SkyHigh

I would venture to say that flight time in itself has value. Therefore if an instructor is giving away their services for free they still are receiving the logbook entries as compensation.

It is the invisible hand of the free market at work. Instructor "A" wants $20 an hour but instructor "B" is willing to do it just for the flight time. It is no different than a regional first officer who is willing to fly for $18 a flight hour over a legacy FO who wants $65. As a result the regionals are taking over the market.

It all boils down to who wants it more. What is it worth to you? It has been made clear to me that long ago aviation stopped being a profession and has evolved into a labor of passion. Take that same financial sentiment into another place on this forum and you will be shamed into a corner to suggest that pilots fly for money.

It is about the love. If you love money then become an accountant. If you love aviation work fast food at night so that you can fly for free during the day.

Skyhigh

bcpilot

I guess for a lot people, it is OK to be abused by their company or flight school but they will stick to their principle & not help anyone in need....

I just recently saw that the flight schools charging $50 to $55 or even $75 per hour of ground, flight & simulator instruction but paying only $20, $15 or even $12 per hour to to their instructor....

They have 2 types of instructors, one on hourly & some senior instructors on salary. They will make the schedule or rosteer with pencil & change the schedule if a salary guy is free, take the flight away from the hourly guy to send him home & give it to salary guy..

Some schools make the Hourly instructors sit all day at the FBO for free to do the office work or hang out in the school to meet new people for free...

Getting abused by their flight school is acceptable for a lot of people..

But HELPING A POOR, DESERVING, UNDER PRIVILEGED KID to EARN HIS WINGS or RATINGS is not........ That is degrading the profession for a lot .....

SkyHigh

Perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong perspective. Aviation better serves us as a hobby job these days. What if we were to eliminate a wage for flight instructors in place of privileges and perks? Instructors could be granted complete control over their schedules and would be compensated though free fight time and a jammed schedule due to all the students the school would get.

The main focus would be on fun and not on paychecks and profit.

Skyhigh

lstorm2003

Well I will say one thing.. I don't mind paying for ground if we're actually doing ground... But one thing I will never do and I don't think that instructors should do in general is charge a guy for walking out to the plane... That would be like a mechanic charging you for walking out to your car in the parking lot... I've had more than one guy try to charge me an extra .2 for walking out to the airplane.. I find it ridiculous.

Ewfflyer

You have that scenario, but also the part where someone has already taken up your time. Time and knowledge is what a CFI can charge for. If you are occupying his/her time, then you should be paying for it in some sense, or they should be able to be working for someone else. Now I understand the lolly-gagging CFI's that milk the .1-.2 before the flight, and a de-brief that last 20 min, if they aren't doing anything constructive, then don't charge it.

I personally only charged for any discussion time before/after the flight. Most cases that ended up being around a .3 avg. Some students were well prepared, and already had the plane pre-flighted to boot, they saved money. If you are going to waste my time though, I will charge you for it. Even in these cases it would mean I would go out and really work them over on the pre-flight, constantly asking questions about the systems they were checking for and anything else special to look for. Usually after a few of these sessions, they came more prepared.

frequentflyr

I am very interested in hearing the outcome of this.
Did you end up going for part time CFI?
How quickly did you build hours?
Thanks

rickair7777

That was seven years ago.

But yes you can be a part-time CFI, either as a freelancer or I imagine most schools would employ you these days.

How quickly you build hours depends entirely on how much you work (and what kind of work).

Assuming you can teach on nights and weekends, that should align with the schedules of typical working adults doing recreational ratings.

alexmillis

Yes it's not the newest post here
Many CFIs can work as part time, not everyone is needed 24/7 on an airfield...