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dp342b

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Derek
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
 
It's your time, so the default should be to charge for the entire time you are away from home. Yes, that may end up being ridiculously expensive for him, but like I said, that's the default.

Now, he's your friend. We all do things for friends sometimes that we wouldn't do for normal clients. So what you charge for your time is up to you. But either way, flying the plane to and from for his lessons is really going to make this expensive. And very inconvenient, especially for you. I'd suggest he find someone closer, it will almost certainly be quicker and cheaper in the long run.
 
dp342b said:
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
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Charge him whatever you want and you think it's fair. If you're building time and he's a good friend, you might just charge him what it costs you. Or if he's a really good friend and you can afford it, you might charge him nothing. If he's not a good friend and he can afford it, charge him through the nose. If it's simply a commercial transaction, I'd charge him for the airplane and your time whether he's in the plane or not. Ignore anyone who's concerned with how your arrangement affects them or "the profession" (they'll be along shortly).
 
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Another factor is what you plan to be doing with your CFI certificate once you get it. If you're going to be working as a CFI more or less full-time, and making it your career (i.e. putting food on the table), then he is taking lots of time away from you flying with other clients and making money you need to live. So you should expect to be appropriately compensated. And in fact, a reasonable friend should insist on paying you for all your time, to make it worth your while.

If, on the other hand you're just getting your CFI certificate as a hobby or just for personal reasons, then it's really just whatever seems okay for both of you. And also very much depends on the "degree of Buddy at play" as @schmookeeg eloquently postulated.
 
dp342b said:
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
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You didn't specify who owns the airplane. If it is yours, then certainly you can do as you please. If the time to get there is under 10 minutes, it may not make a big difference. But consider that you will be doing all the preflighting and fueling by yourself for every single flight, which can add up to a lot of time over the course of training. If the student is doing a solo x-c, are you going to hang out at the airport the whole time? Overall this doesn't sound like a very practical plan to me.

On the other hand, if the airplane is owned by an FBO, then who will be the renter - you or the student? If you are going to be the renter, are you allowed to give instruction in it, and also let the student solo?
 
dp342b said:
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
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When I did some training for a friend of mine that was out of state, I just had him pay my expenses. He gave me a bit on top of that but I didn't ask for it. He is a friend who had done some favors for me and it was way cheaper for him to fly me (commercial) there for 2 or 3 days and train full time with him, than it was to try and pay a local CFI to commute 2 hours each way to fly with him and would only show up once a week, and charge $200+ whether they flew or not.. But he had is own plane, which part of the issue was finding an instructor that would train in his airplane.

For cross country training we flew to my place and he stayed with his family local to me for a few days.

For someone you aren't particularly doing a favor for, you should charge what would likely make staying local and working.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
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When you become a CFI, you will be a baby instructor. Make sure that he understands that and don’t overcharge him if he’s willing to proceed regardless and line up a mentor for yourself - more experienced instructor to help you when you run into situations that you didn’t anticipate.
 
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If it's 2 hrs driving time, and he's a good friend, he'll be driving to you. If it's 2 hrs flying time, then in my view it's too far away. Your time is valuable, as is everyone's.

It's possible to learn to fly flying once a week, but it's not ideal. Not a CFI, but I did part of my private that way and it was a pain.
 
dp342b said:
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
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At that point I’d probably go day rate

At min go hobbs
 
Albany Tom said:
Your time is valuable, as is everyone's.
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Yes, but a rookie CFI for 4 hours of time, only 2 hours of teaching, vs a local CFI with 15 checkride passes and a year's worth of experience with students valuable? If it was my kid, I'd give the more experienced CFI the business. The OP needs to consider that this is actually a favor when there are tons of CFI's around at the moment looking for openings (I get some of those résumés at my little one-man flight school).
 
After some contemplation, I recognize that some will see my previous two posts as a bit of gatekeeping, and that is NOT my point, so to offer some help, here's a third post:

If you want to be good as a rookie, you're going to have to be better than the box-school / puppy-mill competition. Your starting point is unknown, and how much knowledge and experience you have as well. Maybe you've got some aces up your sleeve like some tailwheel background, or a really strong teaching ability from other work, so I'm not dissing you in any way.

