Originally Posted by Pilotpip
No. I'm flying brand new, well maintained equipment, with a steady flow of customers and I'm paid enough to make ends meet and then some. But yeah, the long hours do wear on you. They do regardless of what you do.
I looked into things like banner towing, skydiver outfits and also had an offer to fly a 414 for a family friend's business. There was a common denominator, I didn't have enough time to meet insurance requirements. I would have met the hour requirements for almost all of the regionals before I could do any of the above. A local banner towing outfit requires 135 minimums. It paid less than my flight instructing job.
Pip,
Good for you, however most instructing jobs pay less than minimum wage. The average experience instructing is very bad. Low pay and wasted years. If you are lucky enough to be working for a large and good company then I am happy for you. If you are earning enough yo pay your bills then perhaps you had better make a career out of it since most other jobs are downhill from there.
As I mentioned before the question was "why don't people like flight instructing". Instructing is boring, dangerous, low paying and dims your own skills since most of the time you are just sitting there. The majority of flight instructors don't have it as good as you. I had to work for companies that would hire every CFI that walked through the door and then we all had to fight for every student. They only paid for the time you were in the saddle, so the company saw each new hire as a free salesman. The competition was so fierce that you were afraid to take a day off since all your co-workers would steal your students. In order to make ends meet we all worked as pizza delivery or in my case I would build houses at night. Not long after I was able to leave instructing the same companies began selling CFI jobs for $5000 as a primary instructor, an additional $2500 for Instrument and another 2500 for MEI.
For most flight instruction is miserable and people are clawing the walls to get out. Just because you are having a good time doesn't mean that everyone is.
SKyHigh