Last weekend on May 21 and 22, hundreds of thousands of people descended upon Paya Lebar Air Base for the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Open House. While members of the public escaped from the scorching heat by lingering in the two massive exhibit halls, everyone probably failed to notice the insignia of 4 new squadrons that are making their appearance at an open house for the first time namely: 129, 138, 801 and 811 Squadrons.
It is not known when the RSAF first stood up 138 Squadron, assigned under the service’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Command. But the first mention of the squadron occurred in issue no 134 of the RSAF’s Air Force News in 2015 when the UAV Command was reorganized, under the direction of then commanding officer Col. Ho Kum Leun, from a type-centric to a task-centric command.
A ceremony was held at Murai Camp on Arp. 30, 2015 to make the completion of the reorganization. Air Force news reported that the “new structure sees the inauguration of six new Groups and squadrons.”
Former Chief of Air Force Maj. Gen. Hoo Cher Mou then presented the Inauguration Plaques to the new commanders of these six units, including 129, 138, 801 and 811 squadrons.
1 Air Engineering and Logistics Group (1AELG), with 801 and 811 under its command, is tasked with maintenance of the two types of drones operated by the RSAF – Hermes 450 and Heron 1.
Both 129 and 138 squadrons come under the Imagery Exploitation Group (IXG) and are manned by Air Imagery Intelligence Experts (AIRIX). We do know that 129 Squadron was inaugurated on Aug. 26, 2014 at the Air Force Museum. The first commanding officer of the squadron was LTC Quek Seoh Hiong.
The press release from the Ministry of Defense said the unit “was formed to carry out imagery intelligence operations rapidly and responsively to support SAF’s operations.”
It is 138 squadron that is more mysterious. Speaking to military experts from UAV command at the Open House, we understand that the unit’s main task was to support imagery analysis for the Singapore Army. Information gathered by Boeing ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle from the Republic of Singapore Navy are not analyzed by 138 squadron.
It can be said that 129 squadron provides imagery analysis for the flying branch while 138 squadron is the unit that will go out to the field to support ground troops. Its members are probably part of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Imagery Analysis Team assigned to the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) Headquarters in Kuwait as part of Singapore’s contribution to the multi-nation coalition fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Singapore announced in January that this team will continue to support the effort for another year.
Many years before that, Singapore had been sending teams of imagery analysis experts to Afghanistan under Operation Blue Ridge. The Searcher Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was brought over to the Oruzgan province where it flew 450 hours over 112 missions. Even after the Searcher departed, Singapore continued to send imagery analysis experts to Multinational Base Tarin Kowt (MBTK) to help analyze images captured by coalition partners. Those deployments had allowed the SAF to gain valuable experience operating UAVs in a combat environment.