req: CFI job advice

On Aug 30, 2:09 pm, "Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net
wrote:
buttman wrote:
That said, I hardly ever see 80 hours a week, a bit
more if you count in ground school and simulator hours.

That's pretty good for time building. I do have one question for you though.

Do your students know that you are known as "buttman" on USENET?

I don't think they would care.

And I meant 80 hours a month, not week. So far in the month of August,
I've logged 78.1 hours which is the most I've ever logged for one
month. In July I logged 50.1, but I ended up working more, due to all
the simulator time I had to do.

On Aug 31, 6:23 am, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:

There are two ways to instruct
1) Work at FBO, get lots of hours, make about $15/hr
2) Work for yourself, work between 0-10 hours per week and making $50/

I often wonder how instructors (in a general collective sense) managed
to get themselves into this ridicuous low pay situation.

Being a flight instructor is supposed to be a position of knowledge,
responsibility, respect, and all that, and yet, for some reason they
command a pittance of a wage comparatively.

The same is true really of most career pilots, even for airline
pilots, considering the weight on thier shoulders, the money isn't
really that amazing.

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:58:16 -0700, James Sleeman wrote:

I often wonder how instructors (in a general collective sense) managed
to get themselves into this ridicuous low pay situation.

Supply and demand.

If Enzo Ferrari ran an ad for Ferrari test drivers in Italy paying
$3.00/hour he would get a million resumes and one of them would me mine.

:-)

--
Dallas

In rec.aviation.piloting, on Thu 30 Aug 2007 06:48:47p, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

I'd give the situation a LONG hard look if I were you before devoting
a ton of time into developing a CFI position full time.
With a family and responsibilities, I'm not saying it absolutely can't
be done, but it's been my experience that it's highly unlikely it will
work out the way you might be envisioning it at this point.

I've known CFIs who also were waiters at restaurants and they said that
they made more money as a waiter than they did as a CFI. They said that
they were just trying to get the hours in so that they could get hired by
one of the smaller commuter airliners or whatever. The way that I
understand it, being a CFI at a flight school is just "paying your dues" to
the eventual goal of becoming an ATP. There are exceptions though... I
knew one older CFI who had retired from some profession and he did it
because he actually *liked* it.

Bob Fry wrote:
"GM" == Gattman writes:

GM Most recently I had to sign a contract rider for a job I
GM already have that says I won't badmouth the company for six
GM months after I quit.

To get even more off-topic, that seems unenforceable, I violation of
the free speech clause of the US Constitution. Non-disclosure of
company secrets, sure. Non-compete, maybe. Non-trash-talk?


How is it a violation of the 1st amendment? Nobody is forcing him to
sign the agreement. He is self-censoring and that isn't a violation of
the Constitution.

Matt

In rec.aviation.piloting, on Thu 30 Aug 2007 07:06:41p, "Gattman"
wrote:

Ohhh, man... I guess owe my CFI an apology. I always thought that
was what I was -supposed- to do. On the flipside, I've never had a
problem preflighting and hanging out while she finished up a previous
lesson, so hopefully she doesn't completely hate me.

Well, considering the fact that the previous lesson is unlikely to get back
until the start time for your lesson, there's not much else you can do.
The flight schools that I have dealt with over the years have always billed
by aircraft time (Hobbs or tach). Very seldom have I ever been able to
squeeze a 1 hour flight out of a 1 hour booking slot.

In rec.aviation.piloting, on Fri 31 Aug 2007 01:22:37a, Dallas
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:58:16 -0700, James Sleeman wrote:
If Enzo Ferrari ran an ad for Ferrari test drivers in Italy paying
$3.00/hour he would get a million resumes and one of them would me
mine.

Well, considering the fact that he died in 1988, the chance of that
happening are rather remote.

Robert M. Gary wrote:

Most pre-private students go into a rage if you try to charge them
while they preflight and you drink coffee in the office, but the truth
is, you can't do anything else with that time and they booked you.

My private instructor explained on day one that non-flying time would be
billed as "ground instruction" to fill the difference between the Hobbs
and day clock. Students are instructed that preflighting, fueling,
finding a pencil, draining the lizard, etc... are done before the lesson
is scheduled to start. In other words, you are paying for the block you
booked, it's up to you to use it.

Since all of this was laid out so clearly in writing, I've never heard
of anyone arguing about it. As a PP student, I was always ready to go
10 minutes or so before lesson start, except once. That one time, they
cut me some slack and didn't bill me for time I wasn't being instructed.


On the other hand, my instrument instructor was a free lancer (the same
guy as my PP, now self-employed) who I met at commuter parking lots via
car, or various airports for lessons. I'd drive and get ground
instruction for free. G Another time, I picked him up from an island
and flew him to his home base, so he could retrieve his plane and fly it
back to the island. I did the portions with him under the hood and in
some actual, flew IFR approaches, etc... for the cost of my gas.

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:40:52 -0700, Gattman wrote:
Any advice or hazards I should beware of?

Yea. Look for another IT job and do the CFI thing on the weekends so you
can concentrate on the enjoyment of teaching rather than where your
next dollar...er...student is going to come from. There are still a
relatively high number of companies to work for in the tech industry that
won't bust your balls...assuming you have decent skills and are not a
coat-tail rider like so many people who got into that business during the
dot-bomb era. You may have to move to get the new tech job, but they're
definitely out there.

It would be one thing if you were single. Then the sky is the limit.
I know one former techie who now flies a twin otter in skydiving
operations and he's having a blast. But I'm sure you're aware of your
responsibility to your family. The average salaries in the tech business
are barely able to support a family at this point. What makes you think
aviation will be any better? Hint: it won't be.

If you decide to throw caution and common sense to the wind and become a
full time CFI anyway, keep in mind a couple things:

1) You'll need to work for a school to develop experience. This is good
because the better ones will provide a framework in which you can learn
the ropes, provide an insurance protection for you, and give you a steady
stream of clients. This is bad because most schools treat CFIs like
garbage, and every school owner I've known has expected the CFIs to act as
secretary, accountant, janitor, line boy, and a serve a host of other
roles...unpaid of course.

2) No one will pay you $30-50 as an independent instructor unless you have
experience they want. More often than not today that involves
type-specific training ($$$$) that the average small town FBO / school
cannot provide. And when you are an independent, you're responsible for
all the things the school would otherwise provide for you, including that
essential client list. You're not really an independent CFI as much as an
independent business. If that doesn't scare you, you have never been in
business.

Tread carefully, my friend, and good luck.

-Doug

--
--------------------
Doug Vetter, ATP/CFI

http://www.dvatp.com
--------------------

"MW" == Matt Whiting writes:

MW How is it a violation of the 1st amendment? Nobody is forcing
MW him to sign the agreement. He is self-censoring and that
MW isn't a violation of the Constitution.

It may be. A voluntary agreement to be a slave is void in the USA,
because slavery--even voluntary--is unconstitutional.
--
"After Perl everything else is just assembly language."