Malaysia now exporter of jet engines (sort of)

Most of you guys should know by now, that a pair of jet engines for an F-5E fighter plane, plus numerous other 'items' were stolen from a Royal Malaysian Air Farce (<-- this is not a spelling error) base in 2007. The air force only found out that they were missing during an audit last year and we, the public were only told about it this week (Dec 2009).


Investigation is, of course, still on-going, after 2 years, because our world class Polis DiRaja Malaysia deemed this case "manyak besar wor".


In other countries, the culprits would have already been found and caught within a week, branded a traitor and then shot in face. However, in super efficient Malaysia, we give the bad guys 2 years' head start because we are that damn good!

RMAF's Northrop F-5E Tiger II

Anyway, a bit of history: The F-5E first flew in 1972 and Malaysia recieved them from the United States in 1975 to strengthen the country against the communist threat. However, these aircraft are now obsolete and has been relegated to training and reconaissance duties.

Have you seen this J85 jet engine? £10 reward.

The stolen J85 engines were meant to be replacements for the aircraft fleet. The air force chief was quoted saying that the defence capability of RMAF has not been affected by the loss of the two engines. Well, that's great but if we didn't need those engines as spares in the first place, why were they bought?

Ever since the news of the stolen engines surfaced on the internet, the RMAF ended up being laughing stock all over the world, even in the UK. Some still find it hard to believe that items as big as jet engines can get stolen from a military facility. You have to wonder what the rest of the missing 'items' are. Radar? Ejection seats? Missiles?

Could this be missing too? AIM-9 Sidewinder missile

The engines were reported to have been sold by the thief to an undisclosed South American country. Wow... Malaysia is now exporting jet engines! How thoughtful of the government in not naming the country in case we piss them off. Or is it because they don't even know where the engines are, so they just cook up a cock and bull story to pretend like they are in control of the issue.

Now some questions:

1. Did no one notice the engines being craned onto a lorry? It's not like the engine is a light item that 2 guys can simply lift up. Each engine is reported to weigh about 200kg.

2. Did the gate security guard not wonder "Err... where you think you going with those, dude?"


3. Rumor has it that the engines were stolen from Sg Besi AFB (air force base). What were the engines doing there in the first place? Sg Besi neither has the storage space nor the technicians to service the engines. And F-5Es are based at Butterworth AFB.


4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, and the question that no one has asked: RM50 million for a pair of J85 engines??? The unit price of an F-5E aircraft is only USD 2.1 million (RM 7 million). Why do a pair of these replacement engines costs as much as seven F-5Es???

If you bring your RM100k Toyota to the garage to have the engine swapped and the mechanic told you that the engine costs RM700k, would you still let him do it? Something must have gone very wrong somewhere during the purchase.



Before the government even investigates this theft, they should first find out why the Defense Ministry approved the purchase of severely overpriced replacement engines which the air force don't even need.


I suspect whoever bought the engines in the first place on behalf of RMAF either received a lot of kickbacks for it or is just plain stupid.

Another reason may be that more than a pair of engines were stolen. Or the stolen engines weren't J85s but rather F404s which the new RMAF F/A-18 Hornet uses (and more expensive).

A school of thought that has been floating around the blogosphere suggests that RMAF never recieved the engines in the first place. The air force simply claimed that 'new engines were missing' to handle the accounting irregularities after finding out that RM50 million went 'poof' in the Defence Ministry's bank account.

If you click on the link below, you can see there is a big market for J85 jet engines. You will also notice that none of them costs as much RM50 million. Hmm... maybe one of our missing engines is in the list...

http://www.speednews.com/EquipmentResults.aspx?Search=Engine&Engine=J85


If you have any more theories, don't be shy and please do post it in the comments section. No theory is too stupid as the Royal Malaysian Air Farce has proven to us that absolutely anything can happen in Malaysia. Malaysia is indeed Uniquely Asia!

Fluffy the puppy

Fluffy was born to a Maltese daddy and Shih Tzu mum in March 2009. His previous owner called him 'Bruno' because of his size when he was a baby.

Fluffy's first day at his new home

On his bed with his toys

We bought and brought him home when he's 8 weeks old and recieved his first shot. We re-named him to Fifi, after Michelle's Shih Tzu in Malaysia but after our vet corrected us that Fifi is actually a girl's name, we had to give him another name, hence 'Fluffy'. Not brilliant but we had to keep the pronounciation similar to avoid confusing our poor little puppy.

Fluffy chilling out on his bed

Playing with his pacifier

Fluffy getting dried after bath

Fluffy sleeping in his alternate bed. This cushion used to be Michelle's and one day Fluffy decided to 'leave his mark on it'. So we had to give it to him. Bad boy!






Training Fluffy

Running in the park

Fluffy loves BBQ!

Fluffy now... much bigger and weighs in at approx 9kg... slightly overweight for a Shih Tzu.

Sony Playstation 3 Slim review

This is my review of Sony's Playstation 3 Slim 250GB. I bought the console from a local HMV store a couple of weeks ago and it came bundled with the Dark Knight and X-Men Origins: Wolverine blu rays, Metal Gear Solid 4 game and a official Sony blu ray remote, all for £284.99.


