As with all highly-skilled teams, Mothership was activated by the Republic of Singapore Navy.

Well, sort of.

We went onboard the Republic of Singapore Navy’s landing ship tank, the RSS Endurance, as it made its way from Changi Naval Base to the Southern Islands for Helo-ops to embark a Super Puma Helicopter.

RSS Endurance is commanded by Lt Colonel Sylvan Sumanthiran (a more handsome version of the Matrix’s Morpheus).

Here's Morpheus. He didn't give us any red or blue pills, much to our disappointment.

Okay, back to the matrix reality.

The RSS Endurance is one of four landing ship tanks that the Navy operates. At 141 metres in length, the landing ship tanks are the largest ships in the Navy’s fleet. Each landing ship tank can fit two medium-lift helicopters on its deck and has a well dock with space for up to four fast-landing crafts...

To cut the long story short, it's big enough.

You can also visit the SAF50 exhibition at Vivocity this weekend to check out the size and along with other ops-ready assets from the entire Singapore Army. Maybe can check out cute guys/girls in uniform too.

We digress. Back to the ship.

Over the course of day, we spoke to a few officers onboard the ship.

On the Navy’s role in safeguarding Singapore

As we caught a glimpse of the city skyline from a distance, Senior Lt Colonel Chew Chun Liang said:

“Every time we sail through the Singapore Straits, you really get a sense of the contrast, on one side you see a modern metropolis, the majestic buildings, the port, the economy, while on the other side, it’s so much less developed.”

You look at the city from out here; it all looks so open and porous but I know our Navy is capable of defending it and that gives me a lot of pride."

And at that moment we heard Dick Lee's Home playing in the background. Or maybe it was just motion sickness.

90% of Singapore’s trade comes through the sea, and since Singapore imports almost everything, it is imperative that the sea lanes remain open hence the need for us to have a strong navy capable of safeguarding the trade routes that go through the Straits of Malacca.

Lunchtime conversations on real-life ops

We spoke to ME-3 Kenneth Tham over lunch about his deployment to Iraq:

“We were there for three months as part of a multi-national force to protect an important oil terminal.

During one of our patrols, we actually had a skiff  (a light rowing boat) charged towards us. These boats can sometimes be suicide boats loaded with explosives, so we had to take defensive action. We fired into the area around the skiff to show we meant business and eventually the skiff turned away. ”

Senior Lt Colonel Chew then told us why Submarines are so badass:

“The Submarine is like a blind and old Kungfu Master. It cannot see its enemies.It is slow and can only listen for them deep underwater but it can be extremely formidable.

In fact, you have 1 ship against the submarine, the submarine will win. 2 ships against the submarine, the submarine will also win. Even if you put a few ships against the submarine, if the commander of the submarine is good, it will also win. The submarine can lie in wait and ambush the ships and it is extremely difficult for ships to find it. It only gives away its position when it fires a torpedo and by the time the ships get a track on its position, it could already have fired four or five torpedoes and hit a few ships. You really need a lot of wit and good strategy to defeat the submarine.

Our submarines are extremely capable. When we exercise with a certain foreign navy, our submarines can evade the defences of their carrier group and come up close to the Aircraft Carrier. We would then take a photo of their Carrier on the cross-hat of our periscope and send them a picture and they will all be shocked.”

#somuchwin for the submarine.

Pretty clouds

Super Puma Pilot Captain Nat Goh told us about clouds and, erm, spotting houses.

“Being a pilot has always been my childhood dream. When I started training, there were fifteen of us in my batch, but after the first stage, only five remained. Then the five of us were joined with 10 others for the next few stages of training. After those stages, only 10 of us graduated to become pilots. So it’s really sad because you keep seeing your friends drop out. I am quite glad to have made the cut.

We train regularly in Australia, at Oakey Training. The reason is of course the wide expanse of space for us to fly there. In Singapore,it’s actually quite boring, we take off and after a very short while, we have to turn back, because we have reached the limit of Singapore’s airspace.

My favourite part of flying is looking at the clouds. They can be really pretty. And I know it’s a little childish, but sometimes when I fly I will look down to try to spot my house."

Being a pilot rocks and good luck spotting your house while flying in circles.

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Top photo from here, others by Lim Weixiang

Once again, the RSS Endurance, its handsome CO, the Super Puma Helicopter and it’s cloud-loving pilot will be at VivoCity from Feb. 12-15, 2015 for the SAF50 Exhibition.