In addition to the military-style parade, other celebrative events, such as the Mobile Column (see below), fireworks and community carnivals are also organised during the period.
The theme for NDP 2005 is "40 Years of Nation Building".
The main parade will be held in Padang, the same place where the first National Day Parade was held in 1966.
Pre-parade Segment
Before the main parade, there will be a hour long entertainment at the Padang including performances from the combined schools choir and the combined schools band. Other events include a mass precision drill and a skydiving display by the "Red Lions" team from the SAF.
Three NDP community songs are designated for the pre-parade segment entertainment
In addition, 300 students from Institute of Technical Education will serve as "NDP 2005 Motivators" as they will interact with the audiences and perform a special dance called the "Dance Number 40".
Combined schools choir
This is a 400 strong choir comprises students from 15 different schools.
members of various Boys' Brigade bagpipe bands, collectively termed the "Singapore Boys' Brigade Bagpipers".
This year's precision drill display includes participation by female NCC Cadets. The choreographer and trainer for the performance is 2WO Rosman Bin Atan.
Parade
The parade is military-styled, displaying precision and discipline.
The parade will feature aerial display involving a total of 44 RSAF aircraft, of 8 different aircraft types including the refueling tanker KC-135 Stratotanker which is making its maiden appearance at NDP. The F-16 Fighting Falcons will lead the aerial display, and will at one time fly very low at 500 metres above ground, at about half the speed of sound. [1]
The aerial display is divided into 3 flypast windows:
State flag flypast
Bomb-burst during the Presidential saluteFile:NDP 2005 F-16s.jpgthree F-16 Fighting Falcons soar past the Padang.
Final flypast
Final flypast
The final flypast will involve 3 chinooks and 2 super puma helicopters followed by a c-130H,a Fokker F50 and a Grumman E-2C Hawkeye and behind it will be a kc-135R escorted by 4 F-5s/t Tiger 2 and the last few planes will be 5 F-16C Block 52 Fighting Falcon performing stunts.
Mobile column
The Mobile Column will be a featured event in National Day Parade, 2005
The first Mobile Column was organised in 1969 which displayed the then newly acquired armour vehicles of the SAF. In 1990, after an absence of 20 years, the Mobile Column made a come back as Singapore celebrated its 25th years of independence. Since then, it has been a special feature during National Day Parade for every 5 years.
Besides the national events, local celebration events (named as Celebration@Heartlands) are also being organized in major residential regions throughout the country, including Tampines, Yishun and Jurong East. There is also a 9-day carnival at Marina South (named as Carnival@Marina) featuring fun-fair, concerts and fireworks.
Media files of these songs are available at the NDP website.
Other celebrations
Channel NewsAsia organised a video contest called "The Singapore, I Want". [2]
A special collection of minted stamps, named "Proudly Singapore" was issued to commemorate the history of Singapore. [3]
There will be a National Day Relay with over 600 runners. The relay will start from the three heartland locations, Tampines, Jurong East and Yishun and there will be 8 to 10 change-over points with each relay leg covering a distance of 2-3km. The runners, carrying flags representing various participating organisations, will make their entry into the Padang as part of the pre-Parade segment. [4]
110,000 NPD funpacks will be given out to spectators and participants at the NDP, previews, and heartland venues. Each funpack contains a commemorative CD, tambourine, whistle, flags, tourch-light and NDP stickers. [5]
