IFR Training in Personal Aircraft

DeltaCharlie172

DeltaCharlie172

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I have inquired at many flight schools and even if the aircraft meets all regulations and insurance requirements they simply say no - we want you to rent our aircraft! Hoping to get insight on how one goes about finding a CFII to do private training in personal aircraft.
 
That’s odd, most schools will gladly teach in a client’s airplane.
 
Ask for a CFI, not a school.

Someone on here would probably ether do it, or know someone
 
I found A CFII that was happy to train in my plane. It's Experimental as well. A local pilot group or Facebook group has members that would be happy to do it.
 
I was able to get a CFII from a flight school at my base. He made a lot more money teaching in my aircraft then he was paid by the flight school.
 
i'm betting there are a lot of local CFI-I's by you that would teach in your plane. There might be a bulletin board at the flight school with advertisements. Or check in another FBO. Every time I wander by one of these there are always business cards for instructors. And you'll get someone to help with future BFR's, etc
 
Professional Instrument Courses. Did it in my Navion with them (ten day course, with two days off for good behavior).
 
As
DeltaCharlie172 said:
I have inquired at many flight schools and even if the aircraft meets all regulations and insurance requirements they simply say no - we want you to rent our aircraft! Hoping to get insight on how one goes about finding a CFII to do private training in personal aircraft.
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It’s not too surprising. In the flight school environment, they have control of the aircraft and its maintenance. There’s a marginally higher risk that some schools are unwilling to take.

But, as mentioned, there-are many independent CFIs out there who teach in private airplanes. And many of those are more experienced than the youngsters just passing through. Try local aviation groups rather than flight schools.

There are even several websites to search for independent CFIs. Some, like Skyfarer, are fairly new. Others, like Gleim have been in the training business for decades.
 
I started instrument training in a flight school aircraft then switched to my aircraft after I bought it right after having a IFR panel installed.
My instructor did not have problem with that.
Then I finished instrument training at a different flight school in my own aircraft.
I added the instructors to my insurance policy at no extra charge.
 
The problem is you're asking the flight schools. Many, many instructors are not associated with flight schools as they work completely independently. Well over 90% of my dual given is not at a flight school, and has been in owners' aircraft.

The suggestion above about looking on a bulletin board is good, but don't just limit yourself to that. For example, when I was CFI-ing regularly, I didn't do any advertising at all after the first year - at that point, I had built up enough word-of-mouth business that it was self-sustaining.

So, where do you find CFII's? Talk to the other pilots you know. You have a CFI you've worked with in your plane, right? Ask if he/she knows anyone they'd recommend. Get on local message boards and social media. I'm not sure where you're located (KSDX is not a valid airport code. Typo?) but there may be a local Facebook group or something (like in my area there is "Central Oklahoma Aviators" and for the Dallas area there is "North Texas Aviators"). There are ALWAYS posts on there from people looking for instructors, and then getting recommendations.
 
The local flight school might have an insurance restriction and just do not want to admit. Or a learned allergic reaction to letting their CFIs fly in allegedly well maintained owner aircraft. Or the school's owners are outright greedy and probably the only offering on the field. Who knows.

Keep calling around.

I have used CFI's from a flight school in my own plane rather than rent the school's planes. And used an independent CFIs in my own plane.

Definitely makes sense to use your own plane for instrument training.

Worst case, go diving in the FAA database to find a CFII and make contact.

The only real challenge I had with instructors was minimum requirements for the open pilot clause in my insurance policy for a scenario when I could not act as PIC in a new category, and the CFII was PIC. Sure, I can specifically name a CFI in the policy, but prefer to avoid the extra cost unless absolutely necessary.
 
Your instructor isn’t doing any freelancing?

That’s how I do my training in our partnership aircraft. I trained with the school initially and finished on ours. Now ifr with my guy in our aircraft.

Likely helps the chief instructor himself also freelanced before his free time got taken up by family matters.

And this is all with my training records being submitted via them as well.

I’ll hit a bit of a wall with commercial as the provincial gov has a bit of a thing with that. However, it might be possible to do it still in my plane but just having to pay the school or something. Wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t consider a vocational program with tax benefits.

I think my instructor likes teaching on ours. The school planes unless you rent the twins don’t have AP. When he wants to talk about something it’s easy for him to say his control and put on the AP.
 
RyanB said:
That’s odd, most schools will gladly teach in a client’s airplane.
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My school that does my annuals stopped doing instructing in other planes just to keep everything the same. They run 172's and I had a Cherokee. This was also peak insanity during the pandemic so who knows.

Op: walk in to some fbo's. There's usually a board that people will pin their cards to. Or hit up the Facebook or post on Reddit
 
Weird, I think the profit from CFI rental is higher and far more reliable than the plane rental.

Your school may have inadequate CFIs on staff and is trying to keep them on house students, or there is something else odd going on that might be a yellow flag. I can't imagine they give one hang about any added risk they subject their CFIs to in an outside aircraft. Frankly most of the flight schools I am familiar with field inferior planes to the typical owner plane.

Definitely figure out where the CFI water cooler is at that place and sniff for a freelancer. Or post a "CFI wanted" poster in a conspicuous place at the field and see who answers.
 
As others have said you might want to try PIC
 
Might want to say where you are, the airport code in your profile doesn't match any US airports. I bet someone here could connect you if we knew where you were. The other option is an accelerated school. Others have mentioned PIC, there are a few others.
 
I'll just toss this out randomly without knowing at all - maybe they're afraid of your specific airplane?

Partly humor, partly serious. If it doesn't look safe to them they might say they don't want to go up for other reasons.
 
Year ago, I used GATTS for my commercial. They had a couple of others there doing their instrument rating also. We all were using our personal planes. Great location, training included the use of an apartment and a vehicle in Manhattan, Kansas.

Jim
 
If I were you I’d use your plane for the simple reason as to have as much simulated IFR time in the plane that you end up soloing in actual.
 
Albany Tom said:
I'll just toss this out randomly without knowing at all - maybe they're afraid of your specific airplane?

Partly humor, partly serious. If it doesn't look safe to them they might say they don't want to go up for other reasons.
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If the OP’s airplane isn’t the same model with exactly the same equipment that the flight school uses, they may need training themselves to teach it.
 
Like others said don’t look for a flight school but look for an independent CFII. Talk you your local airport manager, they likely know some. If there’s an EAA member meeting or anything nearby you could reach out to chapter president or just show up to the meeting and I’m sure someone there will know someone.
 
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