Route to commercial instructing

[FlyingForFun]

A question or two for all the commercial instructors out there: what route did you take to your current job?

After a year of instructing, I absolutely love my job. I love flying light aeroplanes, and I love instructing. Only problem is that I can't afford to spend the rest of my life on my current salary. Although I'm not ready to move on yet, I'm starting to think about my options for my future career.

It seems I have two choices. First, there's the transport option, whether it's airlines, business jets, whatever..... There's a whole thread just discussing the different types of transport and the pros and cons of each, I'm sure.

But then there's the second option, which is to stay in the instructing world as a commercial instructor.

At the moment, I have nearly 1000 hours total time, around 500 hours instructing. I have the "no night instruction" restriction removed, and within a few weeks I plan on removing the "no applied instrument instruction" restriction too, and starting IMC instruction. It sems to me, though, that there are two big hurdles to overcome if I am looking to move to commercial instructing.

The first obstacle is to become a multi-engine instructor. To do this I need 30 hours P1 on MEPs. At the moment, I have no P1 at all (unless the P1US for my MEP skills test and IR skills test counts, I'm not sure if it does or not). Put simply, I can't afford to buy 30 hours on an MEP. Even going abroad, I think that's sufficiently few hours that the cost of travel, accomodation and lost work would be greater than the cost saving of cheaper flying. So where do I get my 30 hours from? I've spoken to my boss about the possibility of doing some air-taxy work, but my company has no plans to do any MEP work at the moment, and even if they did, they don't like using instructors for that - past experience shows that air-taxy tends to be very last-minute, and using an instructor messes up the schedule at the school. So no chance of someone else paying for my hour-building that way, either.

The second obstacle is to become an IR instructor. I know that the requirements are simply to have an IR, and to have the "no applied instrument instruction" restriction removed, and I will satisfy those requirements pretty soon. But I have never flown on airways other than for my IR training. How will potential employers and students view this? How would it affect my ability to teach my students well? (My IR instructor, incidentally, also had no airways experience other than IR training. He was an excellent instructor, and I have no complaints about the training he gave me, but I wonder if he is in a minority?)

So what should I be looking to do from here, if I decide to go down the commercial route in, say, 6-18 months time? Should I start to build my MEP time up, bit by bit? Is there a serious market for single-engine commercial instructors? Do single-engine instructors make significantly less money than multi instructors? If I do build MEP time, should it be on airways, or would local VFR trips do just as well? (Local VFR trips tend to be shorter, and therefore cheaper!)

Any advice, and stories of your own, appreciated!

FFF
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[nick14]

FFF,
I hope to become a flight instructor in the near future and hopefully get into commercial instructing.

Where abouts did you do all your licences?
What licences do you have?
How much did it cost?
What is the job like?
How long did it take for you to get rid of the (R) on your FI(R)?
How long after recieving your FI rating did it take to find a job?

Would be most grateful of any help you offer!!

Best Regards
Nick

[LFS]

FFF,

Glad to see you are still enjoying the instructing and that the IR went well.

Getting into commercial instructing can be difficult. As you say, the MEP instructors ticket is usually the hardest to get. There are schools that will help you with this, we have aided instructors before by giving them ferry flights on our twins to get their experience levels up. Also, I know Oxford recently ran a 'sponsorship' type program where they would put you through 10 hours MEP hour building and a CRI course so that you could start teaching the advanced portions of the integrated courses. I think you are then bonded for 2 years. I know other schools have used a similar schemes to upgrade you.

As regards to the lack of airways experience. The best experience you can get is significant time teaching IMC courses. We (and most schools) have IR instructors that have vast airline experience, those that have air taxi experience and those that have made a career out of instructing. They all provide excellent training, and you need to remember that the basic IR is the single pilot IR.

I hope this answers some of your questions. Fell free to get in touch for any more information I might be able to help with.

[FlyingForFun]

LFS - thanks for that! Sponsorship sounds plausible, but I'm thinking medium-term, and sponsorship seems to be more of a short-term solution. Still, definitely something to bear in mind, since it means that when I am ready to move on, if I haven't managed to log the required number of hours there may still be doors open to me.

As for ferrying your aircraft around, I'd guess that you probably have students who have spent more time and money with you than I have who would take priority? But if you think you may be able to offer me any ferry flights, I'd certainly appreciate an e-mail to see if we can make it work.

FFF
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[LFS]

Sounds like a reasonable plan. The main route forward tends to be just building up experience, get your instructional hours over 1000, start IMC instructing, maybe look at become and examiner and as you do this try and grab any opportunity you can to sneak some twin time. The CRI would definatley be the last thing to look at.

[BigEndBob]

The best Ir instructors are those that have just just passed the test. They know what is required to pass the test.
I always found the so called ex-airline instructors teaching IR total waste of time.

Just my experience.

[P.Pilcher]

Just one weeny point. You say that you have never used your IR for airways work apart from your IR training/test. Why not?

Like yours did recently, my I.R. cost me a relative arm and a leg when I got it and I can remember getting back to my Midlands home airfield, newly issued rating in licence, finding a friend, bunging him in the RHS of a full airways C172 and steaming off on a flightplanned round robin. As I passed FL45 on the climb into the daventry control area I can remember claiming "over 4500 feet and I am LEGAL!!" Then it was up the airway, an approach and ILS for a go-around at EGBB and radar vectors for an NDB back home. I was in a rented C172 and had joined the big boys for a while! Yes I added the hire cost onto my bank loan but boy, it was worth it!

P.P.

P.S. My I.R. cost me three grand, so it was some time ago!

