Flight Instructor wages

[king rooney]

Hi all,

Bearing in mind that I am probalby gonna look towards working as a flight instructor after doing my ATPL to build up hours, has anybody out there got an idea of how much can be earnt doing such a job in the UK. Probably not big bucks, but enough to live off, say £k15-20?

Also how many hours can be built up doing it for say a year?

Ta

[Craggenmore]

as a PPL instructor first, its more like 10k a year, tops. Then when you become unrestricted you can add more ratings as you go and therefore earn more.

Some schools pay a daily retainer around £25 per day with an extra £10 per flying hour on top.

However, other schools will only pay per flying hour, around £20, so if the WX is below minimums for a week (which in the UK can easily happen), you earn nothing unless you have an evening job. However, this method of payment is probably more preferable in the summer as you can get up to £120 per day if you do around 5-6 flights.

Also, don't forget to factor in the cost of not having to pay £130 per hour for the a/c and this is where the real saving is if you just want to build hours.

However, it helps if you actually want to instruct in the first place. :ok:

Craggs :}

[Luke SkyToddler]

Cut 'n' pasted from the other FI thread going on in here ...

Things may have improved in the 3 or 4 years since I last instructed but for example, as a PPL instructor I was on a £500 / month basic retainer and £6 per hour flown - i.e. £800 gross, before tax, per month, was a good month for me. Got down to about £650 over the winter and a couple of exceptional £1000 months in the summer. Total wage can't have been more than about £9000 over 12 months, that's before tax and N.I etc.

You can just about live on it if you are a single person, enjoy living in shared mega cheap accommodation (normally with a bunch of other flying instructors so you can car share as well), and really really have a love of Tesco value baked beans. I even used to do stuff like keep my breakfast cereal at the flying school so I didn't have to pay for milk.

Forget about it if you're trying to support a family or mortgage :{

[18greens]

All the comments so far about the wages are true. You'll need another job if you want any standard of living.

On the up side you should get about 500 hours per year and you will really understand how an aeroplane flies having explained it 500 times. To increase your chances of flying more get a job at one of the bigger busier clubs/schools. An airfield with an instrument approach can also increase your chances of flying on poor days.

Its fun, good luck.

[king rooney]

Hows about working in the US at one of the JAA schools, such as Orlando or Naples?

Might get a lot more flying time in?