Originally Posted by
papazulu
Also a shortage of VFR-flyable days, I guess.
Yes, and today one of them!
I run a microlight school in Scotland, and also have a shortage of instructors - even at 30-odd pounds per flying hour.
We have to offer career instructiing, since one's microlight hours count for nothing further once you have an instructor's rating.
Yet the C42 Ikarus we have can also, with different placards, be a light aircraft!
However, a microlight instructor's course - for a basic ppl with 100 hours on microlights - is about three grand and four weeks. So microlight instructors don't have the same capital - in time and money - invested in training to recoup.
So as other posters have mentioned, the shortage of instructors is a) having to mean instructional rates go up, so flying lessons go up, so fewer students learn, so fewer instructors needed, so instructors' wages fall back! or b) ab initio light aircraft instruction maybe looks at the microlight route - and checks it out for safety, competance, value for money etc.
My personal aim at the airfield I have bought is to give instructors a "living wage" - I will never be able to compete with airlines - unless they drop their pay rates, which I hope for all they don't!
I see a "living wage" as being the national average wage - if you want a definition - which is about 21k a year.
Not great if you have invested all that cash - 60k and a coule of years - in a CPL etc, but not too bad if your dream is to instruct and you have invested 3k and a month on a training course.
Very best wishes to all