The Kallang Airport (Chinese: 加冷机场), also known as the Kallang Aerodrome, opened on 1937 as Singapore's first purpose-built civil airport, together with a anchorage for seaplanes. Land was reclaimed in the Kallang Basin to turn the swampy area into a cicular-shaped airfield and to build a slipway for the seaplanes. The airport was closed in 1955 when the new airport at Paya Lebar was built, and the terminal building remains standing today as the headquaters of the People's Association. Jump to: navigation, search 1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The purpose of a ships or boats anchor is to attach the vessel to the ground at a specific point. ... A DeHavilland Single Otter floatplane in Harbour Air livery A seaplane is an aircraft designed to take off and land (correctly, though less commonly, alight) upon water. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Paya Lebar is an area in the central-eastern part of Singapore. ...

History

The need to build the airport arised when booming aviation traffic led to congestion at the existing Seletar Airbase (today's Seletar Airport), which was opened to passenger traffic in 1930. Sir Cecil Clementi, then Governor of the Straits Settlementa, was quoted thus: RAF Seletar was a Royal Air Force station in Singapore. ... Seletar Airport (Chinese: 实里达机场 {{IATA code: XSP; ICAO code: WSSL}} in the city and State of Singapore is the first international airport, it was completed in 1929, and be substituted by Kallang Airport(already closed) in 1937, nowadays, it is reuesd as another international airport mainly for chartered flights. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1930 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Sir Cecil Clementi (1875 - 1947) was a British colonial administrator. ...

"Looking into the future, I expect to see Singapore become one of the largest, most important airports of the world .... It is therefore essential that we should have here, close to the heart of the town, an aerodrome which is equally suitable for land planes and sea planes ...."

When the airport was opened with much fanfair on 12 June 1937, it was hailed as "the finest airport in the British Empire" with facilities which would have been considered revolutionary at that time. The circular shaped airfield allowed planes to land from any direction, and the slipway allows seaplanes to be served at the same terminal building as that for regular planes. The terminal building itself was considered a marvel, with a large open-air viewing gallery on the top of the two-storey building and with an ironic circular control tower in the middle of the glass-clad building. Jump to: navigation, search June 12 is the 163rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (164th in leap years), with 202 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The British Empire in 1897, marked in pink, the traditional colour for Imperial British dominions on maps The British Empire was the worlds first global power, a product of the European Age of Exploration that began with the global maritime empires of Portugal and Spain... The control tower at Schiphol airport. ...

The growth in aviation traffic was stunted during the war years, a period which saw the landing circle being converted into a single runway to allow warplanes to utilise it. The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and Qantas resumed their regular services to the airport, while the resurrected local airline Malayan Airways (MAL)began services on 1 May 1947. The Japanese Occupation of Singapore was to become a major turning point in the history of several nations, including that of the Japanese, who rampaged down the Malay Peninsula with the singular intent of occupying Singapore to gain greater control over her war-time resource gathering efforts, the British, with... The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the exclusive British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946. ... QF may also mean Quick firing in British artillery terminology. ... Jump to: navigation, search May 1 is the 121st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (122nd in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1947 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In the early 1950s, the increasing size of airplanes and the need for longer runways resulted in it being extended beyond Mountbatten Road in the eastern boundary of the facility into what is now Old Airport Road, resulting in the need to install traffic lights to halt vehicular traffic everytime a plane takes-off or lands. Jump to: navigation, search // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the... Jump to: navigation, search Traffic lights can have several additional lights for filter turns or bus lanes. ...

Closure

The success of MAL, and rapid growth again caused congestion at the facility, while advancing technology neccesited extension of the only runway. This was no longer possible as it would mean extending into residential areas, leading to a decision to build another new facility at Paya Lebar in 1951 a further 8 kilometres away from the city. When the new airport was completed on 20 August 1955, the Kallang Airport was closed down, and all associated facilities moved to the new facility. The runway was converted into a road, and the airfield turned into a recreational area with the building of the National Stadium and Singapore Indoor Stadium. The terminal building continues to stand as the People's Association's headquaters, the most visible reminder of the airport's existance. Paya Lebar is an area in the central-eastern part of Singapore. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1951 was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer), symbol: km is a unit of length in the metric system equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words χίλια (khilia) = thousand and μέτρο (metro) = count/measure). ... Jump to: navigation, search August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A parade event being held at the National Stadium. ...

Legacy

The airport's contribution to local aviation history has left behind numerous reminders of its legacy. Where the runway used to run past Mountbatten Road, has now been called the Old Airport Road. The surrounding public flats there are sometimes refered to as the Old Airport Estate or Kallang Airport Estate. In the estate, roads like Dakota Crescent commemorates the successful landing of a Douglas DC-3 plane which managed to land safely using the parallel road of the runway, minutes after the "Belfast" crashed on the runway. A BOAC Lockheed Constellation, it was attempting to land in Singapore enroute to London from Sydney, killing 32 passengers and 1 crew on 13 March 1954. The same incident led to the general public nominating "Dakota" as the name for the upcoming Dakota MRT Station. The Douglas DC-3 is a fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft which revolutionised air transport in the 1930s and 1940s, and is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made (also see Boeing 707 and Boeing 747). ... After technical problems with the Comet, BOAC resumed jet service with imported Boeing 707s. ... TWA was one of the most well-known Constellation operators. ... Jump to: navigation, search The clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, which contains Big Ben London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Jump to: navigation, search Sydney is the capital city of the Australian state of New South Wales and Australias largest and oldest city (founded in 1788). ... Jump to: navigation, search March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dakota MRT station, tentatively (CC8) is a proposed underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train station on the Circle MRT Line in Singapore. ...

The slipway for seaplanes is now occupied by the Oasis Building, a structure built into the sea and housing several restaurants.

External links

• Singapore's First Airport
• Aviation landscape in Singapore