SINGAPORE – Construction on an Australian plot of land newly available to the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will likely begin in 2019, Australian Minister for Defence Marise Payne said on Friday (Oct 14).

The plot, called the Townsville Field Training Area, will be about five times the size of Singapore when it is developed. It will be used mainly for army and air training. The SAF does not train there at the moment.

Ms Payne was speaking at a joint press conference with Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen on Friday. The press conference followed the signing of an agreement on Military Training and Training Area Development between Australia and Singapore on Thursday.

Under the agreement, the training space which the SAF can use in Australia will grow from four times to 10 times the size of Singapore.

The SAF will have military training access to, for 25 years, the new Townsville Field Training Area, and the existing Shoalwater Bay Training Area where Exercise Wallaby is conducted annually.

The Shoalwater Bay Training Area – which is about four times the size of Singapore and which the SAF has had access to since 1990 – will also be expanded.

The number of SAF troops who train in Australia each year will grow from 6,600 to 14,000 a year. They will also train over 18 weeks a year instead of six weeks currently.

Singapore and Australia will jointly develop the two training areas, which are in Queensland, with Singapore committing to spending A$2.25 billion (S$2.38 billion) on developing military facilities in Australia over the next 25 years.

At the press conference, Ms Payne added that the master planning process for the development of the Townsville Field Training Area will likely take place in 2017 and 2018, with construction expected to start in 2019.

Dr Ng said that the SAF hopes to build a combined arms live-firing range in the expanded training areas.

He added: “I think (this is) timely because our platforms have been renewed. We haven’t built a range, a modern range, in that sense.”

He also said that the SAF also hoped to build an urban live-firing training area in Australia, adding that many of the SAF’s missions in the future would be in dense urban areas.

Dr Ng, who took a helicopter-familiarisation flight over the Townsville Field Training Area after the press conference on Friday, said it was “a very rare piece of training ground” which will allow the SAF to conduct training for a wide range of army units, ranging from artillery units to helicopters.

He added that the town leaders and businessmen of Townsville he met were warm and accepted that the SAF would be training there.

He said that SAF soldiers on their part would have to be good guests when they trained at Townsville.

This article was first published on October 14, 2016.
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TOULOUSE – Singapore Airlines (SIA) collected its sixth Airbus A350-900 from the European manufacturer on Friday (Oct 14).

The plane, which will be used for SIA’s non-stop flights between Singapore and San Francisco from Oct 23, is also the 10,000th aircraft that Airbus has delivered.

At a ceremony held at the delivery centre in Toulouse, France, SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong said Airbus aircraft have “contributed greatly” to Singapore Airlines’ successes over the decades.

Airbus group chief executive Tom Enders described SIA as “a true partner” of Airbus.

The relationship between the two firms has spanned nearly four decades.

SIA placed its first order with Airbus in 1979 for the A300B4 and has since operated every model that has been produced – the A300, A310, A320, A330, A340, A350 and A380 families.

The airline’s order of 67 A350s also makes it the second largest customer for the A350 planes, after Qatar Airways’ order of 80.

SIA, however, will be the biggest operator of the A350-900 type, and is the first customer for the ultra-long-range version of the A350-900, which will allow even longer flights from Singapore to Los Angeles and New York in 2018.

The airline’s first A350-900 was launched in March and is used for flights to Amsterdam, Johannesburg and Dusseldorf.

More destinations will be added as more aircraft is added to the fleet.

The relationship between SIA and Airbus goes beyond aircraft purchases and includes business partnerships as well.

Earlier this year, Airbus and SIA Engineering Company – an SIA subsidiary – signed an agreement to form a joint-venture heavy maintenance facility in Singapore.

Last year, SIA and Airbus jointly launched Airbus Asia Training Centre, providing pilot training on Airbus aircraft types in the Asia-Pacific region.

This article was first published on October 14, 2016.
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