CFI at ERAU or CFI back home at FBO
11-14-2006, 09:18 AM
#31
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: C172, PA28, PA44...Right
Posts: 301
Originally Posted by DON*T HATE ERAU
Oh one more thing .... the flight line looks awesome ... I'm a '04 Grad and got a chance to see it this past Homecoming and it looks badA$$. I'm sure the new building is going to look great.
11-14-2006, 04:23 PM
#34
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Posts: 900
Stay at Riddle. The CFI course there cost me $5,500 about 6 years ago and another $800 to do my CFII Part 61. I'm not sure if they've got that option anymore, but I had a friend who was a CFII there hook me up by letting me sit in on his student's sim lessons and he had me teach them instruments while he watched over my shoulder. A few flights later and I was ready for the DE ride. I can't see it costing $13,000 unless the course has changed drastically since I've been there or you're an idiot and get X-T'd 40 times during the course (and then you probably shouldn't be in an airplane with a student anyway).
The reason I say stay at Riddle is because I've been there and done it, quit a "local FBO" 3 weeks after working there and decided to move my arse 1,100 miles back to DAB for another 2 years to instruct there. Why? Because in the 3 weeks I was at that FBO, I spent about 15 hours in an actual airplane teaching and probably another 120 hours sitting around doing nothing. Yes, on nice bright and sunny Sunday mornings/afternoons, I was standing around kicking rocks with about 4 other CFI's because the place had very little work. You don't want to have to deal with that stuff unless you can find an FBO that actually gets a lot of business. Riddle is a pilot factory. The students are already there and you don't have to play car salesman to put food on the table. When I got hired at Riddle, I was handed the 8 training folders of new students and was told, "Get'r done!". I made over $20k my first year there, including a slow summer and my second year I was on my way to making over $25k if I had stayed.
Their hourly salary is about $2 more an hour today than it was 5 years ago, so you'll make even more (if you like to work your rearend off). It was not uncommon to work 10-12 hour days there, 5-6 days a week (they required one day off a week and your days off rotated every month). On average, I was flying about 100-120 hours a month during the main school year (Sep-Apr). You'll also get full benefits (health, dental, life, 401k, tuition assistance). I can't remember, but I think benefits were only about $50 a month (health insurance in FL is cheap!). Do you think you're going to get those benefits at an FBO?? 10 to 1, you will not. The FBO I worked for gave me a $75 a week base salary. This meant that if I didn't work a single hour, I'd get a $75 check every week. Sounds great, but to the owner, that meant that you were required to be there from 8-5pm everyday whether you had something scheduled or not. So essentially, you were making about $1.75 an hour. Lets not even get into the POS airplanes and shadey maintenance you'll deal with. When you're getting paid $15 an hour to risk your life teaching in an aircraft, it's not worth compounding that risk flying a POS airplane. Riddle had/still has brand new aircraft and their maintenance program is top knotch. Everyone knocks them for being too expensive, but they do not fool around with maintenance. They run a tight operation. You can't say that about a lot of FBO's.
I'm not knocking every FBO out there, but working at the FBO I was at left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when the owner expected me to fly an airplane with an illegally installed GPS that was nowhere to be found in the forms/weight and balance (he wasn't even a pilot). I told him I wasn't going to do it and he told me that he'd find an instructor that would (that was the last time he saw me).
As for "real world" flying. You're at Prescott, so you'll get all the great mountain flying people are raving about if that matters to you or not (You'll get to tell your new Private Pilot student: "See that mountain over there? Stay away from it!".
The reason I say stay at Riddle is because I've been there and done it, quit a "local FBO" 3 weeks after working there and decided to move my arse 1,100 miles back to DAB for another 2 years to instruct there. Why? Because in the 3 weeks I was at that FBO, I spent about 15 hours in an actual airplane teaching and probably another 120 hours sitting around doing nothing. Yes, on nice bright and sunny Sunday mornings/afternoons, I was standing around kicking rocks with about 4 other CFI's because the place had very little work. You don't want to have to deal with that stuff unless you can find an FBO that actually gets a lot of business. Riddle is a pilot factory. The students are already there and you don't have to play car salesman to put food on the table. When I got hired at Riddle, I was handed the 8 training folders of new students and was told, "Get'r done!". I made over $20k my first year there, including a slow summer and my second year I was on my way to making over $25k if I had stayed.
Their hourly salary is about $2 more an hour today than it was 5 years ago, so you'll make even more (if you like to work your rearend off). It was not uncommon to work 10-12 hour days there, 5-6 days a week (they required one day off a week and your days off rotated every month). On average, I was flying about 100-120 hours a month during the main school year (Sep-Apr). You'll also get full benefits (health, dental, life, 401k, tuition assistance). I can't remember, but I think benefits were only about $50 a month (health insurance in FL is cheap!). Do you think you're going to get those benefits at an FBO?? 10 to 1, you will not. The FBO I worked for gave me a $75 a week base salary. This meant that if I didn't work a single hour, I'd get a $75 check every week. Sounds great, but to the owner, that meant that you were required to be there from 8-5pm everyday whether you had something scheduled or not. So essentially, you were making about $1.75 an hour. Lets not even get into the POS airplanes and shadey maintenance you'll deal with. When you're getting paid $15 an hour to risk your life teaching in an aircraft, it's not worth compounding that risk flying a POS airplane. Riddle had/still has brand new aircraft and their maintenance program is top knotch. Everyone knocks them for being too expensive, but they do not fool around with maintenance. They run a tight operation. You can't say that about a lot of FBO's.
I'm not knocking every FBO out there, but working at the FBO I was at left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when the owner expected me to fly an airplane with an illegally installed GPS that was nowhere to be found in the forms/weight and balance (he wasn't even a pilot). I told him I wasn't going to do it and he told me that he'd find an instructor that would (that was the last time he saw me).
As for "real world" flying. You're at Prescott, so you'll get all the great mountain flying people are raving about if that matters to you or not (You'll get to tell your new Private Pilot student: "See that mountain over there? Stay away from it!".
Last edited by TankerDriver; 11-14-2006 at 04:29 PM.
