Singapore F-16's at Dijon
For many years there have been contacts between the French AF and Singapore AF, based on a bilateral agreement (SOFA) signed in 1998. Already in 1998 with exercise 'Eastern Arc', 4 French mirages from Orange visited Singapore. The 'Western Arc' exercise would be the counterpart by which the Singapore AF would visit France. It was originally planned to happen in 2003 but the outbreak of the SARS-disease is Asia postponed this exercise for a year.
In previous French exercises, like ODAX and OPERA, the Singapore AF already
participated with A-4S aircraft. These A-4S's belonged to the Singapore
training squadron (150 squadron) currently based at Cazaux in southern
France. The pilots for this exercise were flown-in directly from
Singapore to
Cazaux a week before the actual exercises took place, where they prepared
themselves for the French weather and ATC procedures.
As 'Western Arc' would require more sophisticated aircraft than A-4's,
F-16's
were used for this exercise between September 20 2004 and October 01 2004.
During the first week familiarization flights took place with simple 1
versus
1 and 2 vs. 2 Combat Air Patrol missions. For the second week, more complex
Combat Air Patrol and Close Air Support missions were planned with not-even
numbers (2 vs. 1 or 3 vs. 4).
French Mirages
During the first week, the Dijon PRO organized a media day on the 16th. The weather forecast for the 16th day was awful; a day with heavy rain showers was predicted by the various (internet) weather-magicians. While driving from the Netherlands to the center of France, nature tried to prove that these forecasts had to be correct. Only some 50 km north of Dijon, the heavy rain stopped and a gray (but dry!!) cloud base remained overhead for the rest of the day. The flightline of the F-16’s was visited and the runway at a point were the Mirages lifted their wheels from the runway.After leaving the base around 17:00, the rain showers were picked up again north of Dijon......
After the 'Western Arc 04' exercise ended, the Singaporese aircraft flew back via Souda Bay, Al Dhafra to Air Force Station Gwalior in India. At Air Force Station Gwalior they participated in the Indian-Singaporese exercise SINDEX '04 from 7 October to 28 October 2004.
I would like to thank LTT Digue of BA 102, Dijon and SIRPA/AIR of the Armee de l'Air and Lee Sin Yee of the Singapore Defense Force.
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