Today should be fun

Clip4

Final Approach
Joined
Jun 27, 2013
Messages
9,432
Location
A Rubber Room
Display Name

Display name:
Cli4ord
Those who read my posts, love em or hate em, know I am critical of both the minimum FAA experience and certification standards for CFI applicants.

So this week I started polishing an inexperienced CFI with a few instructional hours to get him to the standards required work at a high quality flight school.

We started with review of a few maneuvers. Oh boy - I got my work cut out. But, I am really looking forward to this.
 
You could probably be a little more specific.
 
Flight one completed. Maybe these days I expect a lot, but shouldn’t a new CFI be able to at least demonstrate all the private pilot maneuvers to private pilot standards? I am not even talking about instructing them, just do them.
 
Flight one completed. Maybe these days I expect a lot, but shouldn’t a new CFI be able to at least demonstrate all the private pilot maneuvers to private pilot standards? I am not even talking about instructing them, just do them.

I remember back when the ink was still wet on my temporary FII certificate. I had a total of something around 275 hours. I had just finally learned to hit my intended landing spot on the runway twice in a row...

Lot of landings on all types of surfaces since then....except grass.

What is a high quality flight school.??
 
I remember back when the ink was still wet on my temporary FII certificate. I had a total of something around 275 hours. I had just finally learned to hit my intended landing spot on the runway twice in a row...

Lot of landings on all types of surfaces since then....except grass.

What is a high quality flight school.??

One where 90% of the instructors have more than 2000 hours and are not looking for airline jobs.
 
One where 90% of the instructors have more than 2000 hours and are not looking for airline jobs.

So are only 90% of the instructors high-quality now? If you got a CFI that can’t do basic maneuvers that seems like a bad hire. Do you charge that guy dual for instruction?
 
So are only 90% of the instructors high-quality now? If you got a CFI that can’t do basic maneuvers that seems like a bad hire. Do you charge that guy dual for instruction?

90% are very high time profession pilots, about 10% have lesser time and are closely supervised.

Each applicant has to pass a 141 instructor check ride to the flight school standard before he will be hired on a probationary status, and closely supervised.

in this case, we may offer to train up this applicant, and yes he is being charged.
 
Last edited:
Don’t hire that one guy that won’t pay dual rates cause he ain’t a student anymore.
 
One where 90% of the instructors have more than 2000 hours and are not looking for airline jobs.

How much are you paying them?

Sounds inline with what FSI looks for ground/sim guys, think they are around 100k a year with a pretty good benefit package and normally a “free” type rating or two.

Just curious, are you an older version of James?


Ahh doc, let’s have a group hug
 
Not enough high timers to meet student demand.

Sure there are!

Just a matter of making it worth their time, but still being pallatible to students.

So... ether you’re down with a low time hour builder, or you’re down to pay $200hr for a multi thousand hour CFI, or you’re down to fly at the whim of a high time pilot who CFIs on the side, OR you’re calling a old retired guy who’s a hobby pilot with a few thousand hours of burger runs over half a century highly experienced, now you also have the unicorn retired high time professional pilot who still wants to CFI as a retirement job.

Free market has shown the hour builder wins for flight schools.
 
Last edited:
Depemds of qualifications and contract, but the top rate is $100 an hour plus per diem.

And no, we don’t take dead beats off the street. You need to be referred by another IP.
 
So what do you pay? Is it a secret?

Speaking of secrets, you seriously manually set who can or can’t see..... your POA profile?
Guess I wasn’t worthy lol

4-AF4-FB24-4-A78-460-F-84-D7-559-F25-AA9532.jpg
 
It depends of qualifications. $35 for entry CFI

But that’s only for a tiny minority of your CFIs right? Think you said 10%?

So real world big picture you’re paying $100hr plus per diem to your CFIs, what do you bill them out for and what’s your average cost, say for a 60hr PPL?
 
But that’s only for a tiny minority of your CFIs right? Think you said 10%?

So real world big picture you’re paying $100hr plus per diem to your CFIs, what do you bill them out for and what’s your average cost, say for a 60hr PPL?

For PPL, Instr, and commercial training the rate is $40 for the experienced folk billed at $50. The rest is govt contract, CSIP, and advanced training.
 
For PPL, Instr, and commercial training the rate is $40 for the experienced folk billed at $50. The rest is govt contract, CSIP, and advanced training.

So the experienced guys are paid $100 but billed out at $40 or $50, what about the $50-60 loss you take not even counting the markup between what they are paid out to billed out as?

Or are you saying you use the low time $35hr CFIs for PPL-CPL

And only use the experienced $100hr guys for the .gov, cirrus and advanced training?
 
So the experienced guys are paid $100 but billed out at $40 or $50, what about the $50-60 loss you take not even counting the markup between what they are paid out to billed out as?

Or are you saying you use the low time $35hr CFIs for PPL-CPL

And only use the experienced $100hr guys for the .gov, cirrus and advanced training?

no, we have a lot of retired guys who instruct part time $40 an hour, several doing the CSIP thing, also so,e take part in a number of other contracts that are annual and temporary. Different jobs, different pay scales, different durations. None of the low experienced folks get the better paying stuff.
 
Last edited:
no, we have a lot of retire guys who instruct part time $40 an hour, several doing the CSIP thing, also so,e take part in a number of other contracts that are annual and temporary. Different jobs, different pay scales, different durations. None of the low experienced folks get the better paying stuff.

That makes more sense, do you get much turmoil with the large differences in pay in a small school?
 
That makes more sense, do you get much turmoil with the large differences in pay in a small school?


Zero. Some of it is qualifications, some seniority. I was lucky to be asked to work for the company when it first formed.
 
Back
Top