Ground School Instructor Pay

1

121Dispatch

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I got my AGI a couple weeks ago, and threw my resume out just to see what might be available. Well, I got a call within a few days from a school that is just starting a ground school program (jeez, timing is everything). Anyways, I was invited to interview, and was asked to develop, and present a plan on the four forces. They really liked my presentation and teaching style, so I was offered a job to teach private and commercial ground schools (only have the AGI...guess I'll proabably get the IGI to teach instrument ground schools too).

It's a part time (couple nights a week) deal, and since they've never had a "ground instructor," they didn't have a pay scale, so they asked what I expected to be paid. I gave them a small range around the hourly rate I would like, but now it has me thinking........

How do ground school instructors typically set up pay? Is it an hourly rate ($20/hour), or a per classroom session rate ($50/class), or a whole course rate ($1000 to teach the PPL ground)?

I don't have an offer with a rate yet, so when that comes in maybe I can discuss the best option with them...this is probably something I should have considered before going in for the interview, but I've just always thought about aviation instruction in terms of hours.

Any thought/experiences?
 
Hourly. I only did a very limited amount of ground instruction when I had my AGI, and it was mostly for friends and friends of friends, but it was all hourly. How much does the school charge when their CFIs do ground? That's probably a good place to start.

Congrats on the job, and good luck too!
 
Great question, and one I'm struggling with too. Interested in seeing the responses!
 
I think you should be paid at the same rate as their CFI's would be paid if they'd given the class. You are providing the same service, and you've met the same standards.
 
TMetzinger said:
I think you should be paid at the same rate as their CFI's would be paid if they'd given the class. You are providing the same service, and you've met the same standards.
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One problem I've seen is that sometimes CFI's are asked to teach group ground school classes for no pay other than the chance to get their faces out in front of potential flight customers. Not saying I agree with that, but as a CGI, I wouldn't even have that potential upside on the back end.
 
Grant, if that's the case, don't teach the school, because as you said there's no upside for you.
 
TMetzinger said:
Grant, if that's the case, don't teach the school, because as you said there's no upside for you.
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Unless you can find another upside. This opportunity will allow me to polish up my teaching skills, and make my eventual CFI ride much easier, and as a bonus do this while being paid, instead of having to pay an instructor to make sure I'm keeping up on my lesson plan progression.

While the polishing of my teaching skills is most important to me at this point, I do have the certificate and ability to pass along the knowledge, so I feel it's important to be paid at or very near the same rate as the CFI's since the information should be equally as good coming from me or from them.
 
I have no doubt that I'll be able to get paid teaching at this school; my point was just that we want to be careful making a statement that we want to be paid the same as CFIs, because there may be other factors at work in their pay schedule.
 
May I suggest that you be paid a percentage of what the students are charged?

I you have one student paying $300 for the course you get say $200. If you have 10 in the class you get $2000.

Joe
 
Bah!

Ground should be free.

I don't charge for ground and the eaa offers free ground courses.

~ Christopher
 
Personal opinion aside, one shall receive compensation equal to services rendered. Such compensation would be tangible and immediate.
 
jwriteclub said:
Bah!

Ground should be free.

I don't charge for ground and the eaa offers free ground courses.

~ Christopher
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I agree!

Avgas should be free!
Maintenance should be free!
Hell Airplanes should be free!

And how on earth anyone would think that people should pay for a written word is beyond me.

Joe
 
Areeda said:
I agree!

Avgas should be free!
Maintenance should be free!
Hell Airplanes should be free!

And how on earth anyone would think that people should pay for a written word is beyond me.

Joe
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If you can get people to cough up $6 for a gallon of filtered tap water (in handy 10 oz plastic bottles), I'd think written words ought to go for at least a buck per word. Please send $40 for this message.
 
When I was teaching, I got paid the same, whether I was in the aircraft or on the ground. Time is time, and billable is billable. But honestly, due to interuptions and such, I never charged for the total time spent, but I believe I was very fair to my students, my boss, and myself.

One thing about teaching an organized ground school class- there is no doubting about the amount of time billed... A 2.5 hr class is 2.5 hrs.

Most of our civilian students did their ground training one on one with their CFI. But for the USAFA IFT's we did a 30 hr ground school class which civilians could join if they wished ($400).

M-TH, 5:30-8pm, 3 weeks, and we had gone through the entire Jepp PPL manual. Each of us CFI's took the subjects either we had special interest in, or that we wanted to challenge ourselves with. And since we had daily contact with all of the students, and all the CFI's were in the office every day, there was plenty of time for follow up.
 
im pretty sure i get paid the same for ground as flight training. ive been trying to charge for more ground time this year as I realized I was doing a lot of ground during pre/post flight activities and not charging for it. I still probably dont charge everything I could but thats OK. Way back when I taught a ground school I priced it so that I got a certain number of dollars from each student for the entire course. i based it on what I would've gotten hourly IIRC.
 
