Given that you opened the thread with incorrect data and assumptions that were badly skewed, and given that you're attempting to create a work-around for a "problem" that doesn't exist, it's little wonder that you're seeking to follow the counsel of the only person in the thread with a failed career.

If your engine mount was improperly repaired in 1986, who has been signing off the annual inspections in the intervening 29 years? More importantly, who signed off the last annual, and do you intend to ever use them again?

Aviation is about judgement.

The problem for most with buying a plane and flying off the hours is:

• You are paying to run and repair the aircraft
• You have to have the capital to buy the aircraft
• There are few good avenues when major mx problems arise

Whereas at a busy flight school such as US Aviation Academy, you are PAID to not only to fly but also to conduct ground training, are not responsible for maintaining aircraft, and have other aircraft available when one goes down.

For the record, I started this thread as an academic inquiry, not as a request for career advice. I KNOW that right now CFI jobs are plentiful. I was asking the question with an eye towards the future of the industry, not what I should personally do.

My desire to not instruct (for hour-building) is more related to feeling that I don't have much to offer instructing others as a low-time pilot...as indicated in the initial post.

I certainly don't plan on flying 1200 more hours in my plane either. Just a few hundred while seeking and working at any (low-time) flying job(s) I can find. Still enjoying being young(ish), single, and mobile!

But please, this thread was not about me. I remain genuinely curious about what others think will transpire with career progression from 250 to 1500 hours...looking a few years down the road.

Career progression doesn't end at 1,500 hours, nor does it begin there. It's an arbitrary point where, if one meets a number of other qualifications and requirements, one may met a minimum qualification. 250 hours applies only if one seeks a commercial under Part 61, and hasn't elected to take a 141 course.

The real question then isn't one of career progression, but the ability to get students by flight instructors, as indicated by the baited question of your thread title and the flawed statistics you used as the basis for the thread. You don't want to know about career progression, but to start an argument that's tilted and biased from the get-go. A number of posters fell for it, too, and our own skyhigh practically frothed at the mouth. Unfortunately, it's all for naught, because the premise is based on a lie.

Your thread premise exists on the basis of the number of "active" instructor certificates as of two years ago, compared to the number of private pilot certificates issued. Making a comparison between the two is ridiculous, for numerous reasons, beginning with the fact that few of those "active" instructors are actually "active," and continuing from there. Your insinuation in the title of the thread that there is any "scheme" at all, let alone to title it with such misleading an attribute as a "pyramid scheme" put the crowning cherry on the deception.

I know you're not asking about instructing; that's obvious. You've just made a statement that it's not about you, and it's really about career progression. So you say. Nonetheless, when skyhigh fell into hour trap and echoed what you wanted to hear, you did say he was on topic.

There are enough students, else there wouldn't be instructors employed to teach them. Flight schools aren't charity services, and don't hire untold numbers of instructors on the basis of income to the business which doesn't exist.

There are avenues for employment other than instructing at an early inexperienced stage in one's career.

No one owes the student a job upon completion of flight training, nor is the fledgling instructor owed students.

To view "career progression" as the initial experience up to 1,500 hours is shortsighted, and nearly assumes that at 1,500 hours the career boy has it made. In fact, he may be instructing well past that time, or before or after flying boxes, banners, or a number of other avenues.

It's ironic that the original post was saying CFI programs can't sustain themselves due to a lack of students and you're saying they can't sustain themselves due to a lack of instructors!?

Importing trainees from abroad really stokes the fire in my opinion.