The Playstation 3 (PS3) is the third generation console in Sony's gaming lineage and presented a challenge to the X-Box 360 and Nintendo Wii.


The PS3 boasts a immensely powerful 3.2 Ghz Cell Broadband Engine processor and an RSX graphics card. This enables high definition display, up to 1080p, to be displayed on a HD-ready television set. There is also a blu ray disc drive, a 250GB hard drive, wireless network and bluetooth connectivity.


Upon opening up the box, I was presented the blu ray discs, a Dual Shock controller, power cable, AV cables, printed manuals, and of course, the console itself.


The Slim version of the PS3 that I bought is lighter and smaller than its predecessor released earlier (a.k.a the Fat version), consumes up to 33% less power and is therefore quieter. It will also bitstream high definition sounds to your amplifier via a HDMI cable. If you don't have an amplifier that accepts HDMI connections, you can also output digital audio to your reciever via optical out at the rear of the console unit which allows legacy DTS and Dolby Digital to be played.





The first production batch PS3s came with 3 USB ports and backward compatibilty with PS2 games which were eventually watered down in latter versions whereby only 2 USB ports were provided with no backwards compatibility at all, as found on current versions.


Just after booting your PS3 up for the first time, you'd want to begin by customizing the video settings to suit your television set. If you have a 1080p tv, please do connect it to your PS3 using a HDMI 1.3a compliant cable and you will be rewarded with a rich and vibrant colors. When watching movies with dark scenes, you can clearly see the silhoutte of contrasting blacks, especially handy when watching Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.

Watching Star Wars Episode III on it was a wonderful experience. The CGI scenes have never looked more realistic and brings you closer to the action.

The load time for blu rays discs on the PS3 is also one of the best rated in the market, at a mere 5 secs. If you speak to owners of some standalone blu ray players, they will tell you that it takes an average of 20 seconds to a whole minute to load a single disc!



In addition to being a games console and blu ray player, the PS3 will also decode Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby HD and DTS-Master Audio on board. Obviously, you need an AV reciever that accepts both video and audio via HDMI to be able to output HD sounds. The result of this is a spectacular symphony of surround sound from your movies or games, bringing deep immersion into whatever that is happening on screen.

Whilst spinning the Dark Knight bundled disc, I can hear the drop of every spen bullet casing fired by the Joker in the opening scene. You can even hear Christian Bale breathing through his black rubber suit when the background ambient noise is sufficiently low.

When playing Metal Gear Solid 4, you hear bullets whizz past you as you trip the alarm, and you can tell when the enemy is about to stick a knife into your back.



From left to right, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman: The Dark Knight, Metal Gear Solid 4.




The PS3 comes with a single DualShock Six-Axis controller as standard. You can either connect the controller using a cable provided or you can use it wirelessly (using bluetooth). The joypad provides rumble and vibration feedback from appropriate games. The Six-Axis function detects movement in the joypad and allows you to control movement in the game by simply turning your joypad, a bit like Nintendo Wii.

The free official Sony blu ray remote.





The XMB menu

Once you've grown accustomed to the menu interface, I recommend signing up to Playstation Network (for free) where you can stay in contact with fellow PS3 owners, and also pay a visit to Sony's online store where you can download demos and trailers to games and movies.

Metal Gear Solid screen





Batman: Arkham Asylum demo screen

Blessed with a 250GB 3.5" hard drive and DIVx support, you can save and play your downloaded movies on the PS3 too! I saved a whole season of downloaded X-Files on the console and played it seamlessly with no problems at all.

There are two ways of importing your files: either via the network (if your PS3 is connected to your home network) or using a USB pen drive.



As mentioned earlier, this version of the PS3 consumes less power and quieter. Contrary to the 60GB version of the PS3, which could sound like a jet plane taking off, you really don't hear the console running at all. The fan noise is near inaudible unless you stick your ear right next to the unit.



To summarize, the PS3 is an extremely powerful gaming console and doubles as a reliable blu -ray player. If you are looking for a good blu ray player, I suggest you get the PS3 even though you don't play any games.

Imperial War Museum London

Last week, I went to the Imperial War Museum in London to wait for my wife to finish her overtime work on Saturday.

Entrance was free of charge so that was nice. These are some of the exhibits that I particularly liked. Enjoy.



Wehrmacht Jagdpanther - Germany's WW2 tank killer






Russian T34 tank



British Army M3 Grant tank as used by General Montgomery




Little Boy atomic bomb, similar to the one dropped in Japan





Rheinmetall PAK 37 Anti-tank gun
Caliber: 37mm
Rate of fire: 13 rounds/minute
Effective range: 300m
Maximum range: 5484m






A big caliber cannon from a Royal Navy battleship




Italian midget submarine


Weapons used by British SAS during their counter-insurgency operations in Borneo




French Exocet anti-ship missile



A surface-to-air missile system




Rheinmetall Zwillingsflak 20mm twin barrel anti-aircraft cannon
Caliber: 20mm
Range: 2000m
Rate of fire: 1000 rounds/minute





Wehrmacht 8.8cm Flak 36 - also commonly known as the '88'
A very popular anti-tank gun used by the German forces of WW2. It has even been used as anti-aircraft artillery.









Focke Wulf FW-190
Sopwith Camel





North American P-51 Mustang







Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1A