Frustrations of a CFI

Got that right. My dad was CAB then FAA and supported a stay at home wife and four kids.

And the kids probably didn’t have the newest latest electronics, or cell phones (or anything that required a monthly subscription, that’s for sure) and the family gathered around one medium sized TV, not one in every room, and clothes were rarely “designer” or met any of the latest fads, and someone cooked every meal, eating out was a special event... the list goes on and on. Family probably spent Saturdays mowing the grass and working on one car, maybe two, but the cars rarely saw a shop nor needed to. Luxury late in that era may have been a big old Ford LTD or Plymouth that grandma and grandpa owned... LOL. Only Docs and lawyers could afford those big fake wood paneling station wagons...

I think an FAA inspector could probably afford four kids the way families dealt with having four kids back then. “Lifestyle” and resulting monthly costs (often via consumer debt) went way up dramatically since back then. But they don’t have access to that lifestyle really anymore. The kids would lose their minds if mom and dad didn’t buy them a smartphone and an unlimited plan for talking to their friends... “All the other kids have them!”

Not trying to sound like the “walked uphill in the snow, BOTH ways” guy, but my middle class family didn’t have anything fancy in the 70s or 80s. Anyone else remember their folks making furniture out of giant wooden wire spools or other huge construction lumber, and spending a Saturday getting high on fumes helping dad wood stain the stuff all day, doing multiple coats? Families like ours valued our tools heavily because those tools in the garage MADE us a LOT of things, and fixed even more things.

Grandpa, the Great Depression era South Dakota farm kid, could out-repair any of us, though. He could make bailing wire, duct tape, and wood, with a handful of nails he had pulled out of old boards and straightened himself before storing them in old peanut butter jars, make anything work until we could afford a new one. Sometimes the repair would hold for a decade and we’d all just be amazed that whatever the thing that got repaired was, was still working.

I remember grandpa liked those decorative windmills people put in yards back then. He came across one mangled out near a trash can once, dragged it home, and spent three weekends beating it back into proper shape, literally, including all the little “fan blades” on the top piece, and then pulling the bad bearing and replacing it for like $3 back then, greasing it all up, and it doing its weathervane thing in his yard for nearly thirty years until someone ran it over with a car when they got out of control on ice.

He saved cool whip containers for use as “Tupperware” and every coffee can he ever drank coffee out of was repurposed as a container for various parts in his shed. We even found he’d saved twenty or so TV dinner trays after washing them up as a way to sort parts in the shed and garage. A pile of them on the self above the workbench after he passed.

I still have a lot of his hand and power tools. They’re built. Solid. I get a smile using them. They were made to do stuff. They’re not the complete crap Home Depot sells. Only thing that ever came close to the quality level in my lifetime for the price was the old Craftsman lineup at Sears and that’s been long dead for quite some time now as a quality brand of tool.
 
That's right instead of staring at a phone all day us kids were on our bicycles exploring the world.
 
Wage stagnation is common across the board on all jobs below CxO as a percentage of gross profits. It’s not really limited to skilled or unskilled labor. Yes, the switch to two incomes was just a way to slide that lower.

Household-wise, I don’t know that any of my blue collar family really had it any easier in the 70s, 80’s, or 90’s. Money was tight, and nobody had a boat. If they had off-road toys they were cast off old trucks that they worked on themselves to lift them or whatever.
On my father's blue collar mechanic income alone, we had a relatively new house, a truck, 2 Corvettes, a ski boat, a small cabin cruiser, three wheelers, no debt, even the house was paid for, and a $100k in the bank when he died in an accident in 1985.

Granted he bought his cars and kept them forever, only ever bought one car new, and was known to squeeze blood out of rocks when haggling for a deal, but there is no way someone doing the same job today could afford half that.

The two income standard for a family really hurt in the long run, no I don't have any issue with women working, I tell my wife all the time I'll be a stay at home husband ;).

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To get back to CFIs and training.

As a student I've always preferred to compete all the ground work, studying, and test before I start the flying part. I personally like to have the background knowledge before I'm in the air trying to learn the practical part.

I also prefer to have a CFI that wants to be a CFI, not just using the job to build hours. I feel bad for those that are working on building their time towards the ATP exam, but I don't want you as my CFI. My favorite CFI is a retired engineer that works more hours in retirement as a CFI than he did before. He enjoys instructing and it shows.

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On my father's blue collar mechanic income alone, we had a relatively new house, a truck, 2 Corvettes, a ski boat, a small cabin cruiser, three wheelers, no debt, even the house was paid for, and a $100k in the bank when he died in an accident in 1985.

Granted he bought his cars and kept them forever, only ever bought one car new, and was known to squeeze blood out of rocks when haggling for a deal, but there is no way someone doing the same job today could afford half that.

