most of the instructors are line pilots. some, however, have been in the training dept for YEARS and only get out to fly a line trip once a month. others are retired line pilots that had an "in" with the training dept and have either kept their position after age-60 or went in new after age-60.
several are good, some are ok, some are excreble.
they get line pay plus an override so they make about 20% more than a line slug. they also get to bid aircraft and bases for pay purposes that they would NEVER fly if they actually had to fly. example: a guy can only hold a 737 captain bid in EWR but lives in IAH so he'd never bid EWR. he worms his way into the training dept. now he can bid EWR 757 captain and get paid based on that even though he would never in a million years bid it if he had to fly it. AND he gets to fly his monthly 2 day trip out of IAH.
instructors have to do, i think, 12 training events per month. it could be a regular instructional period, a checking event, an FTD (non-motion simulator used for teaching flows, etc) or an oral.
instructor schedules are flexible but, like everything else, it's governed by seniority. we are hiring so many guys right now that our sims are running virtually 24 hrs a day.
personally, i'd hate to be locked in a box for 4.5 hours but that's just me. many guys look at it as the first step to a management job.
Last edited by Kill Bill; 12-10-2005 at 01:52 PM.