Instructor Rating + chance of getting employment

[hlamberg]

Hello!
I am planning on taking a JAA Flight Instructor Rating! Anyone knows a flight school where you have a good chance at getting an employment after finishing the course?

Many thanks
Henrik

[high wing harry]

Try to avoid any school that promises you a job just because you do the FI rating there! No school worth its salt will give you a job before they find out what type of instructor you will become and whether they like you!

Think of it the other way around -

Where do you want to work?
Do they do an FI course?
If yes - then there's your answer as many schools who do FI courses prefer their own output for future jobs
If no - then ask your preferred employer where they recommend,
If no recommendation then hunt around for the best you can get.

Depending on locality I would recommend either Caroline at Wycombe Air Centre or Eva at Denham Flight Centre.. Both were orginally trained by Terry Gill who was the "gold standard" in instructing so you can't go wrong!

Other locations - there are plenty of threads on this website with reocmmendations for different places.

As with most things - go see your prospective school and go to the one where you feel confident and comfortable

Good luck!

[Shirazmerlot]

I'm also in the dilemma in such either I do my instructor course or sit and wait for jobs opportunity. If I invest again in FI, i still doubtful whether I have more chances of getting hired as FI.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm also in the dilemma in such either I do my instructor course or sit and wait for jobs opportunity. If I invest again in FI, i still doubtful whether I have more chances of getting hired as FI.

If you don't do an instructors course then you have absolutely zero chance of getting hired as an instructor!

Personally I think it's your contacts and your personal attributes that'll get you the job. The right course may enhance both of these things, and the wrong one will not - but neither will change overnight your basic character.

G

(Another vote for Denham, although I had a different instructor and did the CRI rather than FI course, I'd happily go back for a rematch. I've not done instructor training at WAC, but I have had a lot of dealings with them for other reasons and again would look hard at them as a high quality training provider.)

[S-Works]

I would recommend Ontrack at Wellesbourne. They only do Instructor and Examiner courses and are staffed by some of the most experienced guys in the industry, many who are still line flying in the day job.

[mad_jock]

It really does depend on which country you are in.

UK there is over supply of FI restricted but what other countries are like I don't know.

[Shirazmerlot]

So what is your opinion about the FI industry? What is the job prospect? Some say in this forum UK FI already saturated. Although JAA EASA license is quite famous but some country don't give a **** like mine. I really have to check nicely before dumping money again. Thanks.

[Genghis the Engineer]

So what is your opinion about the FI industry? What is the job prospect? Some say in this forum UK FI already saturated. Although JAA EASA license is quite famous but some country don't give a **** like mine. I really have to check nicely before dumping money again. Thanks.

I'm a part time CRI who makes his real living elsewhere in aviation: I'm really the wrong person to ask.

G

[S-Works]

I am Head of Training for an FTO/TRTO. I get at least a dozen CV's a week from hopefulls who have shelled out an FI course and are looking for work. The industry is saturated at the moment and likely to remain that way for some time by the look of it. The training organisations are still turning out FI's but the training industry is downturned with the economy and the airlines are not pulling in new candidates at a rate enough to take create the vacancies.

AS a part timer there is work kicking around doing adhoc stuff with experienced pilots, such as differences training and revalidation flights, but not enough to pit food on the table for a full timer I think.

I would think carefully about spending the money, it may be better spent on hour building if your goal is airline work rather than career instructor.

[Shirazmerlot]

Thanks for the advice. So now back to square one. How can a new graduate cadet get his hours? I'm thinking looking for glider-towing and parachute pilot. Do you have any contacts in UK?I can work for free.:rolleyes:

[S-Works]

That opens a whole new can of worms. Working for free is likely to get you lynched!

Glider tug vacancies are few and far between and they are generally filled by experienced glider pilots from within the clubs.

Parachute dropping these days is mostly done by commercial operators providing aircraft to the clubs. These are generally large single and multi engine turbine powered aircraft and getting a job with one of these as an inexperienced houe builder is going to be a significant challenge. The name of the game is safety, speed and accuracy.

