Employment Prospects for Freshly Minted FI(R)?

[FORTL4]

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently considering the FI(R) course. Since I work full-time, my eventual instructing would probably be done part-time (with no intentions to hop onto the next available airline job). In selecting my FI(R) school, I am obviously considering employment prospects as well.

I know that some schools tend to employ their own FI(R) graduates (which adds some comfort to employment prospects) and some schools teach the FI(R) course but do not teach PPL and therefore no potential employment.

My questions are:

Employment Prospects:
How employable are freshly minted FI(R) instructors with zero instruction hours? If one does not have a job possibly lined up, is one in an equivalent situation with fATPLs in the airline job market (i.e. very difficult to get a job due to inexperience and competition)?

Factors for Hiring:
What factors are considered by schools hiring instructors? The candidate's availability (full-time/part time) and personality/attitude aside, what makes one candidate objectively stand out from others? TT/P1 hours above the minimum requirements? IR (which I have)?

Advanced Instructing:
There are obviously restrictions (Night/Multi/IR) to remove from the FI rating (and courses to take) once you achieve the 100 hours/25 solos. But how soon will schools let instructors teach the advanced subjects? I know the bigger schools require 1000+ hours of PPL instruction before they consider you for CPL/IR/ME instruction.

Lots of things that I need guidance on, but many thanks in advance!

[GusHoneybun]

Don't fret too much.

Employment prospects for newbie FI's are very good at the moment. Look in the back of this months flyer/today's pilot mags and you will see four schools crying out for FI's. Most schools seem to prefer newbie FI's as they can then be moulded to teach the way that the CFI wants things done.


Whether a school wants full/part time is really dependent on the school in question. A small local club may only need someone to fill in at the weekends doing trail flights to take the pressure off the full time instructors and a large school will only deal with full time employees. If you are targetting a particular school, go along and chat to the instructors to find out how best to present yourself to the CFI.
Don't worry about your experience level . I would bet that 98% of instructors today started out with a freshly minted CPL and 240 hours in their logbook. In the current market there is a shortage of instructors from PPL up to the top echelons and you should breeze quite easily into a job, whatever you choose.

[BEagle]

An FI(R) with a full-time job would be very employable indeed, particualrly if he/she was self employed and could arrange his/her time accordingly. Particualrly if he/she had no aspirations to run off to the right hand seat of a people-tube at the first available opportunity.

A reliable couple of days per week would be most welcome indeed to most Clubs; progress to the removal of supervisory restrictions should be the highest priority. But don't expect to be paid much!

The demand for 'applied IF' is quite small outside commercial FTOs, so it's unlikely that anyone would fund the required course for you.

As for being employed just to support thinly-disguised joy rides ('Trial flying lessons'), that'd be the worst possible introduction for a new FI(R).