The two income standard for a family really hurt in the long run, no I don't have any issue with women working, I tell my wife all the time I'll be a stay at home husband ;).

Surprising. I never knew any mechanics who had ALL of that stuff at the same time, back then. Everyone haggled and traded stuff constantly though. A boat for a couple of years, a used car for the boat another year, etc.

And I think you might underestimate what a GOOD mechanic can make today, especially if they specialize and own a shop. My Dodge diesel expert isn’t hurting for money. Or toys. I think he knows how to haggle deals, too, from the looks of things. I just pay him, and he’s not cheap.

He’s worth the dollars though. I’d have to go look but we’ve put over 60,000 miles on his re-built engine so far, and he promised I wouldn’t see him again for another 100,000. :) I wouldn’t bet against him on that one. I bet @gkainz wouldn’t either — he’s used him before too.

All sorts of places around here literally begging for big diesel mechanics and offering signing bonuses and higher pay than in a long time. Granted, it’s a bit of an out of control growth area of the country again, but nobody who knows a trade is looking for work and wages are going up.

One of the school bus maintenance facilities for the City and County is across the street from our office. It has I think seven or nine bays capable of handling school busses in them, and there’s never an empty bay. Someone is working on a bus in every one, usually more than one mechanic.

Their pay, being government stuff, is only slightly above average but they have good bennies.

With the yard holding hundreds of busses, anyone who could turn a wrench on a diesel bus would be doing pretty well, if our housing prices weren’t in a massive bubble here at the moment. That’s driving more of the labor problem than all the other normal cost of living prices.

They also never take down their sign for drivers. Ever. Not in the last five years or so, anyway.

Seriously if you can’t find a job in Denver, you must not be able to pass a drug test, because that’s about all that standing in anyone’s way here. The bad part is the housing costs.

Millenials who haven’t married and had kids yet and that next generation behind them who are all getting out of college now or entering the workforce are often doing the multiple roommate thing in large townhouses. Large townhouses seem to be the sweet spot for “not popular enough with people having kids, and way too big for singles” price squeezes, and they’ve figured it out.

They set up contracts with everyone in a big four bedroom, share all the “toys” like big TVs and gaming systems and stereos, and use apps to pay whoever holds the note on the place, automatically with a tap on a smartphone every month, automated splits of utility bills in the apps, all of it. Pretty cool really. I wish we’d have done that in our early married years... if we’d have saved half of what we paid on that first condo, I’d definitely be writing a check for a twin by now.

Definitely if our housing weren’t out of control the mechanics and bus drivers and such here would be doing pretty well for themselves. Those who got here before the boom, definitely are.
 
As a student who's paying for this out of my own pocket, I can't understand not doing the assigned reading or at least watching the 50+ related youtube videos to get the information. I'm in this because I want to do it. I can't seem to get enough aviation info into my brain.
 
As a student who's paying for this out of my own pocket, I can't understand not doing the assigned reading or at least watching the 50+ related youtube videos to get the information. I'm in this because I want to do it. I can't seem to get enough aviation info into my brain.

You said the key words. From what I hear the students who aren’t interested often have someone else footing the bill. Mom and dad usually. Sometimes that attitude sneaks in with student loans at big ratings mills I hear.

No personal experience with either one. But I hear it.

Most folks work pretty hard at things they’re paying for and have skin in the game on.
 
You said the key words. From what I hear the students who aren’t interested often have someone else footing the bill. Mom and dad usually. Sometimes that attitude sneaks in with student loans at big ratings mills I hear.

No personal experience with either one. But I hear it.

Most folks work pretty hard at things they’re paying for and have skin in the game on.

This seems to be true but there is another angle from which you can look at it. When someone else is footing the bill, "bad" students are not going to quit as early or as easily.
 
This seems to be true but there is another angle from which you can look at it. When someone else is footing the bill, "bad" students are not going to quit as early or as easily.
Even as a student I've seen that with other students. I think having financial skin in the game is a great motivator !

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You said the key words. From what I hear the students who aren’t interested often have someone else footing the bill. Mom and dad usually. Sometimes that attitude sneaks in with student loans at big ratings mills I hear.

No personal experience with either one. But I hear it.

Most folks work pretty hard at things they’re paying for and have skin in the game on.

In the lobby of a flight school yesterday I listened as a dad talked through the process and cost of his son going from zero to commercial at that school. Dad did all of the talking, and the “kid” (who was at least 18 for sure) barely looked up and never said a word. Now I can’t pretend to know their situation, but I couldn’t help but get the feeling that the kid is going to have a real hard time if he pursues it. He just didn’t seem to care, and from what I’ve seen so far, flying involves a whole lot of caring. Dad may be pouring money into a pit, unless the kid has some passion that wasn’t on display right then.
 
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