Flight Instructors - Did/Do you enjoy the job?

CC268 said:
This is the other thing I would want to highly consider...go independent or work for a flight school. I will say, if I worked for a flight school I would likely go to where I got my PPL which is at KSDL at a "higher end" flight school. They mostly serve the wealthier clientele. They also have 4 Cirrus' (3 of which are brand new, SR20, SR22, SR22T) and I gotta admit I want to fly one of those someday (they are a Cirrus approved flight school or whatever you call it). They also have 3 172s and a beautiful Piper Arrow. I think it would be fun to fly the Arrow and Cirrus.
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You can try to do both independent and work for a flight school.
 
Harold Rutila said:
I do this full time, independent of any schools. I teach in my company's C150 and spend a majority of my time in owners' aircraft teaching them.

I currently have 5 IFR students and 4 primary students. There is a seemingly never-ending stream of clientele in greater DFW to the point where I encourage anyone out here who is good at instructing and basic business practices to get out and do it on their own, too.
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Could you explain what you're doing a little clearer? You said you teach in your company's 150 but are independent. And you're also teaching people in their own planes. Could you elaborate a little bit?
 
BrianNC said:
Could you explain what you're doing a little clearer? You said you teach in your company's 150 but are independent. And you're also teaching people in their own planes. Could you elaborate a little bit?
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Sure. I teach in and rent out a Cessna 150, and I also teach in other people's aircraft. I operate under a business name Cobalt Aviation. It's a similar setup to Scott's OBX Flight except I typically don't do accelerated courses.
 
Harold Rutila said:
Sure. I teach in and rent out a Cessna 150, and I also teach in other people's aircraft. I operate under a business name Cobalt Aviation. It's a similar setup to Scott's OBX Flight except I typically don't do accelerated courses.
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Thanks. When you say 'your company's 150' I see you mean now you bought your own 150. I thought you mean you worked for a company that you didn't own and had a 150 that you used from them to teach.

So you bought a 150 and then just advertised or word of mouth? How complicated are the 'regs' you have to follow to do that? 100 hour inspections, etc?
 
I get to work with some of the most modivated people I've ever seen. I took an early retirement from an electronics systems engineering career and couldn't be happier instructing part time. I primarily enjoy working on instrument stuff by primary instruction can be very rewarding too.

You soon learn just how much rope to give someone without them hanging themselves or you. It's amazing how much you can learn helping someone else fulfill their aviation dreams.

Go for it and never look back!
 
labbadabba said:
This thread REALLY makes me want to walk away from my corporate gig and start teaching. I've been teaching music for years so I can just expand my studio and start teaching flying as well... I need to get out of corporate world even if I do like the paychecks...
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I feel ya...the corporate world is full of sad people and broken dreams. That will be the hardest decision for me...walking away from a good paycheck to 30K as an instructor lol...but it would only be until I got my 1500 and I think it would be enjoyable for the most part. Then go to the regionals and make nothing again haha...but I can always go back to engineering if it doesn't work out
 
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CC268 said:
Sorry I should have stated in my OP...I would be instructing to get my 1500 hrs...nothing else. It would like be something I did for 2 years or so
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If you're instructing just to build time and move on you don't need to enjoy it; you just need to tolerate it.
That said, regardless of whether or not you enjoy it you owe it to the students paying you to give it your best.
 
Kritchlow said:
If you're instructing just to build time and move on you don't need to enjoy it; you just need to tolerate it.
That said, regardless of whether or not you enjoy it you owe it to the students paying you to give it your best.
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Agreed...tolerate is a good word...although I really do think I'd enjoy it at least to some extent. I wouldn't be leaving an engineering career if I wasn't totally in love with the thought of flying.
 
Kritchlow said:
If you're instructing just to build time and move on you don't need to enjoy it; you just need to tolerate it.
That said, regardless of whether or not you enjoy it you owe it to the students paying you to give it your best.
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Plus that person you trained a few years ago, might be the Captain on the regional jet you had to fly to go to Podunk Nowhere for a family funeral. Hahaha.

Kinda kidding, kinda not.

Don't half-ass teaching. It might get you or someone else killed. Or a whole lot of someone else's.

Plus, let's get more real here... the biz is really small. If you half ass someone's instruction, eventually they'll run into someone who'll have to fix it and they'll ask who the instructor was who taught them that crud.

Word gets around about time building instructors who are just phoning it in. Really. It does.

It's bad enough to be a weekend warrior and know you're being scrutinized. Crusty old chief pilots at clubs love to make fun of the CFII who hasn't taught a Primary student in years and has a constant stream of Flight Reviews that never seem to take longer than the prescribed exact 2.0 with 1.0 on the ground.

Whether deserved or not, people talk. Just sayin'. The best anyone can say of anyone in the training side of things is that they know someone and they're "tough but fair".

I think to be "tough but fair" you have to out in some effort. Finding tough stuff that just isn't loading someone up with workload for no good training reason, while still making it a fun experience, for experienced aviators, is work. Real work.

