Oscar,
Flying Boat is simply one of the many p****d off former students of FTC. He doesn't work for any opposition. I believe his only motive is to protect others from going through what he and all the students on his course went through, which apparently was even worse than what my course (the one before FBs) went through - although we didn't finish more than half our groundschool subjects, at least we didn't get booted out of our accommodation!
As for the Rand exchange rate, what actually happens is that you say to FTC 'I want to pay £1000', for example. They then convert it into Rand at the current exchange rate, for example, R16 to the pound. Hence R16000 will leave your bank account. However, FTC will then only give you flying credits equivalent to about R11 to the pound. Hence only about R11000 ends up in your FTC account for training. I leave it up to your imagination what happens to the missing money.
Happy Landings, glad you made the sensible decision. You say that the course is cheap due to the exchange rate, not because the school is bad. As I mentioned above, FTC has 'frozen' the exchange rate at a summer 2001 value, hence the students do not gain the benefit from the exchange rate, except of course from the price of beer, cigs and Black Steers pork ribs!
People, do not let the price of beer dictate where you learn to fly!
TB