My point is this: I would rather my students buy me a cup of coffee and ask as many questions as they want, with no time pressure, than that I charge them for ground. Plus, I feel that if you're charging, you cannot responsibly talk about anything other than the exact topics required, which can stifle interesting questions and discussions.

In addition, the local EAA offers free ground school (weekly VFR course and weekend IFR course). This is, to my mind, much preferable to charging, as it gets a lot more people interested and involved.

To me, free ground is like marketing cigarettes to minors -- a great business plan.

~ Christopher
 
chris - im with you. and god and the line boys know that i spend my fair share of time BSing at the airport with whoever will walk by.

but there are times when a good discussion of a specific topic is necessary, and thats when i start billing.
 
121Dispatch said:
Unless you can find another upside. This opportunity will allow me to polish up my teaching skills, and make my eventual CFI ride much easier, and as a bonus do this while being paid, instead of having to pay an instructor to make sure I'm keeping up on my lesson plan progression.

While the polishing of my teaching skills is most important to me at this point, I do have the certificate and ability to pass along the knowledge, so I feel it's important to be paid at or very near the same rate as the CFI's since the information should be equally as good coming from me or from them.
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Nononononono...NO! That is the problem with this whole damned industry. Charge what the job is worth! Not some mentally subsidized or time building discount. Doing things cheap/free for someone who is charging someone else for what you are doing is NOT being a "Team Player", it is cutting every pilot/instructors throat including your own and your students. We have to stop this crap. The only message you end up putting across is how little and valueless your time and knowledge are.
 
There's all kinds of free ground resources available to every student. Quick answers are no big deal anytime but if a student wants blocks of ground time they pay for my time taken away from flying with another student or any other thing in my life, as I did and still do during my flight training.
 
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Henning said:
Nononononono...NO! That is the problem with this whole damned industry. Charge what the job is worth! Not some mentally subsidized or time building discount. Doing things cheap/free for someone who is charging someone else for what you are doing is NOT being a "Team Player", it is cutting every pilot/instructors throat including your own and your students. We have to stop this crap. The only message you end up putting across is how little and valueless your time and knowledge are.
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Henning, perhaps you misunderstood what I meant....I completely expect to be paid what my time/knowledge is worth. The ground intruction time helps me out, but I'm not providing any training for a discounted price. It gets done for the appropriate price, and as a side bonus, I improve my teaching skills. I agree that the going price it what is expected - nothing less.
 
jwriteclub said:
My point is this: I would rather my students buy me a cup of coffee and ask as many questions as they want, with no time pressure, than that I charge them for ground. Plus, I feel that if you're charging, you cannot responsibly talk about anything other than the exact topics required, which can stifle interesting questions and discussions.

In addition, the local EAA offers free ground school (weekly VFR course and weekend IFR course). This is, to my mind, much preferable to charging, as it gets a lot more people interested and involved.

To me, free ground is like marketing cigarettes to minors -- a great business plan.

~ Christopher
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Chris, I'm with you somewhat. My plan is to charge the school for the time I'm in the classroom, but am more than happy to tell students they are free to call me if they have questions during days with no class. I'm talking about an organized ground school class set up for 2.5 hours a couple times a week, not a couple hours over the entire course of the PPL training. My charge is for those hours in the classroom...BS'ing, andoccasional questions on off days is just part of helping folks out.
 
My point is that as an industry, we continually whine about how the number of pilots are decreasing. Fine: lets do something: offer free PPL ground school to get more people started.

In the past decade the local EAA ground has gotten some 500+ people their written and probably 50+ have gone on to get their license. These are mostly people who never would have started otherwise.

~ Christopher
 
P.S. I would say that if the school charges for your ground time, then I would definately get some (large) part of that.

~ Christopher
 
jwriteclub said:
My point is that as an industry, we continually whine about how the number of pilots are decreasing. Fine: lets do something: offer free PPL ground school to get more people started.

In the past decade the local EAA ground has gotten some 500+ people their written and probably 50+ have gone on to get their license. These are mostly people who never would have started otherwise.

~ Christopher
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Well, using that same logic, let's increase the number of pilots by offering free flight training and airplane usage during training, too! Remove cost as a barrier to learning to fly! Of course who's going to be willing to offer their planes for free, or do al that teaching for free? Where's the incentive, then, to put your plane on-line or to get your CFI? Well, you'll have students coming back for advanced ratings or to rent the plane for trips in the future, right? Isn't the difference between these two proposals just a matter of degree? And where are we taking quality of the education received into account?
 
jwriteclub said:
P.S. I would say that if the school charges for your ground time, then I would definately get some (large) part of that.

