jsfBoat

I'm finishing my MEI and have 34 hours of multi time, and am looking to get a job to instruct multi-engine. 99% of the schools I've seen that are looking for MEIs with at least 100 hours of Multi time before being allowed to work as a MEI. Does any one know of schools that will hire someone and instruct with my 680TT and 34 multi? I'm finding out how much a bear it is to get multi time.

snippercr

You shouldn't have too much problem finding an instructing job with those hours, but good luck getting any multi time for quite a while. Getting an MEI is really not that difficult so it's not like you would get hired to be a multi-engine instructor (as opposed to just a regular primary instructor).
Most schools give their multi-engine students to former 121 guys, chief pilot, or people who have been there for quite a few years. Even our school has pretty high turn over rate and its still 2-3 years before you get your first multi-engine student.
Unless you go to ATP, generally you have to wait sometime before you get multi engine students. I think the fastest I've heard of (again, besides ATP) is Transpac and thats about 8months to a year.
I think another reason schools are pretty protective of their multi-engine students is because they know the ME time is so sought after. Once a person gets that magical 100 hour mark, they are gone to the airlines. So if they just gave everyone an equal share of multi-engine students, they would have instructors who would only stay for a month or two and then be gone. One person at my school has 1700 hours TT and about 1400 hours dual given as instructor. Multi-engine time? 38!
I have my MEI and while it has gotten me an hour or two here and there, it has to be one of the most worthless certs I have gotten. Fun to get, useless to have. Some people get it an use it constantly and were lucky that way.
What I think a lot of people do is get their CFI and CFII and work at a school for a while. If it seems like they may be getting multi engine students, they take a few weekends, study and fly and get it that way. Sort of wish I did that way too.
Oh well, good luck with your quest.

Cubdriver

Just having looked over the ads for the last few years I think your best bet is to get on with one of the Chinese pilot mills in AZ, TX, FL and CA. TransPac, IASCO, Flight Safety Academy, that sort of thing. Keep pestering them until one of them calls back. They respond to enthusiasm as much as anything else. Choose a school based on how many twins they have in the fleet and do some Googling to determine how many they have. Like Snipper says you will be on staff for a couple of years before seeing any serious action, but it beats paying for it I guess.

hc0fitted

I work at a rather large flight school in the orlando area... That is looking for instructors in general with the rate we are losing them to the airlines. Most of our senior guys are pretty much gone. I have recently just become a multi driver here and I am at the same TT as you. PM me If you are interested.

Walkeraviator

I guess I got lucky. When I was a Commercial student, I already had over 100 hours multi from renting a Seneca ($127/hr wet.. tell me how long ago that was). So the owner, who liked me a lot, told me to get my MEI as my initial CFI ticket. I went that route and had my first multi student in the plane before the DE had even left the building.

waflyboy

I guess you could try instructing at All ATPs or one of the many foreign pilot mills in Florida and Southwestern US....

PhilipTexas

I just posted in another thread about Formerly Ari Ben Aviator, now Aviator College.
I would recommend them from cheap multi time building there if you want to get to 100 hrs, I did about 100 hours there and my instructor ratings, now am working for them as an instructor with over 600hrs of multi time.
They occasionally hire from off the street, but always hire their own. If you have all three instructor ratings you could always rend them your resume, but they'd be a lot more likely to hire you with over 100hrs of multi.

Rustee

Although this may sound a little offensive, I think it's a legitmate point. A lot of the reason flight schools do not hand out multi students to new instructors (even if they already have a few hundred hours) is because, chances are, most CFI's aren't completely proficient teaching single-engine ratings at that point. That's not to say they don't do a good job, but it's very fair to say that instructors are still faily novice even with 400 hrs dual-given (if you average it out, that may only be 7 or 8 signoffs...). Now consider the additional complexities of teaching a student multi-engine flying (twice as much to do, and half as much time to do it), I think it's a little ridiculous to expect a flight school to hand out multi students to a CFI who is just getting comfortable in a Cessna still.

PhilipTexas

It really depends on your previous experience though. When I first started instructing I felt way more comfortable teaching multi commercial and multi pvt add ons, than a did teaching initial private. In fact my first sign off was multi commercial. By the time I started instructing it had literally been years since I did my private, and I had done my instrument in a multi, my time building in a multi, and my initial commercial in a multi... so i was much more familiar with a BE-76 than a 172.