National Day flypast

I flew with the jets on three occasions. Twice with the Strikemasters and once with the Hunter. My assignment was to film the air to air flight sequence for a documentary on the Singapore Air Defence Command. The filming was schedule to take advantage of the frequent training going on in preparation for the flypast on National Day. My first flight was to get familiar with the manoeuvres and to decide on the most suitable camera to use. The flight was in the afternoon and just before taking off a member of the ground crew handed me an empty red plastic bag. He did not say a word but I could read all over his face "you may need it". These were subsonic jets but the g-force they generated made my filming difficult. On the first try, I had my 3kg camera on my lap and I could not lift it to my eye level. It seemed to weigh a ton. My head was pressed downwards and felt my neck was not there. I did not get the shot. The g-force I experienced was unpleasant but what was to follow was worse. When our chase place dived to join the formation my stomach rushed up to my mouth giving the sensation of nausea. The rubbery smell of my communication mouthpiece worsen the situation. I reached for the red plastic bag. We continued filming and this time I had the camera at eye level, braced myself and with one elbow getting support from the frame of the cockpit. I did get some decent shots. The other two flights were in the morning and I flew with an empty stomach. The Hunter had a higher g-force but we did the belly up only once. Photo 1 - Shooting from below the formation was easy. This shot was for my album. I will take along my still camera when covering an interesting assignment such as this. Photo 2 - Self portrait with a Leica M2+35mm lens in my outstretched left arm.