Originally Posted by
Avgeek7248
I had an instructor that worked at Aeroguard and he was saying it went completely downhill after the management and chief pilot overhaul. I guess the big draw is the hours I could get per month once I got my CFII. If I went to Florida I would have no idea how the weather and months work in terms of flying I just know its a good place to instruct. I'm still trying to get a grasp on people who've gone through Aerosim/L3 and how they liked it. ATP I've heard is another option in both the Florida and Arizona areas. Things I'm looking for is modern equipment and 100+ hours per month. Other then that I could care less about pay and all.
At AeroGuard you can get great hours...but only in IR. PPL is getting about 50/month (not counting while your students are in solos). Seminoles fly a lot but the hours aren’t high for instructors, I hear. You will fly PA28 archers with a Garmin 430, some have HSI and some have regular VOR gauges. They have a small fleet of G1000 planes but that’s knot in the Pathway side. You have to be CFI/II/MEI for that at a minimum. I’m not saying that as a slight against AG, by the way. I just wasn’t sure what you meant by “modern.” They give you a ForeFlight pro subscription and dispatch a Stratus with each flight, so that is a pretty decent supplement to the 430 gps. AeroGuard has always had that “man it used to be great but now it’s awful” thing going on. Nothing has changed really, just the name. And the fact that Skywest owns half of it. One big incentive there, is if you want to go to Skywest, you get a $17,500 bonus after going to Skywest.
A few of my fellow CFIs went through ATP or at least ASU who outsources training to atp. They have nicer newer Skyhawks and all G1000, and I think UND is too. CAE has a mix of Piper and Diamond with G1000. Here at westwind, all IR is done in G1000. Aside from a few old N/P models for time building, I don’t think our oldest plane is more than 15 years or so, and some are only a few years old. And just for what it’s worth, I never would recommend ATP. We have four or five guys who finished at ATP and came here as soon as they had CFI, because they didn’t want to stay there. General consensus is that pay and conditions aren’t great. Also atp will send you wherever they have a need. I have no idea which locations are getting new instructors but it’s not Going to be Arizona.