Hey guys,

I have only been a member here for a few days but have enjoyed reading the posts for several months now. I am in a bit of a dilemma and need some advice. I am a 27 yr old CFI with about 900 hours of flight time and only 20 multi. I had to quit my instructing job because I was teaching at a Part 141 flight school (which shall remain nameless) which was only paying about $8/hr and I couldn't make ends meet. I now freelance but don't have the number of students I did when I was working at the 141 flight school. Here is my dilemma: I have saved up about $8K since quitting the 141 school and need to know if that money would be better spent on a block of multi-engine time to get myself up to the 100 multi that most airlines require or if it would be better spent on getting my CFII and MEI. I'm leaning towards the block of multi time (at Ari-Ben in Ft. Pierce, FL) but figured it would be best to get some advice from those of you who have made it through the process already.

The CFII and MEI are nice resume bullets and would help you in the longer run. But you also need to consider what opportunities exist for MEI work in your area. At this point you DON'T need any more SE time.

Right now several regionals are hiring, and you may not want to miss the window, but if can get the MEI and then have plenty of students, you should probably do that.

A question about the Multi-block...is it solo time or does it involve a safety pilot sharing the time?

You could do safety pilot at your local airport yourself, just find a buddy...
Duchess $160/Hr / 2 pilots = $80/Hr X 80 hours = $6400
A few airlines are less than excited about safety pilot multi-time, but most don't care.

You could also see if a local FBO will rent you a twin at a reduced rate for 2 weeks to burn 80 hours. Since you'd be doing XC country stuff, not training they would save wear and tear on the aircraft.

Ari-Ben is setup EXACTLY this way. Who know's, You might even get to fly with a real tool bag too for a hundred hours.

I have one question. How did you SAVE up 8K when gettin paid 8bucks an hour?

I switched jobs (now working for FedEx as a delivery driver) and now the pay is better but since I'm freelancing on the side I don't get as many flight hours.

Sounds like Delta Connection Academy But I think they at least get paid $10/hr...

I, too am considering the Ari-Ben time builder course in Pt. Pierce. Does anyone know aything, good, bad or otherwise about this place? Would the airlines have any particular feelings about it?

I did the Ari Ben Aviator time building program a while back. Here's my experience:
If you want to get quick multi time, then it's the place for you. Unfortunately that's where the good stuff ends!
My friend and I arrived at Ari Ben in August. I flew there from AZ and he drove from KY. Ari had told us to come down and they would get us into training right away. When we arrived, they acted as they had never heard from us before even though we had both sent in applications for the program and spoken to Ari many times on the phone. It took us over a week of sitting on the ground before we could get flying because Ari had lied to us and said they had many airplanes available. He had not even put us on the schedule when we arrived.
That means be prepared to pay for an additional week of hotel at about
$50/night with tax.

Once we got flying, we had to do the checkout. It was supposed to be a $300 checkout, but they snuck it onto our bill at a whopping $800.
Here is the quote pasted direct from their website:
"If you are not seeking an additional rating there is a $300.00 fee for a checkout with one of our highly qualified instructors. This checkout will include five hours of dual flight time and a minimum of five hours of ground instruction on the airplane's systems and procedures."

They also handed us two training manuals. They also tried to sneak those onto our bill without telling us for $42 each. We forced them to remove the charges since we could share the manuals.
The place is a total dump, and the airplanes are even worse. They claim the airplanes have Wx radar...Only one airplane had Wx radar installed and it was INOP. Almost every single airplane was illegal to fly because of faulty oil temp/ oil press gauges and all types of other maintenance problems that they refused to fix.
Also you almost always have to fly at night because they use the Duchesses for flight training during the day . You always have to return to their airport to refuel otherwise they won't pay for fuel, so that forces you to stay in Florida unless you want to shell out more money for fuel.
In the end, plan on spending about $1000 dollars more than they say on their website and be prepared to be flying some of the crappiest airplanes in the sky.

Thats kind of what I figured. I knew it probably sounded too good to be true. I plan on doing the multi time building course with the MEI add-on for $7495 which isn't a bad price, but I guess you get what you pay for.