We are probably the largest of such operators in Europe and aside from the odd candidate who usually comes through internally we look for significant experience and hours, especially when it comes to tailwheel flying. The work is very challenging. You can find yourself heading across Europe at a moments notice and need to have significant touring experience and self reliance as well as being prepared to be sat out in the back of beyond for significant periods of time. Being a current IR pilot is essential, not only from the transit flying perspective but also the marginal conditions we frequently operate in and often operating in Controlled airspace.

I am currently recruiting for three pilots to fly single and multi engine turbine and the standard of CV I have been getting is not very exciting.

[Mickey Kaye]

Well I’m based in a different part of the UK to Bose-x and I would say there is a shortage of instructors in my part of the woods and I dread to think what it would be like if the airlines start hiring.

Now I’m not saying there are full time 80 hours month positions. More more like Saturday and or Sundays so you want become a millionaire. But its flying, its some money, and it still leaves you free to earn a crust doing the week.

However one thing I would agree with Bose-x is that the caliber of the applicants is poor.

They appear to have little GA knowledge or interest. Have flown a limited rage of aircraft (and I mean only pa28 and to me utterly useless MEP time) and none of them ever have any tailwheel experience.

I can live with the fact that they have low hours and are restricted but they are going to need a fair few hours before they can be let them loose on the paying public and frankly not many schools can afford such expenditure.

I also wonder what an earth some of these integrated courses teach their students. I was recently chatting to one of their ex students with a freshly minted FI rating who had never even heard of the IMC rating.

Shocking state of affairs really.

[Shirazmerlot]

Thanks both of your advice. when come to experience pilot, what kind of qualification do you expect? min 1500 hours? In my opinion, the industry don't give much chances to new graduate with 300 hours or less. the trend is still going "shortage of pilot worldwide" but the fact is they shortage of experience pilot.

Do you guys provide such service that the new pilot pays you and get the job training while building their hours? Thanks again.

[Cows getting bigger]

We use one young chap who was trained in the USA, complete with his FI rating; he's quite good.

That said, I would never, ever again utilise instructors who have come from a certain southern European JAA (EASA) state.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Well I’m based in a different part of the UK to Bose-x and I would say there is a shortage of instructors in my part of the woods and I dread to think what it would be like if the airlines start hiring.

Now I’m not saying there are full time 80 hours month positions. More more like Saturday and or Sundays so you want become a millionaire. But its flying, its some money, and it still leaves you free to earn a crust doing the week.

However one thing I would agree with Bose-x is that the caliber of the applicants is poor.

Poor is a variable thing of-course.

They appear to have little GA knowledge or interest. Have flown a limited rage of aircraft (and I mean only pa28 and to me utterly useless MEP time) and none of them ever have any tailwheel experience.

Which is why it's great being a CRI with a lot of vintage/tailwheel/homebuilt time. I can fill my weekends if I want with teaching that "regular" FIs can't or won't do.

When I was doing my CPL I had maybe 1000hrs, and my instructor maybe 3000. Discovering over a coffee that he had no tailwheel time, I offered to take him up for a freebie in my favourite 60+ year old toy. His response:

"Why on earth should I do that?, I fly for a job, I don't want to waste my own time doing it."

In retrospect he did do an excellent job of teaching me to pass my CPL skill test, but far less about flying than I've learned from various high hour PPLs I've shared aeroplanes with.

So far as I know he's still working as an instructor, and still can't work out why he can't get a job flying a jet.

I can live with the fact that they have low hours and are restricted but they are going to need a fair few hours before they can be let them loose on the paying public and frankly not many schools can afford such expenditure.

And there does seem to be a mentality there that just believes that it's all about passing a skill test and for a lucky few getting an airline job.

I also wonder what an earth some of these integrated courses teach their students. I was recently chatting to one of their ex students with a freshly minted FI rating who had never even heard of the IMC rating.

Simple, they teach them to pass the CPL skill test and ME/IR in minimum hours. Nothing more, nothing less.

Shocking state of affairs really.

Yes.

Think about it this way - the majority of professional pilots will either become instructors (all GA general handling basically) or airline pilots (all teamwork and automation monitoring). So we have a system which prepares people for these two jobs by - err, teaching them huge amounts of precision hand-flown navigation, which neither will do any significant amount of their time.

Frankly the CPL should be about 25% about nav, about 25% about doing stuff by whatever book you're working to and flying the aeroplane fairly well, and about 50% about handling emergencies. At the moment it's about 80/10/10. That way I suspect we'd get better airline pilots and better instructors both.

