Avgeek7248

What about L3 out of Florida? heard they're a good flight school that run a good operation and give their CFI's plenty of hours. I'm moving in August and can't decide between Aeroguard (Transpac) or L3 Airline Academy.

kingsnake2

Have you considered US Aviation in Texas?

Avgeek7248

I haven't heard of them. Just looked them up and seem like another good option.

brocklee9000

Where do you live? It seems more and more big 141 programs are being inundated with a lot of students, mostly foreign but also domestic. In Florida you’ve got several such as L3 and Flight Safety. In fact one of my students started at flight safety before he came out here. There’s falcon in Georgia. Texas has several as well; USAA is probably the biggest, there are also three or four down in the San Antonio area such as VT-AAA and some others whose name I can’t remember. Phoenix has all the big ones, some of which I detailed in an earlier comment. California has schools like Sierra and IASCO. And then there’s Hillsboro up in Oregon (and a Las Vegas campus they’re trying to get going). Anyway, I ask where you live because with the influx of foreign training in the US, there are a ton of schools with a ton of students. Some even have benefits and upgrades to turbine training or in the case of flight safety there’s a track to FSI if you wanted to work on that side of the industry. I have heard for years “don’t move/commute for a regional if you don’t have to,” and honestly I think the same can be said for CFI. Really the big advantage we have here in Arizona is the sheer amount of fair weather flying days (this week and maybe the next week or two are about as bad as it will get, with each afternoon predictably having thunderstorms). So unless you’re dead-set on a total change of scenery or your have some friends already instructing at a particular school, I wouldn’t necessarily pack up and relocate. And there’s something to be said about instructing where you learned, depending on the pay and hours of course.

Avgeek7248

I live in the Salt Lake area of Utah. Theres not too many great schools out here as well as the tough weather coupled with dangerous terrain. In the Winter its low level inversions with temperatures on the ground reaching single digits. Summer and Spring you can fly till 5 PM then you have to shut down flight ops due to the immense amount of Thunderstorms coming in. Utah is just a tough spot to instruct, but a beautiful and awe inspiring place to learn. I'm from Oregon and fairly familiar with Hillsboro I just can't afford to live in that part due to it being expensive as all hell. Arizona and Florida seem to have a massive influx of students and great flying weather. The problems I've heard with Transpac/Aeroguard is management, language and learning barriers, and crappy equipment. I haven't heard much about L3 but I've talked to management and they seem much more helpful then Aeroguard. I'm still looking into the Texas flight schools.

brocklee9000

I went to UVU so I'm quite familiar. I don't miss the winters at all. And I seriously considered Hillsboro a few times (even had a job offer and almost moved there), so I know what you mean about cost of living. I don't know if Prineville or Redmond are any cheaper than the Portland area. So I guess at this point, just apply to them all. Hillsboro offered me a job and offered CFII if I committed to 600 hours of dual given. Falcon, I think, will cover all three CFIs but I can only assume it's got a hefty commitment that I wouldn't want to be bound by. American Flyers wanted a 12 month commitment in exchange for CFII, so I declined that. Once you have CFII, they will all want you. A lot will even offer things like relocation or perhaps some housing allowance or dorm-style housing. Wherever you go, pay attention to the fine print. For example, if I went to Aeroguard and took the bonus, CFII upgrade, and relocation, I'd have to work for at least 12 months or pay back prorated portion of those incentives. Which is fine, that's a pretty standard arrangement anywhere in aviation.

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.

brocklee9000

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.

Sculprit

Just to add to this mostly accurate post, flying at aeroguard does vary from month to month depending on variables such as monsoon season as well as what phase you will be training in. Ir training nets the most hours, cpl varies since there’s some x-country but a lot of sims sessions.

Also SkyWest does not own half or any portion of the school. How ever those g1000 archers you mentioned are owned by SkyWest leasing inc and leased back to AeroGuard for the Pathway program they got going on.

brocklee9000

For real. This week, I’ve been lucky to get one flight a day because of these storms. I mean you expect them to show up every afternoon with the gusts, but you see the taf every morning and the discussion and they don’t mention thunderstorms and you get a little hopeful...