pilot0987

I can beat that. There is a flight school near Philadelphia charging 445.00 an hour plus instructors at 50-80 an hour.

CaptOveur

I can't stress this enough. Get a good instructor who is motivated, has a good reputation and who's possibly experienced. I would definitely pay the extra if they are well known for a good pass rate, excellent knowledge base and overall quality in the instruction.

In my experience, the more expensive instructors have in fact been the best ones to go to. They generally have more experience and are more invested into the job instead of just doing it to build time for the airlines or whatever the reason. It could be different elsewhere though.

Having said that, just because you goto an "expensive school" doesn't always equate to better instruction so definitely do your research and ask around if they are any good. Hopefully they've been doing it for awhile too. Usually people at a school will be honest with you if you ask for the better instructors if you don't know anyone there. Experience doesn't always equate to better instruction either so that's why you need to ask around and get a good feel for everyone.

Just do your research, ask around and don't be afraid to switch instructors or schools if you don't mesh with them or you don't think it's working. At the end it's a business, your money and your career you need to look after.

TexasTailwheel

The last instructor I flew with charged $60/hr, and he was worth it. I needed to fly with someone who was smarter, and better at stuff and could hold me to tighter and sharper standards. Nothing against the 500-hour CFI's, but I've flown with some of them and I needed a seasoned professional who could tell me firmly how I could improve.

CFI Guy

I'm glad you you saw the value in hiring a professional.

I'm an independent in the Los Angeles area ($$$$$) and I'm charging $60/hr handshake to handshake. I've given several thousand hours of flight instruction and countless hours teaching ground / sim. At the risk of sounding arrogant I think I'm well worth it. I'm also flying a bizjet now and hold two type ratings. I think I bring something additional to the table by sharing my real world experience along with success and failures.

The issue is all the other flight schools in the area are charging about what I charge except you generally get a green low time CFI. The unfortunate part is they pay the CFI <$20/hr and they can't wait to leave so they can go fly their shiny CRJ. They never really have a chance to build up their experience as a professional instructor. So if I'm not worth $60/hr then these other instructors are definitely not worth anything close to what I'm charging.

I have trained many students who started at other schools but finished with me when they for one reason or another felt they weren't progressing with their current school or instructor. The bad part is they ultimately end up spending more money due to additional training hours versus if they had just started with me from the beginning. The hardest thing for me personally as an instructor is to unteach bad habits someone learned from a poor instructor.

I don't think spending more for instruction guarantees a better result especially if it's the school charging the big bucks and still employing the same low experienced CFI. I always suggest to prospective students check out different schools and instructors to decide where they feel most comfortable.

But remember just a few hours of wasted instruction (plane rental plus CFI) adds up to a whole lot more than paying an extra $20 an hour for quality instruction. The CFI cost is a drop in the bucket when you factor in all the costs especially going from zero to hero. The same thing irks me when owners buy multi million dollar jets only to turn around and skimp on paying the pilots. They then turn around and spend thousands a year on overpriced catering.

My neighbor teaches tennis. She's pretty good and charges $100/hr. She had a bruise once. I deal with people trying to kill me and expose myself to all kinds liability each day. Go figure.

forgot to bid

I think it's unethical a flight school would want to charge $3000 for ground school for a private pilot license. You're more than likely going to be listening to someone bloviating and regurgitating the material you already read, but doing so without even the color commentary you can get from your average blog and youtube video. Now if you haven't read your stuff the CFI ought to send you home, which is good prep for your airline career because that's what they would do too.

BTW, a lot of my students are with me now at Delta, so, worked out well for all of us. 'Save your money for flight hours' is a good philosophy if you want a CFI/flight school more motivated in you flying than in your money.

To the OP, it probably ain't worth it if the rates you originally mentioned are your two choices. And btw, I think it was Boeing about 30 years ago that figured out there was only 3 hours of true instruction in an 8 hour school day in the airlines, so they went to the blended computer to all computer training for systems and even here at Delta all of your recurrent indoc is on CD.

forgot to bid

Handshake to handshake, it's how a lawyer would charge, right? And we are just as good, right?

But then what is pro bono service? And why does the ABA recomend, if not require, in some states that lawyers provide 50ish hours of pro bono work per year?

Not every client or student is rich, lawyers know that, CFIs should too... if theyre just as good as lawyers.

I wasnt rich. A lot of my students were not rich, most were on student loans. Not one of my CFIs were. There is no reason to say im going to charge you for X amount of ground hours regardless of their apptitude and situation.

If I had good students that were trying and studying, I didn't charge them for ground. Period.

And it's not ruining the profession. After all, I don't see any airline pilots setting the parking brake and walking off a plane because they weren't paid to walk to the gate, review the paperwork, talk to the gate agent, maybe a passenger, and preflight.

For all the talk about ruining the profession, the only thing that comes to mind is pulling up the ladder.

Duckdude

My accountant is constantly after me about our pay rates. He says typically a company should pay 1/3 of their billable rate to the employee, 1/3 goes to ss, medicare, unemployment insurance (state and federal), workers comp insurance, benefits, and overhead. Finally, 1/3 should go to the business as profit. I didn't go to business school so I don't know if this is just his opinion or common practice.

At $60/hour, that would leave $20 for the employee pay rate.

We pay more than that for our full time instructors, and also provide benefits like paid holidays, paid time off, and health insurance. So at my school, we make about $10/hour profit off of our full time instructors if they have a good month, less if a slow month.