Yesterday went for futsal again with my batchmates at the LIMA exhibition hall. Yes, again futsal. Third time already. Haha. If you had been to the LIMA last year, I am sure you noticed the huge hall where various aviation-related companies used to promote their stuffs. They started with two courts, now beginning to expand their business by building four more futsal courts and two badminton courts. It's good to see them utilise the hall for sport purposes rather than letting it to store dust.
Anyway, did I mention in my previous post that Thielert Aircraft Engines has gone into bankruptcy? Well, this company is responsible to provide the engines for the aircraft which I am gonna fly for the next 100hours. Now that it's bankrupt, the school has decided to use TB-10s for flying again. So, the junior batches are quite unlucky to fly those aircrafts soon like Batch 20 (starting next Monday) and Batch 21.
To be honest, I am still not sure whether my batch has to go for TB-10 conversion or not because there is no news from the flying wing yet. I heard from seniors that the spare parts for Diamond 40 have not arrived for quite some time already. And, the number of serviceable aircrafts is getting less too. Guess what, there are 5 propeller strikes since January to May, one in each month. Awesome right?? One prop strike equals a 100K gone. First four prop strikes involved solo students. And the last one was a dual sortie (instructor and student). Apparently the instructor, Captain L could not react fast enough to prevent the accident. In the end, both the instructor and the student have been grounded for a month. I am not really surprised though. Two weeks before I finished my PPL flying phase, this Captain L had just arrived at our school with two other flying instructors, Captain P and Captain K. Three days later, P and K already passed their instructor tests but not L. It was only a month later when I heard from seniors he finally passed the test.
Diamond 40
Talking about the junior batches, especially Batch 21, I pity them really. They have to wear uniform with the school's logo printed on the top right. For fcuk sake, it's damn ugly. They are the first batch to wear that kinda uniforms, you know. It's as if like there is only one size that fits all. Again, this is another source of income for the school. Oh yeah, if you are wondering how much they paid for this intake..........
it's 272K..
The fee has increased hell alot since the first day I entered this school. According to my contract, the fee was 180K as of 23rd Oct 2007. Then batch 20 came in this year March and the fee was 220K. Batch 21 came in May 2008 and the fee is currently as stated above. Batch 21 guys said that they had to pay 4000bucks for those photostated copies of PPL books! Haha. Mind you, the books are only worth at most 100bucks if they were to photostat those books themselves.
I am not sure about other flying schools, but I know this blood-sucking school is the currently ranked THE MOST EXPENSIVE FLYING SCHOOL in this country. Recently they have come up with another idea of sucking our money again, that is, we cadets have to pay 100bucks for the Diamond 40 Aircraft Flight Manual and checklist. Again, the books are of photocopies from the original AFM. Our batch actually thought of just share and buy one set and then photocopy for the rest by ourselves.
Do you think the school gonna agree with our fantastic idea? Of course not.
As far as we are concerned, the payment for the AFM and the checklist should have been included in our fees!! So we agreed to talk to our sponsoring company regarding the matter above and hopefully they will be able to clarify it soon.
By the way, I have been trying to log in MAS websites for four days straight already but to no avail. Damnit. The response to the low fare campaign is really good. I wanna book tickets also cannot. Bloody hell.
*Ever crossed your mind why I wanna book tickets? Pssst..don't tell anyone if you know the answer!*
Anyway, did I mention in my previous post that Thielert Aircraft Engines has gone into bankruptcy? Well, this company is responsible to provide the engines for the aircraft which I am gonna fly for the next 100hours. Now that it's bankrupt, the school has decided to use TB-10s for flying again. So, the junior batches are quite unlucky to fly those aircrafts soon like Batch 20 (starting next Monday) and Batch 21.
To be honest, I am still not sure whether my batch has to go for TB-10 conversion or not because there is no news from the flying wing yet. I heard from seniors that the spare parts for Diamond 40 have not arrived for quite some time already. And, the number of serviceable aircrafts is getting less too. Guess what, there are 5 propeller strikes since January to May, one in each month. Awesome right?? One prop strike equals a 100K gone. First four prop strikes involved solo students. And the last one was a dual sortie (instructor and student). Apparently the instructor, Captain L could not react fast enough to prevent the accident. In the end, both the instructor and the student have been grounded for a month. I am not really surprised though. Two weeks before I finished my PPL flying phase, this Captain L had just arrived at our school with two other flying instructors, Captain P and Captain K. Three days later, P and K already passed their instructor tests but not L. It was only a month later when I heard from seniors he finally passed the test.
I am not really keen to fly TB10 actually cuz it's quite a hassle to go for conversion hours. And I think some of us also may take some time to get used to switch from flying control stick to control column. Another thing is that TB10 requires pilots to keep adjusting the mixture control for different level of flight, while for Diamond 40 everything is automatically controlled by the Engine Control Unit (ECU). In short, to compare between Diamond 40 and TB10 is just like an auto transmission Nissan Cefiro to a manual transmission tank.
TB10
Diamond 40Talking about the junior batches, especially Batch 21, I pity them really. They have to wear uniform with the school's logo printed on the top right. For fcuk sake, it's damn ugly. They are the first batch to wear that kinda uniforms, you know. It's as if like there is only one size that fits all. Again, this is another source of income for the school. Oh yeah, if you are wondering how much they paid for this intake..........
it's 272K..
The fee has increased hell alot since the first day I entered this school. According to my contract, the fee was 180K as of 23rd Oct 2007. Then batch 20 came in this year March and the fee was 220K. Batch 21 came in May 2008 and the fee is currently as stated above. Batch 21 guys said that they had to pay 4000bucks for those photostated copies of PPL books! Haha. Mind you, the books are only worth at most 100bucks if they were to photostat those books themselves.
I am not sure about other flying schools, but I know this blood-sucking school is the currently ranked THE MOST EXPENSIVE FLYING SCHOOL in this country. Recently they have come up with another idea of sucking our money again, that is, we cadets have to pay 100bucks for the Diamond 40 Aircraft Flight Manual and checklist. Again, the books are of photocopies from the original AFM. Our batch actually thought of just share and buy one set and then photocopy for the rest by ourselves.
Do you think the school gonna agree with our fantastic idea? Of course not.
As far as we are concerned, the payment for the AFM and the checklist should have been included in our fees!! So we agreed to talk to our sponsoring company regarding the matter above and hopefully they will be able to clarify it soon.
By the way, I have been trying to log in MAS websites for four days straight already but to no avail. Damnit. The response to the low fare campaign is really good. I wanna book tickets also cannot. Bloody hell.
*Ever crossed your mind why I wanna book tickets? Pssst..don't tell anyone if you know the answer!*