Solving that would be easy - change the skill test requirements. Reduce the tolerances on the nav test, make the emergencies and handling bits much tougher; maybe include some mandatory tailwheel time and some flights into uncontrolled grass runways. The whole picture would change overnight.

G

[Piper.Classique]

make the emergencies and handling bits much tougher; maybe include some mandatory tailwheel time and some flights into uncontrolled grass runways.Oh, you mean what we do all the time? :) Speaking as a happy bunny flying from a grass airfield in France who has finally got the DGAC to agree that this bunny can instruct again on stuff other than microlights and gliders (dearly as I love them) and big big grin here they gave me french linguistic competency unlimited! (I think this was due to my arguing a lot on the phone with them, in french) Only took two years after renewing my FI in the UK, twenty years after moving to France with an equivalence due any time now......
Sorry about the thread drift, but I just had to tell y'all I'm so chuffed. And as the wx is too sh1t to fly here I am on Pprune.....

[smithgd]

I am currently recruiting for three pilots to fly single and multi engine turbine and the standard of CV I have been getting is not very exciting.

Interesting comment bose-x...most of the time we hear that the industry is saturated with pilots, would you care to comment on what makes a CV "not very exciting"? Those of us with low hours might still be able to tick the exciting box and thus should not loose all hope :)

cheers
smithgd

[Mickey Kaye]

smithgd

Please don't be offended but its not rocket science.

You need to bring something to the table Bose-x has already stated he requires a current IR. I also suspect SET and MET would look good. Most people won't have this so I maybe some SEP or MEP paradroping time might be the next best thing. He also likes tailwheel time so again paradropping time in say a C185 would be great but if thats not the case maybe 50 hours in an auster might help. I don't know but I would like to thing you get the picture.

Now if you were a flying school that operated C150, C172 and a Chipmunk. Then the criteria would be different but the principle is the same.

[mad_jock]

Most cv's have exactly the same stuff on them which to be honest is worthless for keeping your insurance down.

SEP time worthless unless your going multi crew

twin time anything under 100 hours again worthless

IFR time need to comply with JAR ops single crew ie most won't have.

turbine time in your dreams on a cv those boys and girls are all picking up jobs by word of mouth.

[Genghis the Engineer]

SEP time worthless unless your going multi crew

Presumably that's not quite what you meant?


I don't recruit pilots directly, but I do recruit a lot of other aviation & scientific professionals myself. I think there's a very valid general point here - the world is full of people who think that job hunting is about putting together a "good" CV then scattergunning it at everybody who might just have a job going. It really really doesn't work like that.

Personal contacts are great, particularly with smaller companies - but if you don't have personal contacts, the only way anybody has a hope of getting a job is to research the job, research the organisation, and tailor the application to show the closest you can legitimately achieve to what they are actually looking for. THEN if you get an interview, research the job and organisation even more so that you turn up demonstrating that you can do the job they want you do do (as opposed to the job you want to do).

All this should be blindingly obvious - but having sifted hundreds of CVs and sat on dozens of job interviews over the years, often for quite well qualified people - it very clearly is not.

Getting all this right does not, of-course, guarantee you a job. But getting it wrong provides a reasonable guarantee that you won't.

G

[S-Works]

Mickey Kaye, is about bang on. I am looking for pilots with current IR, plenty of real touring experience across Europe and preferably competent tailwheel skills.

The CV's I get are from guys who have just ticked the boxes to CPL/IR ME and have no experience. A few hours on the burger run and the repeated routes for CPL and IR training do not cut the mustard when we are looking to send someone solo to the back of beyond in very expensive turbines.

It costs us £20k to train a pilot to basic competence. We need people who can learn to fly what are quite challenging aircraft in the minimum time.

[flystrathclyde]

I operate a PPL school at Cumbernauld and PPL + Commercial training at Perth.

We have had a steady stream of instructors moving on to airline jobs with several different companies who see some benefit in the experience gained as an FI.

I personally think there is currently a SHORTAGE of good instructors.

While it is obviously not the most rewarding occupation for a commercial pilot i think it is certainly a sensible step in the current market - Scotland anyway!