This article by a friend and former DPE should help you try to get an edge: https://charlesmcd789.substack.com/p/choosing-the-right-flight-instructor

Here's an excerpt to hopefully convince you to read the whole article:
In The Universal Concept of Aircraft Control, I challenge what I consider to be the misapprehension that a flight instructor must be highly experienced to be effective, even excellent. In short, my argument is this. 1) The primary skill we must learn from our CFI is effective, precise, and safe aircraft control. When our instructor has authentic knowledge of an attitude-based control paradigm (having been instructed by an instructor with the same), then this is a more straightforward and less problematical task. 2) Many difficulties that arise in training are caused by the distraction of excess effort required to control the airplane using an ineffective concept of control. In this case excessive mental bandwidth must be allocated to just flying the airplane, thus leading to mistakes in navigation, judgment, communication, and correlation of other factors like weather, traffic and terrain awareness. Here is an anecdotal example of a less experienced CFI who did excellent work from his first student.

I once knew a flight instructor named Pete...
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And it so happens that I knew most of the people referenced in the article (I had Jason T for IFR and CP) and consider the article to be truthful and wise.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Yes, but a rookie CFI for 4 hours of time, only 2 hours of teaching, vs a local CFI with 15 checkride passes and a year's worth of experience with students valuable? If it was my kid, I'd give the more experienced CFI the business. The OP needs to consider that this is actually a favor when there are tons of CFI's around at the moment looking for openings (I get some of those résumés at my little one-man flight school).
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Does the same hold true for a rookie lawyer, doctor, CPA, or car dealer mechanic’s billed rate?

If someone wants concierge white glove level service they ether can pay for it, or just understand it’s out of their budget and get back in line ‍♂️
 
I'd suggest he get a local CFI. Reason being that a friendship is more important than billable hours. If it didn't work out, if he had to fire you or vice versa that would end your friendship.

Another point is that as a student, he needs someone who will be objective, and you might not be that person as you are friends with him.

Maybe once in a while you can fly with him to check things out and grab a burger.
 
dp342b said:
A buddy of mine said he wants to get his ppl when I get my CFI. Thing is he lives about 2 hours away and my question is, if I were to fly the plane to him, do his training, then fly myself home, how would I charge that? Would he have to pay for my flight time going there and coming back home? I suppose I could have him pay the total rental time and just my time training him. What have others done in this situation? Thanks
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Student would need to pay for your travel expenses and time. Unless the dude is loaded, that is likely unfeasible.
 
decalogue said:
Does the same hold true for a rookie lawyer, doctor, CPA, or car dealer mechanic’s billed rate?
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If I'm looking at a lawyer right out of law school vs someone with 10 years experience who can show me the cases they've won? Absolutely, there should be a price difference. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't value experience and would go on my red flag list.
 
RyanShort1 said:
If I'm looking at a lawyer right out of law school vs someone with 10 years experience who can show me the cases they've won? Absolutely, there should be a price difference. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't value experience and would go on my red flag list.
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Rates would be different of course, but you’re still going to pay for their time that you take, as you should, shouldn’t be any different for a CFI.

If someone wants me to take a day I could spend working or with my family and ask me to commute, that’s going to be ether my normally hr rate, or we will work out a flat day rate, but it’s going to at least be the same as I could have made the airport
 
decalogue said:
Rates would be different of course, but you’re still going to pay for their time that you take, as you should, shouldn’t be any different for a CFI.

If someone wants me to take a day I could spend working or with my family and ask me to commute, that’s going to be ether my normally hr rate, or we will work out a flat day rate, but it’s going to at least be the same as I could have made the airport
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No one's arguing that a person shouldn't be paid. We're discussing the value of the time. No one wants to hear me play the violin compared to the 1st violinist of the orchestra, even though I've played in public before.
 
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