tak tau bodo ke ape.. post vid je pro-sg, sy dalam saf of course post vid yg ada la... hello this one is military thread not ATM thread.. tak suka can keluar...

SINGAPORE: The Singapore team helping to fight haze-causing fires in Indonesia returned Saturday afternoon (Oct 24) after more than 10 days in Palembang.

The return marks the completion of the Singapore Armed Forces' two-week deployment, as requested by Indonesian authorities.

A total of 40 SAF and Singapore Civil Defence Force troops were deployed on Oct 10.  A Chinook helicopter with a 5,000-litre heli-bucket was also deployed. Over the two weeks, it had discharged more than 400,000 litres of water and extinguished more than 50 hotspots in Sumatra.


Chief of Defence Force Major-General (MG) Perry Lim, with Chief of Air Force MG Hoo Cher Mou and SCDF Commissioner Eric Yap, welcoming personnel from the SAF and SCDF at Paya Lebar Air Base. (Photo: MINDEF)

Said Deputy Head of the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) Mr Harmensyah at a farewell event in Palembang on Friday: “On behalf of the Government of Indonesia, and representing the Head of BNPB, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for the contribution and hard work of the team and crew from Singapore who have worked hard for these last two weeks of the fire-fighting.”

Officers who spoke of the challenges faced in their mission said the situation in Palembang was quite bad.

"Upon landing, we could already feel the whole Palembang Airbase was already quite hazy," said Lt-Col Vincent Tan, the mission commander. "Understood that earlier that day then, it was above 1,000 the air quality index, AQI."

Added 2WO Vijaikumar, one of the aircrew specialists: "The underground heat was quite intense at times. We could actually feel the heat while we were setting up the bucket together with the SCDF and the rigging team."


ME3 Brandon Joseph being welcomed home by his daughter and wife. (Photo: MINDEF)

In a Facebook post, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen thanked “our men and women who overcame difficult conditions on this mission to put out hotspots and help the surrounding villages”.


The Singapore deployment and a Chinook helicopter equipped with a heli-bucket sent to Palembang to fight forest fires. (Photo: Ng Eng Hen's Facebook page)

“The industrial scale of this disaster – millions of hectares burning – requires a systemic, deliberate and multi-prong response to be effective. There is no shortage of expertise, both regional and international – that can be brought to bear on how to prevent or put out such fires, if requested,” said Dr Ng. “Indonesian leaders have realised that what is key in preventing this environmental disaster from recurring is prevention and enforcement.

“Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs General (GEN) (Rtd) Luhut Pandjaitan had related to me how Indonesian President Joko Widodo stood at ground zero and saw for himself the flames bursting from the peatlands below. Once it started, the burning rapidly spread, fuelled by the highly combustible peat below.

“Defence Minister GEN Ryamizard Ryacudu shared how, many years ago as a ground commander in TNI, he had asked for high pressure water jets to soak the peatlands when his unit was tasked to help put out fires. President Jokowi has suggested pre-constructed irrigation tunnels that can flood the peatlands when needed. I applaud the President’s ideas and initiatives.”


The heli-bucket used by Singapore troops, which can discharge 5,000 litres of water at a time. (Photo: Ng Eng Hen's Facebook page)

Dr Ng added that the “commercial entities that own or use the land” must take responsibility.

“The commercial entities that benefit from the burning must be pressured to change, by law and penalties. These companies must put in place measures to prevent fires from starting, and if that fails, infrastructure to limit the burning,” said Dr Ng.

Low visibility conditions in Palembang. (Photo: Ng Eng Hen's Facebook page)

“The strongest motivation to deal with the haze for Indonesia must be a moral one – the health of hundreds of thousands of their own citizens are affected by this man-made disaster as they breathe in high levels of pollutants. These are strong reasons to act decisively.”

Australian and Malaysian troops had left Palembang on Oct 19 and 20 respectively.

afghan is a big ass country with terrains way up above the sea level, a small chopper is just not the right tool for them
it is what it is, a small scout heli, expecting it to do more than that is just illogical

a small heli is pretty suitable to station on those esscom seabases, with minimum ground crew and equipment

airbus lah only in service in 2022, though other logical option is to buy more of the aw109 and just upgunning it, but I guess the little egg is a more of a "economical" option

Those offshore/seabase no issue to landing 10 tons helicopter, no mention 4-6 tons like AW109/superlynx 
those MD530G only single engine most of time use in land in world wide, use in sea is danger some more need patrol over sea  or catch the pirate, also without rescue Floats.
That why we need dua engine helicopter for sea use.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have continued their scale offensive inside the Deir Hafer Plains of east Aleppo, striking the ISIS militants at the town of Sheikh Ahmad near the Kuweires Military Airport.

