Hmm, I sense a little CFI somewhere down there inside Hondata trying to get out and yearning to be free. You express a disdain for it now, sir, but that can change when you see that CFI is a valid way to climb through the aviation ladder, as well as the only way to go if you are poor like many of us are.

A change of attitude will occur when you realize that you are not getting any of the pipline, sky patrol, skydiver, banner tow, or sightseeing gigs you should be getting because the moment the chief pilot or owner sees you do not have your CFI, then he or she thinks let me hire that other guy or gal instead of this one. There will be other people applying, I assure you. He or she knows it is an easier sell to his insurance company of that low-time for a CFI than for any number of those without it.

I used have a dose of that "what the heck for" attitude about getting my CFI, but I am rapidly losing it because I gradually have come to see the value of it. No one big single thing made me realize it. It takes some thought and a few setbacks to realize why getting your CFI is desirable.

The main thing CFI represents is respect. I do not have mine yet and I am still working on my second written exam, but when you realize there really is no other way to fly than to pay crazy high prices for avgas, or you can get your CFI certificate and pay nothing, you start to realize you owe it to yourself to do it. It is standardized knowledge and skill that generations of pilots have had to learn, it is a rite of passage, and it is also a more rigorously tested certification than the other flight ratings. The failure rate is well above 80% for first time applicants and is even higher in some areas. A CFI deserves to be a CFI.

To teach a few students how to fly is not doing them as much a favor as it is doing you one, because it teaches you how to think and to explain flying and it makes you aware that all that stuff you learned for your orals in the past was worthy of knowing intimately and practically rather than just to pass an exam. You will build character and further your career, and you will get lots of free flight from it time as well. If you are careful you will not get killed by your student, although this is a liability. Good luck and give it some thought. Some of the best things we do appeared to be the most useless before we began.

-Cub