Some Sound Advice for new CFIs

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Clip4

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So you got the commercial and you are beginning CFI training. You have stars in your eyes with dreams of getting the CFI-I and MEI right away and you are going to build that multi and instrument time so you can go on to fly the big iron.

Only one problem, flight schools don't let low time CFIs give multi training. The insurance companies wont accept the risk to share your aspirations. Also most pilot schools have far more private students than they do instrument students. Your time building bread and butter is the private student.

Learn everything there is to being a great primary instructor first. When you apply at a flight school, they are going to test your ability before you get hired. If your knowledge and skills are crap you will not be teaching at the better schools - which are the ones that give multi training.

Then get the instrument and when you have sufficient hours get the MEI.
 
I have a bunch of letters after my CFI and am not even a really good pilot. I still wouldn’t do primary instruction because those people are trying to kill you.
 
Word is, M.E. training has the potential for issues/accidents if one isn’t properly experienced & trained.

That’s a fair part of it.
 
Landing Fees said:
I have a bunch of letters after my CFI and am not even a really good pilot. I still wouldn’t do primary instruction because those people are trying to kill you.
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My instructor, a Master CFI for 40 years, says "I may be a ****ty pilot, but I'm a damn good instructor!"
 
As a flight school owner/examiner once told me, the fastest way to get away from flight instructing and into a “real” flying job is to pretend flight instructing is all you ever want to do.
 
It’s not like the old days where you needed 1000+ multi pic to on on with a regional.
Today the rating alone will probably suffice.
 
it takes 15 hrs PIC to take the MEI ride, and lots of people are getting hired with 25 PIC Multi...

And it isn't just the private students trying to kill you, most of them at least realize that they don't know much.
 
ja_user said:
it takes 15 hrs PIC to take the MEI ride, and lots of people are getting hired with 25 PIC Multi...

And it isn't just the private students trying to kill you, most of them at least realize that they don't know much.
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True. Plenty of instrument students tried to kill me.
 
I never got my II or MEI. Wasn’t worth the extra money spent as I was only full time instructing for about a year before left for the airlines.
 
Timely advice, just received my CFI temp certificate at the beginning of the month. Planning to knock out the CFII by the end of the year, but not in a hurry for the MEI, not many places around here even offer AMEL.
 
Landing Fees said:
I have a bunch of letters after my CFI and am not even a really good pilot. I still wouldn’t do primary instruction because those people are trying to kill you.
Click to expand...

I found them the safest, you knew where they stood.

The guy with 150hrs doing who knows what, trained initially by who knows who, who wants a BFR/Complex/whatever, that’s the dude who’s going to surprise you with what he doesn’t know, and normally at the most inopportune time.
 
mryan75 said:
My instructor, a Master CFI for 40 years, says "I may be a ****ty pilot, but I'm a damn good instructor!"
Click to expand...
That is not unusual. There is a very old joke that "those who can't do, teach." It was meant as an insult, but there is a positive truth. Teaching skill and aptitude is different. Great pilots (or anything) doesn't equal great instructor withou a lot extra.

Single best flying compliment I ever received was from a DPE after a student's checkride: "he flies better than you!"
 
mryan75 said:
My instructor, a Master CFI for 40 years, says "I may be a ****ty pilot, but I'm a damn good instructor!"
Click to expand...

Funny. During my PPL training after a doing something a couple times (Cross-wind landing, steep turns whatever) where the criticism would flow I would occasionally ask my instructor to "demo that for me". There was a certain satisfaction to watch him generally do it about like I did with the same result.

I know instructors are paid to instruct but having been one myself in the Navy, one of the most valuable skills is knowing when to shut up and let the student work it out (safely) themselves. I've flown with perhaps 5-6 civilian instructors during my PPL/INST/club check outs/BFRs and with one notable exception, a constant theme is they seem to want to provide constant feedback, relevant, irrelevant and distracting. :rolleyes:

People learn a lot of different ways. Learning to instruct is pretty much as important as airmanship for an instructor and that means a lot more than knowing maneuvers.
:D
 
midlifeflyer said:
That is not unusual. There is a very old joke that "those who can't do, teach." It was meant as an insult, but there is a positive truth. Teaching skill and aptitude is different. Great pilots (or anything) doesn't equal great instructor withou a lot extra.

Single best flying compliment I ever received was from a DPE after a student's checkride: "he flies better than you!"
Click to expand...
That's funny. He's actually a very good pilot, or was. He doesn't actually fly basically at all anymore. His last two students (so he says) are instrument students, of which I am one. He's also known to to refer to other instructors as "ballast". He always has a cigar in his mouth and generally has his first "tinge" before noon. He's a good sort, and I'm lucky to have had him as a teacher and mentor.
 
mryan75 said:
My instructor, a Master CFI for 40 years, says "I may be a ****ty pilot, but I'm a damn good instructor!"
Click to expand...

I wanted to get my master CFI, just so my students would call me master.
 
Pugs said:
Funny. During my PPL training after a doing something a couple times (Cross-wind landing, steep turns whatever) where the criticism would flow I would occasionally ask my instructor to "demo that for me". There was a certain satisfaction to watch him generally do it about like I did with the same result.

I know instructors are paid to instruct but having been one myself in the Navy, one of the most valuable skills is knowing when to shut up and let the student work it out (safely) themselves. I've flown with perhaps 5-6 civilian instructors during my PPL/INST/club check outs/BFRs and with one notable exception, a constant theme is they seem to want to provide constant feedback, relevant, irrelevant and distracting. :rolleyes:

People learn a lot of different ways. Learning to instruct is pretty much as important as airmanship for an instructor and that means a lot more than knowing maneuvers.
:D
Click to expand...
If there was a Ten Commandments for CFIs, "Thou shalt know when to shut up" and "Thou shalt know when to let it be" would be there. My 1st Comandment has always been "Thou shalt not mess with a technique which works," but it's at the top of my list because it affected me personally (I have been know to rant about that), I'd be willing to move it down ;)
 
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