2007/01 - Organisational Transformation

To meet organisational demands and accommodate greater operational tempo, the RSAF was revamped into five new operational Commands and one training Command. These six Commands enhance the RSAF’s ability to support the SAF in complex environments, allowing it to contribute more effectively to the SAF’s operations across the air, land, and sea domains.

The new RSAF Command structure comprises the following:

1.    Air Defence and Operations Command (ADOC)

2.    Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Command (UC)

3.    Participation Command (PC)

4.    Air Combat Command (ACC)

5.    Air Power Generation Command (APGC)

6.    Air Force Training Command (AFTC)

The six Command crests that were designed to complement the RSAF’s transformation.

“Now that we’re clearer about how the Air Force’s structure and technologies will be developed, we are clearer about what sort of organisational structure the Air Force will have. It now becomes much easier for us to know what the attributes of the Air Force officer are, and the Air Force man and woman that we need to inculcate and develop in the coming years.”

BG Ng Chee Khern, Chief of Air Force, 2007

“The advantage in the battlefield of the future lies with the force that can harness technology to make maximum use of these transformational capabilities. Platforms, manned and unmanned, weapons, and sensors that are fully networked into such a fighting system, will have their combat power magnified many times…The transformation of the SAF to exploit these rapidly emerging possibilities is a strategic imperative. But it is not something that can be achieved overnight…It will ultimately lead to changes in organisations, less demand for conventional platforms, more demand for less visible technologies like information systems, precision weapons, electronic warfare systems, unmanned platform technologies, and a new type of soldier who is trained to exploit these capabilities.”

Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence, 2004

“The system has largely stabilised…and most of our force-structuring developments conceived in the 1990s have also reached the tail end of the system operationalisation phase and their respective operating doctrines have also been developed. The time is now ripe to start conceptualising and reorganising for the next phase of the RSAF’s transformation. It will be one of the most fundamental and extensive restructuring efforts that the RSAF has undergone. Even in the early stages of conceptualisation, a significant amount of introspection and thought has been put into determining the correct principles governing the changes. Even though some capacity would need to be set aside to further develop key areas in the restructuring, safety and operational readiness should never be compromised.”

BG Ng Chee Khern, Chief of Air Force, 2006 during his address to junior and senior RSAF commanders

“The inherent characteristics of air power – flexibility and mobility – make it well suited to meet expanding and varied challenges…Air power has also evolved to encompass new concepts and capabilities brought about by advances in technology.”

Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence, 2008 on the growing potential of air power in his opening address at the Global Air Power Conference