Meet the women in Singapore who are becoming pilots in their spare time

We chat with 2 business leaders, who are members of WOA Flying Club and how they are taking their passion for flying to the skies

By Charmian Leong - 14 Sep 2023

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Singapore barely has enough roads for all the supercars and their respective clubs to indulge in, so anyone can be forgiven for assuming that flying around here as a hobby would be a non-starter. But the reality is that there is a sizeable community of passionate aviators who fly in, around, and beyond the region thanks to flying clubs that do everything from offering flying lessons and arranging group trips to organising monthly brunches and trivia nights for its members.

It was because of this social aspect that member Jason Bay chose the WOA Flying Club by WingsOverAsia. “It’s not just an office and a hangar, and it’s a colourful group,” he says.

“One of the participants of a recent trip to Tioman was the guy who used to fly the Starhub blimp 20 years ago. And at the same table was a young man who hadn’t been born during that time. So there’s a huge range of experiences, but love of aviation brings us together.”

“We call it hangar flying,” quips fellow member Roch Hennessy. “We can sit in the hangar and talk about planes for hours over beers. The day you think that because you’ve made thousands of flights, you can take off in any weather or land an overweight plane — that’s when accidents happen. So I’m always looking to talk to people who have more experience and to also teach those who don’t have as much. I love this sharing and giving back.” We speak to five pilots about how they come alive when they take to the skies.

Seventeen Hu - Director and Partner, Regalrare Gem Museum

Credit: Athirah Annissa

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It’s easy to think about the incredible adventures flying affords, but few stop to think about how much of a commitment it takes to earn that privilege. Seventeen Hu finally earned her private pilot license this January, but what’s more impressive than the fact that she’s one of the few female pilots at WOA Flying Club is that she earned her license in a little over a month.

“I met [WingsOverAsia founder Ng] Yeow Meng through a friend last December and he’s been like a mentor to me. He encouraged me to get my license, so I flew to the US to study full-time,” she shares. “English isn’t my first language and the aviation language is so different that I don’t even know the words in my mother tongue, so it was quite hard for me.”

Credit: Hu fast-tracked her training in the US, where she witnessed the launch of a SpaceX rocket.

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She also had to deal with homesickness for her husband and two children, aged nine and 12, and almost quit after failing her first test attempt. “I was alone, and I had never failed in my studies before! But I made the decision to finish what I started,” she says. “Giving up is not in my character. And I wanted my children to see that mommy can still learn new things at this age, and to show them the value of self-discipline, breakthroughs, and hard work.”

Credit: The Peak

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Thrilled to be able to fly on her own, she recently went on another month-long trip — this time with friends to holiday around the Bahamas, the Americas, and Argentina, taking aircrafts out from fixed based operators. “Once you fly, being on land is like being in a two-dimensional world. Up there, all your views are in 3D,” she enthuses. Her most breathtaking memory was of the Bahamas and being able to see the Pink Sands Beach at sunset.

Her advice for those considering a private pilot license: “Just try it. And once you decide to learn, don’t give up, because it’s a whole new world from up there.”

Anne Wong - Head of Public Relations, Tin Box Group

Credit: Athirah Annissa

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Anne Wong was so terrified of undertaking her first solo flight that tried to put it off for as long as possible. “I tacked on six or seven extra practice flights and delayed it for about two months before my instructor finally said I had to just go and do it,” says Wong. She finally took the plunge — or ascent, rather — in 2018. “Once I was up there, it was really nice because there was no one nagging at me. But it was still quite scary.”

Curiously, that fear and uncertainty are what thrills her most about flying. “It’s the fact that you can never perfect flying,” she clarifies. “There are skills where, after doing it a hundred times, you know how it’s going to turn out, but flying is unpredictable. The winds are always different, and even though I know how to land a plane, I can’t always land it the exact way I want it to. Maybe I’m not seasoned enough, so I’m trying to get better every time.”

Wong has been flying on and off for six years, but work commitments have made it difficult to clock more hours in the sky. So she prefers “short but beautiful” routes, citing Tioman as one of her favourite destinations. It’s also a matter of comfort, as Wong soberly reveals. “Lots of people think we’re flying in luxurious private jets that look like SQ suites but that’s not what it’s like at all. There’s no champagne and a lot of the time there’s no air-conditioning. It’s more like driving an antique car.”

But the similarities end there. You can’t just cut the engine or pull over in the middle of the sky if things get hairy. “And you can be aimless when you drive, deciding where to go on a whim. You can’t do that with a plane. You have to make a plan and follow it, including the height you’re allowed to fly at, and the direction you’re going,” she adds. “But at least I never have to worry about finding parking.”

This article was originally published in The Peak.