mph (160 kmh) but can't fly!
  

The Boxkite (a biplane, that is, it had two wings each spanning 10.5m) was not flown here but was packed into crates and reassembled. Then, on that historic day -- 16 March 1911 -- Belgian aviator Joseph Christiaens became the first man to pilot an airplane in Singapore, taking off and landing several times at the old Race Course, now Farrer Park.

The Boxkite could carry one passenger. Those who seized the chance paid $50 (a princely sum then) for the 10-minute ride.

How did I get hooked on stuff about aeroplanes? I remembered that as a boy, I would invert my little rattan chair and imagine that the back opening was the cockpit windscreen! Later, when I was a late primary and early secondary school kid during the 1960s, my father would take me to see the Royal Air Force airshows (these must have been held at Tengah). I still remember the Gloster Javelin and Hawker Hunter fighters and the Vulcan V-bombers. There might have been supersonic English Electric Lightning interceptor fighters too.

In secondary school too, I started building up a big collection of plastic model planes. The basic ones cost only 90 cents then (Airfix brand).

I also started "flying" line-control planes -- fitted with noisy 10cc fuel-driven engines that needed an external battery to be initially hooked onto the spark plug to fire it up. I had to crank up the propellor by hand or with the aid of a spring-loaded device. Only the elevators (the tail flaps that cause the plane to go upwards or downwards) could be controlled by the long twin nylon lines attached to a handle. So, there I stood in the field, "spinning round" with the little plane as it went round and round. "Crashes" were common but the plane could be easily reassembled.

Ah, those were carefree childhood fun days.