~ Christopher
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The last FBO I worked for over ten years ago charged about $45/hr for CFI time, ground or flight, and we CFIs got about 1/3, which is about right considering the school took care of everything except teaching.
 
jwriteclub said:
My point is that as an industry, we continually whine about how the number of pilots are decreasing. Fine: lets do something: offer free PPL ground school to get more people started.
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I can't disagree more vehimently. In order to be in aviation you should really have to want it to the extent of sacrafice to achieve. There are way too many idiots out there to make aviation a easy thing. The day aviation becomes as accesible as boating is the day I quit flying. And the arguement about "well the rich can be stupid too", well, the rich usually hire professionals to operate their planes and boats.
 
Henning said:
I can't disagree more vehimently. In order to be in aviation you should really have to want it to the extent of sacrafice to achieve. There are way too many idiots out there to make aviation a easy thing. The day aviation becomes as accesible as boating is the day I quit flying. And the arguement about "well the rich can be stupid too", well, the rich usually hire professionals to operate their planes and boats.
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And if they don't hire operators, the ones that think money buys the mind of an aviator usually end up a statistic or the causual factor in an NTSB report. Thinning of the herd.
 
I must most strongly disagree with you all.

Your mentality is one of the reasons aviation has become as expensive as it has. Of course we cannot offer free flight training (nor should we), but what ever happened to just sitting around "hanger flying". The more senior members of the pilot community talk about the "good old days" of hanger flying, etc. Yet where is that now? I cannot (with one exception) think of any hanger that gets this kind of community around it.

Henning, et al, are at an age where the ultimate demise of private aviation will not directly affect them. I'm not. I want aviation to be a viable activity for my nieces and nephews, even if they don't have seven figure income.

$45 an hour for ground????? This is offensive. I cannot believe that anyone would pay that, and frankly, if I knew who they were, I would give them a strong talking to about the many charlatans out to bilk them of their hard earned flying dollars. What's next? $50 eagle flight rides? $500 angle flight trips?

You may all take your own paths, but I, for one, will continue to do my best to introduce and propel more people into aviation.

~ Christopher
 
Price what driving instruction costs. Price tennis/golf/shooting/other sport lessons.

Hangar flying is fine, it's free, and you get what you pay for. It's not loggable, it's not formal, it's not subject to any quality control.

When I start instructing I'll be happy to give some advice in my spare time, just like Ron and others do here. But if you want TRAINING, not advice, then you'll pay for it, at the customary rates for the area.

I agree that things have gotten more expensive. Ground time was $25.00/hr when I started in 1995. The airplane (TB-9) was $70.00 per hour. But the margins have gotten skinnier for FBO's. Gas costs more, insurance is MUCH more, and parts are more.
 
jwriteclub said:
I must most strongly disagree with you all.

Your mentality is one of the reasons aviation has become as expensive as it has. Of course we cannot offer free flight training (nor should we), but what ever happened to just sitting around "hanger flying". The more senior members of the pilot community talk about the "good old days" of hanger flying, etc. Yet where is that now? I cannot (with one exception) think of any hanger that gets this kind of community around it.

Henning, et al, are at an age where the ultimate demise of private aviation will not directly affect them. I'm not. I want aviation to be a viable activity for my nieces and nephews, even if they don't have seven figure income.

$45 an hour for ground????? This is offensive. I cannot believe that anyone would pay that, and frankly, if I knew who they were, I would give them a strong talking to about the many charlatans out to bilk them of their hard earned flying dollars. What's next? $50 eagle flight rides? $500 angle flight trips?

You may all take your own paths, but I, for one, will continue to do my best to introduce and propel more people into aviation.

~ Christopher
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I don't think that $45/hr for structured, comprehensive ground instruction is exorbitant at all. Figure that each hour of ground takes about 6 hours to prepare (this is a ballbark from someone who's done it once, so corroboration of refutation is welcome), and that's not much to pay. Plus, if you do it through a multi-student ground school, the cost dwindles into the noise.

As others have said, I don't consider "hangar flying" to be instruction, as instructive as it may be. It's neither chargeable nor loggable, and I wouldn't WANT to charge for it! I want people to feel free to come up to me and ask my opinion on something!
 
I don't disagree that there is log able ground and hanger flying. My point is that $45 is way to much for ground. I had considered charging $5 for ground, but frankly, it's not worth the trouble.

As to preparation, of course it takes preparation, but good material (power points, etc) can be re-used time and again.

I feel like every time I teach something, I come up with some more and better teaching aids. However, the prep time for each lesson significantly decreases with each time through.

~ Christopher
 
Christopher -
I spend $40/hour for IR ground with an outstanding freelance instructor. We respect each others time and both give and take as necessary. I don't think his rate is unfair due to the way he conducts business.
On the other hand, I had an instructor during my pp that charged $30 and wasn't worth $10.
 
jwriteclub said:
I must most strongly disagree with you all.

