View Full Version : working weekends as a flight instructor?
badboy raggamuffin
23rd Jul 2007, 11:10
Hi all, basically am thinking of doing a flight instructor rating and trying to get a full time job as a flight instructor. If I do so what are the chances of me working weekdays only and not weekends? I ask not because I am lazy but because my girlfriend currently lives about 200 miles away from me and the only time I can really see her is weekends due to her job. Hence having to work weekends as a flight instructor might mess things up a bit for us.
Cheers for any replies.
QNH 1013
23rd Jul 2007, 11:43
I assume you mean not working weekends.
In a nutshell, difficult but not impossible. Obviously it depends on the availability of weekend-only part-time instructors at a particular school.
Why not ask the schools in your area? Presumably that is where you will hope to find work.
Honest opinion?
Pretty unlikely. Sorry. I know one instructor at our school who's first sunday off in two years was a coupla weeks ago! I am in a pretty similar situation to you in that there was a female in my life recently who lived about 100 miles away and basically my working life bolloxed up our relationship before it started.
When yer get into this game you start to realise that the job comes first because you often need to be available for work 7 days a week just to perhaps only reap 4 days of pay due to the weather. Otherwise you'll starve unless you have other financial assets or incomes available to you.
Bleak innit?
Therefore I'd say this:
Do not instruct unless you can...
a) afford to
or
b) give your life to it.
A girlfriend 200 miles away is unlikely to either begin nor want to understand how this fickle and precarious industry works unless she herself is involved with it. If there are any airfields near to her then that could be an option perhaps?
VFE.
badboy raggamuffin
23rd Jul 2007, 17:24
plenty of airfields near her , just don't fancy my chances of renting in the london area on a flight instructor's pitiful wage!
Know that feeling too! No chance of shackin up wiv her then, no?
Bit of a pisser innit mate.
VFE.
airborne_artist
23rd Jul 2007, 18:01
Get the ultimate FI's accessory - a caravan. Not too bad in a normal English summer, less fun in the winter of course....
You wouldn't be the first, I'm afraid to say.
FlyingForFun
23rd Jul 2007, 18:59
If it's any help, my first instructing job including working weekends, and was 250 miles from my girlfriend. What's more, I actually moved away from the area she lived to take the job.
She used to visit me on weekends. I used to visit her on my days off. When we visited each other, we only saw each other evenings (unless the weather was bad and I couldn't work, of course). When I visited her, I at least had other friends in the area to visit when she was working. When she visited me, she didn't know anyone else in the area, so spent most of the day hanging around the airfield getting to know all the regular students!
Six months after I started the job, she moved in with me. That was 2 1/2 years ago. Next month we celebrate our first wedding anniversary.
FFF
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A Very Civil Pilot
24th Jul 2007, 08:51
What about getting a new girlfriend?
Or even better, one for weekdays, and one for the weekend......?
FlyingGasMain
26th Jul 2007, 17:06
Getting work as a part-time instructor during the week seems to be quite tricky. I think it's because there's less business during the week and so the full time instructors tend to cope with it.
I've got an odd roster because I work in Ops for a charter outfit, so I've got myself on a school's roster for some midweek days and some weekends. This month I was available on 6 midweek days, but didn't get a single job !
Having said that I've only just started out in this game and I've only tried the one school.