In answer, ISIS conducted their own assault inside the Deir Hafer Plains of east Aleppo. It aimed the recently captured city of Jabboul. ISIS reportedly was unable to take control of Jabboul after intense firefights with the SAA. Militants were forced to retreat to the east in order to regroup for the future activity.

Arab sources explain the SAA’s lack of progress with the absence of the Russian Air Force. Nonetheless, it will be wrong to ingore the ISIS powerful resistance in the sector.

Separatly, an armored vehicle and an al Nusra base were destroyed in an army operation in al-Hbeit village on the border between Idleb and Hama.

Another army unit targeted gatherings of terrorists from the “Jaish al-Islam” group in the farms between al-Latamneh and Maarkaba village. A number of terrorists were killed.

The SAA unit destroyed a vehicle belonging to al-Nusra on the road between the Meteorology Department building and al-Sad in Daraa al-Balad neighborhood in Daraa city. Unconfirmed reports argue that the SAA also destroyed a number of terrorists’ positions and supply routes in Daraa al-Balad.

Overall, for now at least, Russian-built Flankers retain the technical edge over their inferior Chinese copies. Sukhoi’s Su-35S is by far the most capable version of the Flanker that has been built to date. It has advanced avionics, a much-improved airframe and new motors with three-dimensional thrust vectoring. It’s a very capable fighter that—if fielded in numbers—would be a potent threat to Western air forces. Other Russian Flanker variants like the Su-30SM and Su-34 are also very capable warplanes.

But the Chinese are catching up—they’ve gone beyond just reverse engineering and have started to branch off into original works of their own. Indeed, a senior U.S. industry official once told me that the Chinese are starting to embark on an aerospace “renaissance.” The main problem for the Chinese is that they are woefully behind on engine technology. While Chinese engineers are able to build working engines in the lab, they are not able to build reliable production jet engines. It remains their single biggest Achilles’ Heel.

While the Chinese are almost certainly catching up on aircraft avionics and sensors, it is not clear how capable their systems are. It is evident that the Chinese are developing passive electronically scanned array radar and active electronically scanned array radars, but how close those systems are to “prime time” is not clear. Similarly, the Chinese are developing their own electronic warfare systems, infrared search and track and electro-optical targeting systems. But there is very little data on how those systems might perform in the real world—even if the brochures are impressive. Given that the Chinese are relative novices at building indigenous combat aircraft and their subsystems, it is highly likely that most of the original Russian-built Flanker variants are still superior to Beijing’s knock-offs.

Nonetheless, Beijing’s aerospace industry has produced an impressive array of Flanker clones. In addition to the original J-11, J-11A and the indigenized J-11B—China is working on advanced derivatives including the J-11BS, J-11D and the J-16 strike fighter. The Chinese have also developed the J-15 carrier-variant from a prototype of the Su-33 Flanker. The three most capable Chinese Flankers are the J-15, J-11D and J-16.  The J-11D is in many respects the Chinese equivalent of the Su-35—but it is overall less capable with inferior maneuverability and inferior avionics and powerplant. But it’s probably cheaper—and might be an attractive export product if the Chinese could craft operationally useable engines. But that’s still a ways off.

In preparation for the country's defense against North Korea's growing fleet of drones, South Korea designs their attack drones to aerially assault foreign UAVs in mid-air.
Head of the unmanned systems research group at the Korea Advances Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Shim Hyun Chul and his team of students have tested the new drone technology.
"The fear is that the drones are very easy to build... They can do a lot of things," notes Shim. "It appears as a very new threat."

Although the recovered North Korean drones on South Korean soil appear to be for reconnaissance purposes only, analysts fear that armed drones could come hovering over South Korea next.
"We did not expect that North Korea could make such small drones and avoid our radar," says Moon Sung Muk of the Korea Research Institute for Strategy in Seoul. "South Korea must come up with a new security plan to detect these drones quicker and attack them," he adds.

As reported by Reuters in October, Lockheed Martin has reached a "verbal agreement" with the Pentagon to build "up to" 83 C-130J Super Hercules aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps. As currently envisioned, the deal would stretch over five years' duration, through 2020, and expand the size of a contract originally envisioned to cover just 79 aircraft.

Details on the deal are still being hammered out. Indeed, despite Reuters' report of the verbal agreement having been reached as recently as last week, when Lockheed reported earnings, the company said it was still "negotiating final contract terms with its customer." That said, negotiations appear to be going well, enough so that the company "expects to receive additional funding by the end of 2015."

Finland borders Russia to its northeast, while Sweden has seen recent Russian military violations of its territory — most notably by a possible Russian submarine in October of 2014.

The new battle group, known as the Swedish Finnish Naval Task Force (SFNTG), is envisioned as a cost-effective way for the two nations to conduct joint crisis response operations in the Arctic and the surrounding regions.

