Name withheld to protect privacy.
Hi Kate, I came across your blog on LIFT and I am highly impressed by your courage and candor to bring awareness about the flight school to the general public.
I am from Singapore, previously with the Singapore Youth Flying Club in 2007, having completed my solo sortie there. I haven't flown in almost 6 years due to me being in the army and then attending university. However, during this period, I have never once lost passion in flying nor the faith that I will one day be able to pursue a career in this field (whether it be actual piloting or not). This brought me to search for a suitable flight school to complete my PPL journey as I was dropped from the course 6 years ago for an unsatisfactory landing, due to me being thick-headed and not doing a go-around even though wind conditions were bad on that solo flight and I only managed to land the PA-28 about halfway down the length of the runway. (SYFC is unofficially doing recruitment for the Singapore Air Force so they are extremely strict on who stays on in the course and who doesn't).
I believe I have since learnt from that incident about not being so stubborn during my sorties. Thus this brings me to the point of searching for a flight school now that can allow me to attain my PPL after so long. As I am only getting a meagre salary now, I do not want to dish out huge bucks for the course. Therefore, I turned towards the flight schools in Malaysia and Indonesia and also Philippines to get a quotation for the course that will be within my reach. (The flying clubs in Singapore are charging about $30k for a PPL course.)
I have emailed dozens of flight schools around the region and have received various quotes; including one from LIFT. Edmond himself replied to my enquiry. I was surprised to learn that he is charging US$31,600 for a PPL course in Indonesia. I'm not sure if he is doing that just because I\'m from Singapore and he feels that everyone here is swimming in pools of money. Then again, you mentioned in your blog that he owns many businesses so I suppose that his business acumen can't be that bad. However, this price is at least 2-3 times more than what any other flight school around the region is charging and I find it pretty ridiculous. Anyway, I was trying to find out more info about the school, which brought me to your blog. And I want to thank you for your kind sharing that really gave awareness to everyone about the environment in LIFT and also aviation in Indonesia as a whole.