Unfortunately from what I've heard, too many pilots show up unprepared enough that finding their "tough" is easy.

And of course, I'm a total noob so I'll be the guy under the microscope for a while by the instructors who know how to do it well. I don't mind. Would rather that than think the job was easy.
 
Yes and no. Looking back, I'm glad I did the CFI thing. You really do learn a ton teaching others. I loved the 2.5 years I spent teaching part-time in a small time part 61 environment...But then the need for more flight time arose and I was tired of having to bartend/wait tables by night to make ends meet, so I needed to move out of state to make that that happen....I spent a year working at a large 141 school that dealt almost exclusively with international students. That was tough...Working 6 days per week pulling 8, 10 sometimes 15 hour days teaching really does jade a person a bit. And for terrible pay too. Additionally, primary instruction wasn't my favorite thing in the world. Bouncing around the pattern day in day out with someone trying to kill me at every moment got old real fast...I preferred teaching advanced ratings like instrument and commercial. All this said, I do enjoy teaching in general and have done it at the 61, 141 and 135 level....Just not on a full-time basis. Too much of it burnt me out. I still instruct occasionally and enjoy it when I do it.
 
BrianNC said:
So you bought a 150 and then just advertised or word of mouth? How complicated are the 'regs' you have to follow to do that? 100 hour inspections, etc?
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It's not too bad. I need a 100-hour inspection, and insurance requires a rental-and-instruction policy. I eventually plan to get a physical office, but right now all of my referrals have been word of mouth. I have a website in development but have not had time to publish it. (Not sure it'd even be a good idea right now with the existing customers I have.)
 
denverpilot said:
Plus that person you trained a few years ago, might be the Captain on the regional jet you had to fly to go to Podunk Nowhere for a family funeral. Hahaha.

Kinda kidding, kinda not.

Don't half-ass teaching. It might get you or someone else killed. Or a whole lot of someone else's.

Plus, let's get more real here... the biz is really small. If you half ass someone's instruction, eventually they'll run into someone who'll have to fix it and they'll ask who the instructor was who taught them that crud.

Word gets around about time building instructors who are just phoning it in. Really. It does.

It's bad enough to be a weekend warrior and know you're being scrutinized. Crusty old chief pilots at clubs love to make fun of the CFII who hasn't taught a Primary student in years and has a constant stream of Flight Reviews that never seem to take longer than the prescribed exact 2.0 with 1.0 on the ground.

Whether deserved or not, people talk. Just sayin'. The best anyone can say of anyone in the training side of things is that they know someone and they're "tough but fair".

I think to be "tough but fair" you have to out in some effort. Finding tough stuff that just isn't loading someone up with workload for no good training reason, while still making it a fun experience, for experienced aviators, is work. Real work.

Unfortunately from what I've heard, too many pilots show up unprepared enough that finding their "tough" is easy.

And of course, I'm a total noob so I'll be the guy under the microscope for a while by the instructors who know how to do it well. I don't mind. Would rather that than think the job was easy.
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You are exactly correct... the cliche says "your student today may be your chief pilot tomorrow."

Been in this business too many years and have seen this type of scenario come true more times than I can count.

Even with ATC... an Albuquerque Center controller recognized my voice as he used to be one of our dispatchers. He said hi on the freq.
that's not my boss per se, but you get the idea.

Aviation is a small world
 
Z06_Mir said:
Oh lordy. I had 5(!!!!) pre-solo at the same time about a month ago. And not five all in different places, they were all doing pattern work. 50 landing days are exhausting.
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I want to shoot myself after those days. After the 8th "MY PLANE" landing I want to slowly hit my head on the glare shield.

I mostly enjoyed it. Primary teaching started to wear on me so I start only requesting instrument and higher students.

I love doing owner teaching. I get to fly interesting aircraft and most of the time they're high motivated.

My last guy was so motivated that at the min hours for instrument he asked for his checkride. I said, okay we'll do one flight to the local busy airport and see how you do. After ATC yelling at him twice and basically telling him to get out of their airspace he looked over with a "you were right" face. He's a great guy and I still keep in touch but also needed to be brought down a peg.
 
I do it on the side mainly because I want to do it. If you are just looking to build time and don't really care about teaching(not insinuating you do) don't do it. It's important to teach people right, and it's important that they take it seriously and study, which some of them don't do. Honestly the thing that is the worst about it for me is in my particular situation, I'm younger than every student I've ever had but one, and by younger I mean like 10 to even 30 or more years. Where I teach attracts mostly people doing it for recreation. A few of them think I'm going to deal with them giving me the "I'm the elder I know best" attitude, and that's not happening. Other than that, and this one gnarly spin that happened once, i really like it. But honestly, don't do it to log hours, if you don't care about teaching. It's a pretty good way to log hours, yes, but if you aren't going to be training good, safe pilots, don't train pilots at all.
 
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