Base may get Royal Singapore Air Force unit

The United States Air Force is seeking comment on a proposal to bed down a training squadron of the Royal Singapore Air Force at Mountain Home AFB.

A formal notice of environmental assessment has been released, although officially the Air Force is not commenting on the proposal until final negotiations with the government of Singapore are concluded. It has, however, been discussed by the wing commander at a recent Military Affairs Committee meeting, by base officials at a school board meeting, and during a city council meeting within the last month.

The plan, as outlined in the environmental assessment proposal, calls for 10 F-15SG aircraft, along with their flight and maintenance crews, to be permanently assigned to Mountain Home AFB for a period of five to 20 years. The move would require modification of some buildings and construction of some new facilities on base, if approved.

The Royal Singapore Air Force has, in recent years, flown primarily some of the more advanced versions of the F-16, with more than 60 aircraft in its operational squadrons. It is considered by military observers to be a small but well-trained and highly capable air force.

Because of the limited amount of training space in the country, Singapore has entered into a number of agreements with other nations to provide training facilities. Besides facilities in neighboring countries, Australia and Europe, the RSAF has bedded down squadrons in the United States at Luke and Cannon AFBs in the past.

The exact number of personnel that would be assigned to Mountain Home AFB on a permanent basis, and how many would typically be here on temporary training assignments, is not known at this time, and is likely to be dependent on the on-going negotiations with the Singapore government.

Should those negotions be completed successfully, and most observers believe they will be, the first units could be arriving as early as next spring or summer, shortly after the 366th FW's own F-16s depart the base, part of the base realignment and closure process approved last year.

That would leave Mountain Home AFB exclusively flying various versions of the F-15. A squadron of F-15E Strike Eagles also is expected to arrive from Elmendorf AFB in Alaska in December/January as part of the Air Force's realignment of forces.

Singapore is one of the smallest nations in the world, at just over 267 square miles (Elmore County is considerably larger). It is located on islands at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula in southeast Asia and is one of the nations that dominates the vital seagoing trade routes through the Straits of Malacca.

A former British port founded as a trading colony in 1819, it gained its independence from Malaysia in 1965 and rapidly has grown to become an economic power in Asia, known primarily for its worldwide banking capabilities and high-tech production facilities. Its port is one of the largest and busiest in the world.

The CIA's official website calls it a "highly developed and successful free-market economy (that) enjoys a remarkably open and corruption-free environment...." It's standard of living among its citizens is on par with the largest of the western European nations.

It is a democracy of 4.5 million people with an 84-member unicameral parliment, a legal system based on English common law, and its literacy rate is as high as that of the United States.

A number of languages are spoken in Singapore. About one quarter of the population speaks English, the official language, while about one third speaks Mandarin as their primary language. A wide variety of other local and regional languages make up the rest.

Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the country, representing about three-quarters of the population, followed by Malays at 14 percent and Indians at 8 percent.

Buddhism dominates the many diverse religions of the country, with almost half the population adhering to that religion. About one-seventh of the nation is Muslim, slightly less are Catholic or other Christian denominations, with the rest Taoists and Hindus.

Comments on the proposal to bed down the Royal Singapore Air Force training squadron should be submitted to: Capt. Damien Pickart, 366th FW/PA, 366 Gunfighter Ave., Suite 314, Mountain Home AFB, ID 83648.