[2close]

The second obstacle is to become an IR instructor. I know that the requirements are simply to have an IR, and to have the "no applied instrument instruction" restriction removed, and I will satisfy those requirements pretty soon.

Hi FFF,

I read your post with interest as this is an area that I would also like to (eventually) get into (and I will be posting a request for advice in this area soon).

But (there's always a 'but', isn't there?) I was a tad confused by the statement above as, whilst it is esentially correct for instructing IMC, I always thought the requirements for instructing IR were a bit more than that, so reading LASORS it states in Sec.H2.1 -

a)The applicant for an IRI(A) shall hold a valid IR(A).

b) Have completed at least 800 hours of flight time under IFR of which at least 400 hours shall be in aeroplanes. Where pilots have recorded flight by sole reference to instruments and not under IFR, then 1 hour sole reference to instruments may be counted as 4 hours flight by IFR.


That sounds pretty straightforward - either 800 hours IFR or 200 hours by sole reference to instruments - e.g. actual IMC or flight under simulated conditions.

For instructing IMC, i.e. 'No Applied Instrument Restriction' removed, only 200 hours IFR are required (same 1=4 rule applying).

I appreciate you're looking to the future and by the time you're looking for your IRI(A) job you'd probably have accumulated that time, however, I want to clarify that I've understood this correctly.

Also, if you're instructing IMC, under simulated conditions in VMC and under VFR, whilst your student could record that as 'sole reference to instruments' time, surely the instructor (Using Mk.1 Eyeball Types A and B) could not?

How long, on average, would it take to accumulate the hours as a PPL IMC instructor to move onto IR instruction?

I put my hands up here, I am not certain how instructor time does get recorded so please feel free to put me straight.

In any case, I wish you all the best with your plans.

2close

[FlyingForFun]

2close, no, that's not correct. The requirement is for 200 hours of IFR flying. You are correct, though, in saying that 1 hour of flight by reference to instruments corresponds to 4 hours of IFR flight, so just 50 hours by reference to instruments is all you need. (Incidentally, although it's not relevant to the thread, this is reduced to 10 hours by sole reference to instruments if only instructing for the IMC rating.)

The 800 hours which you are looking at is not for a FI to teach for the IR. This is the reqiurement to become an IRI - an instructor who is only allowed to teach for the IR. If you have 800 hours of IFR flying, but no FI rating, and wish to instruct for the IR, this is the route you will take. If you already have an FI rating, you will not need to become an IRI.

P.P - only one problem, I don't have easy access to an airways-equipped aircraft!

FFF
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[Edit because I posted some totally incorrect details!]

[justanotherflyer]

I'm a bit unclear as to how you distill 800 hours down to 50 hours. Would you mind taking us through it again?

Also, is this just a UK thing, or does it apply all over JAR-land?

[FlyingForFun]

I'm a bit unclear as to how you distill 800 hours down to 50 hours. Would you mind taking us through it again?Sure.

To become an IRI, you must have completed 800 hours of IFR flight time. An IRI is not a FI with the "no applied instrument instruction" removed. An IRI is a pilot without a FI rating at all, but who is allowed to teach for the Instrument Rating.

This is entirely different to the requirements for an FI to remove the "no applied instrument instruction" restriction. The requirements for this are just 200 hours of flight in accordance with IFR.

In both cases, where a pilot has recorded his flight time by sole reference to instruments, rather than recording flight time under IFR, 1 hour of flight by sole reference of instruments is equivalent to 4 hours of IFR flight. Thus, the requirements for an IRI are for 200 hours of flight by sole reference to instruments. And the requirements for an FI to remove his "no applied instrument instruction" restriction is just 50 hours of flight by sole reference to instruments.

To the best of my knowledge, these are all JAR requirements, but I'm not 100% sure on that. (I'm getting my information from LASORS, which does not distinguish between JAR and UK requirements).

(And also: although not directly relevant to the thread, there is a further reduction to just 10 hours of flight by sole reference to instruments when an FI is removing his "no applied instrument instruction" restriciton if the instructor wishes to only instruct for the IMC rating, not for the IR. This is a UK-only addition, since there is no IMC rating outside the UK.)

FFF
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[justanotherflyer]

FFF -


Thanks indeed for the further clarification above.

Another query - does the initial training for grant of an IR (e.g 55 hour course) count towards this 50 hour requirement. Or does it all have to be subsequent to that.

[FlyingForFun]

Yes it does.

So, in practice, anyone with an IMC rating has met the experience requirements for teaching the IMC rating. And anyone with an IR has met the experience requirements for teaching the IR. Which I suppose is quite scary, really.

FFF
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[Snakecharmer]

Small point... a Commercial Instructor may not necessarily have to meet all the IRI requirements. ie. Teach the CPL only (maybe initially at least) and you don't need all the IFR blah. You may just earn a little more while still looking for IFR opportunities to build your experience.

Mate of mine teaches CPL, IR, MEP CR etc and finds the CPL the most satisfying of all to teach, for a variety of reasons - not least being that it's training for a licence, not a rating.

Just a thought - hope it helps.

[FlyingForFun]

Very true, Snakecharmer. There are also plenty of CPL instructors out there who aren't Multi instructors. (One CPL instructor I was talking to last week said that at his school there are a few instructors teaching the first part of the CPL course on singles, and students then progress onto multis later in the course and change to fly with a multi instructor.)

However, even if I were to become a CPL instructor without having met "all the.... requirements", I would still hope to gain those requirements sooner or later if I were to have any chance of career progression. And why not sooner rather than later? :)

FFF
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