Originally Posted by block30

I will say this, at my old flight school where I finished up my flying and then went on to instruct at....they used to have about 12 full time instructors, and that might be a low estimate. Now they have a cobbled together staff of a couple part timers and the owner himself trying to keep the operation going (what's left, they sold off over 3/4ths of the fleet ina about ten years). So clearly the student output is almost nil.

All the time builders I talk to are trying like hell to avoid getting their CFI, but at least some of them consider it. If it weren't for the 1,500 hour rule I think the instructor wanna be pool would be much more bleak.

I posted the 2015 original pilots in my tagline line below. The numbers in I believe every category went down...(though in 2014 there were several categories that rose slightly.). My guard unit used to have fairly qualified off the street/prior enlisted candidates applying for pilot slots. Now, people are barely getting through just their private or not even that and throwing in their stuff. It's kinda nuts.