I'm not a cadet. Never was one, and don't really intend to be one as well.
With regards to what happens once a candidate is selected, they go for a 2-week OBS at Lumut (used to be 3 weeks but has since been trimmed). After that cadets go for Ground School for about 6 - 7 months, covering all ATPL subjects. Once they've passed the exams they move on to flight training, starting with Seletar. Duration really varies as it is affected by all sorts of factors e.g. weather, aircraft serviceability, instructor availability, number of cadets in flight training stage... etc etc etc. Anyway the cadets are to complete 3 solo flights in Seletar within 15 hours. Once they complete that then they move on to Jandakot in Perth to complete the remaining part of CPL/IR, which takes about 1 - 1.5 years. For SilkAir / SIA Cargo cadets, they then come back and start their type-rating course. For SIA Cadets they move on to Maroochydore in Queensland for the advance training, basically consists of jet training (on the Cessna Citation Mustang) and MCC. After that they come back and start their type-rating course.
For those thinking of pursuing their own flight training, the following are my opinion and advice.
1. Select a course you intend to fly in that country. E.g. if you intend to be based in Singapore, get a CAAS-approved course e.g. SFC, STAA. The reason being foreign licence conversion is an absolute pain in the rectum. Flying is not like driving. Holding a foreign licence does not allow you to fly a Singapore-registered aircraft. Many who went abroad and obtained a foreign licence (me myself included) got caught by many red tapes / bureaucracy involved in converting foreign licence to a Singapore licence.
2. If you have the $$ to pursue your own CPL training, my advice is to go with Tiger / Jetstar program. If you do your own stand-alone CPL/IR, that does not guarantee a job at the end. In fact 99.9% airlines nowadays do not want to take raw pilots with no type-rating unless you have thick cables to someone higher up. With the Tiger / Jetstar program, as long as you ace the interview and don't screw up the training, you have a good chance of having a job at the end because the program is tailored specifically to their airline operation.
Important thing is that you must be passionate about it. The road to the end is very tough, and only passion and sheer determination will get you through. If you're passionate about flying, the airline doesn't matter, whether the tail is a bird or tiger stripes or orange star. Bear in mind that SQ is not necessarily the best paying airline in the business. Tiger / Jetstar pay just as good if not better, primarily because of the nature of their operation, pilots clock up hours / sectors much faster than SQ. Generally a pilot with Jetstar / Tiger can expect to earn his / her 4 bars in about 5 - 6 years, as compared to 10 - 12 years with SQ. Once you earn your command in a A320, you can pretty much go anywhere.
All the best.
