Originally Posted by Ftrooppilot

Still baiting SKYHIGH. That's allright. I love fishing expeditions.

Must respectfully disagree. Flight instruction is often staying awake making sure the student doesn' kill you. It certainly is more then basic maneuvers and landings. We do have CFIIs, MEIs, Sim instructors, etc.

"We all had flight instructors; no one learned by osmosis." Be thankful for their efforts. There value to aviation will become better know when there is a severe shortage.

Many of us learned more from teaching then we did as students. I'm talking about the classroom and the airplane.

Have absolutely no idea what luck and contacts have to do with flight instruction.
You make contacts sound like a dirty word. It's called networking in the modern day world. What's wrong with it ? It's a way of getting your resume in the front door where abilities and qualifications are checked. These are the people who don't sit around and wait for the job to come to them. I'm sure many construction workers network through friends to find work in your industry.