According to Defense News, the SFNTG will be staffed by troops trained to operate within the region’s climatic extremes. The task force will “conduct sea surveillance, exercises and include combined units,” Defense News reports. “It would share infrastructure and be able to transfer operational control of units between the Swedish and Finnish navies.”

Hello dis Lowyat thread not Funan digitalife joke bro joke chill

Why Indon kick out Msia and SG firefighters? Problem solved kah? http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/sing...rn/2214934.html

A number of sources have indicated that a flight of Tu-22M3 (or M5) heavy bombers has been deployed to the Mozdok air base in North Ossetia, which also functions as a staging point for flights servicing the Russian contingent in Syria. The deployment suggests that these aircraft are being prepared to launch strikes against Syria islamists.

dunno... tonight going temasek club to have ktv with head of csscom bg lam... see what he says cause from army only those in logistics n supply are involved with that operation..
  not fair comparison...
those northern countries should form a nordic or scandinavian alliance... but some in nato... haih

Roosevelt left Changi belum? Supposed to be supporting ops in South China Sea... or habis and balik Changi already?

Geylang 'surge deployment' over for now

This Fighter Might Replace Indonesia's Aging F-5 Fighters (Hint: Not the Su-35)

Sweden’s Saab recently unveiled a new bid to gain access to Indonesia’s fighter market. Can it beat the Russian favorite?

By Benjamin David Baker
October 30, 2015

Indonesia is currently in the process of updating a part of its eclectic mix of military aircraft. The three platforms which represent Jakarta’s most formidable airborne capability are the U.S. General Dynamics (GD) F-16, Russian Sukhoi-27, and Sukhoi-30MK. The Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) reflects the country’s recent history international relations, operating a mixed bag of Russian, U.S., Brazilian, and European aircraft.

Since its independence in 1945, the country has fielded aircraft from both sides of the Iron Curtain, often reflecting its political alignment. In 1986s, Indonesia purchased a batch of F-16s, intended to supplement its fleet of F-5E Tigers. However, after the U.S. imposed sanctions following Jakarta’s involvement in the 1999 East Timor independence, these quickly dilapidated due to a lack of spare parts. As a result, the TNI-AU acquired Russian jets. Together with the F-16s, which were modernized after Washington lifted sanctions in 2005, these aircraft still form the mainstay of Indonesia’s aerial combat fleet.

As previously reported by the Diplomat, Indonesia has been looking to beef up its aerial combat capabilities. For its long term needs, Indonesia has signed up to South Korea’s KF-X program, an ambitious project aimed at providing Seoul and Jakarta with a “4,5 generation fighter.” This fighter is supposed to fill a role between the F-16 currently fielded by both states, and the F-35, which has been deemed a too expensive option. Indonesia currently has a 20 percent stake in the project, and is expected to deploy 80 KF-Xs by 2030. (South Korea owns the remaining 80 percent and is expected to field 120.)

An important medium-term solution is to replace the six aging F-5s with a number of fourth-generation fighters by the end of the decade. Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro previously stated ”We are in the process of evaluating which jet fighter will best suit our requirements, whether the aircraft is from Russia, USA or other countries.” This year, Indonesia’s General Moeldoko said that “the ministry is looking at buying 16 aircraft, but the type and number of aircraft depends on Indonesia’s financial position.” Two months ago, Jakarta announced that it will purchase a squadron of 16 Sukhoi-35s (Flanker E,) an upgraded version of the Su-27 currently in the TNI-AU’s service.

However, other aircraft companies are still hoping to penetrate the Indonesian market. Other contenders include GD’s upgraded Vipers (Block 52+ “V” version,) the Eurofighter Typhoon and Swedish Saab’s JAS 39 Gripen. Under Indonesian law new defense acquisitions must include a minimum 30 percent direct offset, while the selection criteria have been weighted 30 percent for aircraft/system performance, 30 percent acquisition/life-cycle costs, and 40 percent for industrial cooperation.

The Swedes seems to have stepped up its competition. According to Jane’s, Saab recently announced that it is not only seeking to sell Indonesia its Gripens, but is sweetening the deal with a “Swedish Air Power Package.” Saab said that this package consists of the “latest version” of its Gripen fighter aircraft; the company’s Erieye Airborne Early Warning & Control System (AWACS;) ground-based command and control; tactical datalinks; industrial co-operation, including transfers of technology and local production; and extensive job creation, which Saab said would reach “thousands of jobs.”

This package could be a worthwhile investment. The Gripen model on the table is probably the “E/F” model, also known as the Gripen NG (New Generation.) According to Saab, the Gripen NG is “Revolutionary because it combines advanced technology and operational effectiveness in an affordable package that no other fighter aircraft can even hope to match.” As both cost and industrial cooperation are key criteria for Jakarta, the Gripen has a fighting chance against the other contenders.