CFIs and personal planes

texasclouds

texasclouds

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Bryan, Texas
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Mark
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A question for you full time CFIs: do you own a personal plane and / or do you have time to fly it?

I am asking because I have 125 hrs and am working towards commercial. Either CFI or pipeline/photography job after that to get to 1500 hrs. I would like to buy a C-170 for personal use and also build hours, but wonder if I will have time to do much personal flying after beginning my first flying job.
 
It is a personal choice. After I retired and started instructing a lot the joy of most recreational flying was diminished.
 
texasclouds said:
A question for you full time CFIs: do you own a personal plane and / or do you have time to fly it?

I am asking because I have 125 hrs and am working towards commercial. Either CFI or pipeline/photography job after that to get to 1500 hrs. I would like to buy a C-170 for personal use and also build hours, but wonder if I will have time to do much personal flying after beginning my first flying job.
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Time and money are a factor. If you can get something fun that you can justify, go for it. I'm not a full time CFI, I'm a full time aerial photographer with one student on the side. Here in the Dallas area the expense of maintaining insurance and a hangar would preclude me from wanting to have a plane on the side unless I knew I could throw about $500-600 a month at the plane whether I flew it or not. At some point having a hangar queen can get a bit depressing.
 
It depends completely on how much flying you do as a CFI and how much flying you want to do total. If you're doing primary and instrument instruction then most of what you're doing will probably be in 172s, Archers, and the like. Having a fun taildragger (be it a 170 or something even smaller/older) can be very enjoyable and be a nice way to break things up. Sometimes CFIing can get draining and old, and it's nice to get some time in the plane doing what you want to do instead of just instructing.

Too many variables. Locally I was never able to get much CFIing when I was in Pennsylvania. If you work at a 141 school you'll probably be pretty busy.
 
What are your priorities?

Eat, sleep, fly, live in a tent at the airport, and it’s all good!
 
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