Allan

[smithgd]

Thanks for the info guys. What you say makes sense and has been said before! I see what your saying Mickey but getting that experience in a timely manor is very hard without being a lottery winner.

Bose-x your correct about the CPL/IR tick boxes, the course teaches you to pass an exam...as you say not much use when your in Europe on your own.

[flystrathclyde]

Bose-x,

Are you still getting lots of FI's looking for work? If so where are you advertising? We have another few instructors moving onto the airlines so we will be looking again.

Allan

[S-Works]

I am. I have a load if CVs tat are no use to me but plenty of FIs in there.

[DR JENKS]

Thanks for the advice. So now back to square one. How can a new graduate cadet get his hours? I'm thinking looking for glider-towing and parachute pilot. Do you have any contacts in UK?I can work for free.:rolleyes:

Look Shirazmerlot. I have had a gutsful of people like you coming to my country and stealing my jobs. I've got a family to feed, I hope that was sarcasm on your behalf saying you would work for free. :mad:

[Duchess_Driver]

Quote:
Thanks for the advice. So now back to square one. How can a new graduate cadet get his hours? I'm thinking looking for glider-towing and parachute pilot. Do you have any contacts in UK?I can work for free.
Look Shirazmerlot. I have had a gutsful of people like you coming to my country and stealing my jobs.

If you mean that then change your location! Last time that I checked Longreach AU, wasn't in the UK.

I am afraid the 'rot' is already set-in.... He's not the first and won't be the last to work for free, indeed lots of 'tugging' and some 'dropping' is "will fly for food".

[MartinCh]

While I understand why non-profit volunteer/club member run gliding clubs don't pay part time club member tow pilots, places like Lasham should. Especially when they use full time gliding instructors, who'd not be there (at least nowhere near as much) otherwise.

Skydiving, well, it's supply/demand for the logbook time for most and since they're commercial ops, they should pay to certain degree.

I can understand bose-x. Too many CPL/IR grads in the UK aim for airlines and do FI rating as a 'necessary evil'. Even if they do fancy instructing, they're not likely to have tailwheel, gliding, aeros etc experience.

flystrathclyde,
I too noticed the trend or rather, reluctance of South England/London area folks going to fly in more challenging weather and terrain of Scotland. So while there's saturation of unemployed fresh-ish CPL and FI holders, they don't seem to fancy moving as much as one'd expect.
I miss my time in Edinburgh. Going up to Inverness for the first time is an experience (even on ground). I'm yet to go to some gliding club and fly in wave at your end.

[flystrathclyde]

MartinCh,

We have a steady stream of instructors progressing to Loganair (another this week), AirCharterScotland, etc.

I think some decent flying in Scotland is beneficial to the CV!

We now have a link on our website

Flight Training Organisation (acsflighttraining.co.uk) (http://www.acsflighttraining.co.uk)

for instructors; maybe we might get some more enquiries.

Allan

[S-Works]

Skydiving, well, it's supply/demand for the logbook time for most and since they're commercial ops, they should pay to certain degree.

We pay all our pilots and it's a fair wage. Our problem is getting pilots, not paying them!

[MartinCh]

bose-x,
Not talking about your ops, flying bigger stuff. I guess you'd have no drops if you expected more experienced pilots to fly for the fun of it only.
But look at the 182 and 206 'gigs' and how much those pay, or rather not. Not every DZ got Caravan and Twin Otter.

flystrathclyde,
you forgot F in the link. Looked at your website. I don't see any tailwheel aircraft in your fleet. Oh well, I guess it's case of customer demand. It's definitely a teaser for some, to mention the FIs getting onto Twin Otters etc :-) More fun than button pushing jets, if it's not with rotors or glider, for me.

[flystrathclyde]

Thank you for spotting the missing 'f'; I have now corrected this.

One of our members does have a new Super Decathlon which is available for tail wheel and aerobatic with us. I will try to get it added to our website. It is based at our Perth site which is ideal with the grass runway.

The reality of progress in Scotland is real; Loganair today were chasing us for additional info for 2 recent recruits regarding their BAA passes. I guess the reputation of our weather and terrain provides good experience which is appreciated.

Allan

[MartinCh]

Good to hear. I started instructing in helicopters part time. Will definitely drop by if around your corner of the country.