One of the world's oldest commercial planes is now in Singapore and its presence at Seletar Airport has gotten some local plane spotters excited.
The 80-year-old Douglas DC-3, registered in the United States as N882TP, landed at Seletar on 14 June'25.
The DC-3 also caught the interest of some military nuts because its flight route has taken it over the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) live-firing areas at Pasir Laba.
Don't let the aircraft's age fool you. This DC-8 is fitted for specialised aerial survey work. It has a demagnetised fuselage, a suite of sensors for land survey and multifunction displays in its interior that would not look out of place in a military surveillance aircraft. See for yourself.
Photo by John Maloney.
Local plane spotters have reported seeing the aircraft with an extended tail boom, similar to a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) on maritime patrol aircraft like the P-3 Orion that is used to hunt submarines. This appears to indicate that the survey includes the use of a Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry (FTG), which is used for assessing and recording changes in the density of subsurface geology. FTG sensors are known to be employed by mining companies and oil and gas prospectors to survey and map out the subsurface ground profile.
Aerial surveys are a faster, more cost-effective and non-intrusive way of mapping what lies beneath. Data can be measured and presented to the entity that commissioned the survey much faster than retrieving and studying core samples from traditional land survey work. The latter involves drilling rigs which are commonly used before the redevelopment of private landed homes in Singapore, or seismic sensors.
Repeated survey runs over the SAFTI Live-Firing Area in Pasir Laba are interesting as they indicate the area of interest for the landform study.
We have our theories but would rather keep them offline.
Many thanks to the usual suspects for keeping eyes on N882TP's exploits in Singapore.
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