Your mentality is one of the reasons aviation has become as expensive as it has. Of course we cannot offer free flight training (nor should we), but what ever happened to just sitting around "hanger flying". The more senior members of the pilot community talk about the "good old days" of hanger flying, etc. Yet where is that now? I cannot (with one exception) think of any hanger that gets this kind of community around it.

Henning, et al, are at an age where the ultimate demise of private aviation will not directly affect them. I'm not. I want aviation to be a viable activity for my nieces and nephews, even if they don't have seven figure income.

$45 an hour for ground????? This is offensive. I cannot believe that anyone would pay that, and frankly, if I knew who they were, I would give them a strong talking to about the many charlatans out to bilk them of their hard earned flying dollars. What's next? $50 eagle flight rides? $500 angle flight trips?

You may all take your own paths, but I, for one, will continue to do my best to introduce and propel more people into aviation.

~ Christopher
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I just spent over thirty grand to obtain a CFI ticket. What am I supposed to be worth in order to earn a living and pay back that money? If I make $30 an hour and my school splits the fees with me getting two-thirds (it's usually much less), is not that a reasonable amount to pay?

I can understand if you're getting poor instruction but you cut that off early on, not continue to pay for something you don't see the value in. Keep in mind, you get what you pay for. Demand is high along with pay and it's still not enough to hold on to many good instructors.
 
To answer the original question, I can give you some numbers to start with: $30-$35 per hour teaching an adult continuing education class at a local college. This is for 10 students minimum, and with more than that, the pay can go up.

Course cost for 35 hours = about $320 including all books & supplies (around $100 worth)

Pay and course cost are negotiated with the college. You can charge more or less based on what you want to make and what you believe is a reasonable cost to the students. The college takes a cut, so that influences the costs a bit.

Now, if you wanted to make $50 an hour let's say... you would just need to recruit more students and/or charge more for the course. The hardest part is deciding what you think people are willing to pay and what is fair.

You figure with the above setup people are paying a little more than $6/hour for their time in class. As the college has told me, that's "pretty cheap" and I could probably charge more.
 
skyflyer8 said:
To answer the original question, I can give you some numbers to start with: $30-$35 per hour teaching an adult continuing education class at a local college. This is for 10 students minimum, and with more than that, the pay can go up.

Course cost for 35 hours = about $320 including all books & supplies (around $100 worth)

Pay and course cost are negotiated with the college. You can charge more or less based on what you want to make and what you believe is a reasonable cost to the students. The college takes a cut, so that influences the costs a bit.

Now, if you wanted to make $50 an hour let's say... you would just need to recruit more students and/or charge more for the course. The hardest part is deciding what you think people are willing to pay and what is fair.

You figure with the above setup people are paying a little more than $6/hour for their time in class. As the college has told me, that's "pretty cheap" and I could probably charge more.
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I think the college where I work charges about $180 for 25 hours of instruction for the primary, plus course materials (E6B, FAR/AIM, Jeppesen, charts, etc.). Given that this is less that $8/hour (plus materials), I think the students are getting a great deal. Presuming the instructor is any good! :p
 
jwriteclub said:
I must most strongly disagree with you all.

Your mentality is one of the reasons aviation has become as expensive as it has. Of course we cannot offer free flight training (nor should we), but what ever happened to just sitting around "hanger flying". The more senior members of the pilot community talk about the "good old days" of hanger flying, etc. Yet where is that now? I cannot (with one exception) think of any hanger that gets this kind of community around it.

Henning, et al, are at an age where the ultimate demise of private aviation will not directly affect them. I'm not. I want aviation to be a viable activity for my nieces and nephews, even if they don't have seven figure income.

$45 an hour for ground????? This is offensive. I cannot believe that anyone would pay that, and frankly, if I knew who they were, I would give them a strong talking to about the many charlatans out to bilk them of their hard earned flying dollars. What's next? $50 eagle flight rides? $500 angle flight trips?

You may all take your own paths, but I, for one, will continue to do my best to introduce and propel more people into aviation.

~ Christopher
Click to expand...

No one is forcing you to either, there is no requirement for ground instruction. I didn't get any. I read a lot of things and studied on my own. That is an option for you, your nieces and nephews as well. However some people do see a value in it. Their time is worth considerably more than $45hr and if an instructor can save save them an hour of time, it pays for 4-5 hrs or more of instructional costs. And then, there's the factor of some things aren't in the books that you learn by surviving, these are lessons that at $45 are a bargain.

BTW, Say your neices and nephews decide to pursue aviation vocationaly, after they cross the hump in the expense/income curve,will their time be worth $7.50hr or $30?
 
I have a friend that did some flight training with American Failures (as he calls it) and they charge $75/hr for ground instruction! He finally realized that he wasn't getting or going to get a good enough value for the chunk of money he gave them, so he pulled out and got most of it refunded.
 
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