Flying instruction as a career?

[PA38-HOTEL-MIKE]

Hi , i posted in the wannabes forum but then i was guided to your forum . My question is one about instruction as a career ? can it be a viable alternative to working for the airlines , does the pay warrant the expense of getting the ratings / hours required . Mind you if you could see the smile i have had plastered to my face ever since i started my PPL training i think i would take any job aslong as i could get in an aircraft and go flying .

Any info/tips would be very welcome .

thanks in advance.

[The Jester]

I think it takes a certain type of person to instruct full-time and not eventually want to move on. Personally I instructed for 6 or 7 years and I have to admit that by the end of it i was sick and tired of having to teach effects of controls part 1 to trial lesson punters!

If you progress thru to teaching applied Instrument Flying, Aerobatics etc it does become much more interesting. However I personally would not have found it be a rewarding or even enjoyable career, unlike what I'm doing now!

Good luck, enjoy

TJ:-)

[Meeb]

I tend to agree with the jester. It all depends on the individual. I know many guys who are happy instructing and want to continue doing so. A larger majority want out after a few years though. I instructed at the old CAP509 level and that was on the whole enjoyable, especially training well motivated airline cadets! IR and aeros training takes the monotony out of the basic exercises, but it is still basically a job watching someone else get all the flying fun! I now fly single pilot IFR stuff and get more hands on flying than I can poke a stick at.

In the end PA38, you have to make your own decision naturally. You are still strating out, so give it a bit more time before deciding what to do, but I think if you do go for the instructor rating, you will not regret it, I do not, and I know of no instructor who does. Good Luck.

[Capt Homesick]

Meeb has hit the nail on the head. If you want to instruct as a career, the trick is to keep adding ratings- make yourself as versatile as possible. There are 2 reasons for this: one is to keep it interesting (in my last job, teaching CAP509, I did almost the whole department's spinning and aeros); the toher is to keep giving yourself higher standards to attain. It is too easy to sit back and relax- I found I needed the pressure to keep improving.
It can be very rewarding- best advice is to try and work at a school which teaches long courses- you get more satisfaction from a student who comes with nothing, stays a year and leaves with a frozen ATPL, than from a succession of Flying Scholarship students, and back to square one every ten days.
Good luck!

[Meeb]

Thanks Capt Homesick. But doing the flying scholarship lads and lassies can be very good fun, especially on the final dual recce flight - formation anyone?

[Capt Homesick]

Been there, done that, wore the t-shirt- and I've got the photos to prove it!
OK Meeb, fair point- but it's embarassing at the end of the cadet season to look in your logbook, and see students' names without being able to remember their faces!
At least they all enjoyed a few minutes of aeros at the end- almost as much as I did.

[de La Valette]

Anyone that would seriously consider instructing as a career, rather than want to move on to 737's et al, must have rocks in his head. The problem with being a long term instructor is that inevitably you get jaded, irritable and pedantic. You forget that the poor student is paying your salary. He becomes just another tiresome idiot that cannot understand what you are trying to teach him.
Would you want to be a driving instructor from the time you are 19 to age 60 or more? Of course not. Flying instruction (once you get over the novelty of it, which is about one year) is not much different.

If you like to fly aeroplanes but for some reason you do not have the money, ability, natural drive or you are saddled with wife and kids and a mortgage, at too early in your age,then instructing as a career will give you hours in the log book - but not much money. There is a limit to how much you can honestly enjoy the RH seat of a Cessna 150 for the rest of your life.
There are many fine instructors around, some very young, some oldish. Very very few would not give their eye teeth to see a beautiful sunset from the left or right seat of a big jet.. But instructing as a chosen career? No way, unless you have no other options.

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

Teaching is a "vocational" profession, and to enjoy instructing and the rewards it brings takes an instructor who loves to teach as well as fly, whether that is for the short or long term. You'll only get out of it what you put into it. Give it your all, and you will reap the benefits over and over.

If you love to teach and love to fly, and enjoy being "saddled" with a home and family that you can get back to every night, instructing gives you that option.

As meeb said, there is also plenty of scope for self-improvement, you don't necessarily need to be teaching Effects of Controls for ever!

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[ILSNDBVOR]

De la Valette,

<If you like to fly aeroplanes but for some reason you do not have the money, ability, natural drive...>

What utter tosh and drivel, that is very offensive to every instructor. One thing I will say, those 3 points are required to be an instructor.

[Capt Homesick]

dlV, if you don't have the drive, natural ability or initiative to find an instructing job which pays a good salary, it obviously isn't for you anyway.
My last instructing job paid more than a turboprop FO gets, and led me straight to the RHS of a jet (well, a quadrapuff) when I chose to move on.

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

I think delaV must be winding us up. His comments are too sweeping and derogatory to be taken seriously! And to put them on this forum...it must be a wind up.

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Charlie Fox...jaded, irritable and pedantic

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[JJflyer]

De la valette.. " good show old chap"
Somebody finally got ILSNBDVOR upset with his comments.. Well there is first time for everything.
I do agree that ,Flight Instructing is just a stepping stone up to" real" job.
It is a very good way to learn all the basics of flying and teaches you a lot.
In order to teach you must first learn.

There are fellows out there , who for some reason or other have failed to move up.
But I cannot see any reason why somebody in his 20's would consider flying C152 or similar small airplanes for the rest of his life with substantially smaller salary, with no aircrew privileges such as ID90 tickets.
Or turn down a job offer to fly "bigger and better".

I love flying , but after flying small airplanes for a while there is challenge in it anymore, You ned something new.
I know a lot of retired airline and military pilots that go back to Flight Instructing.
I can see the reason in this: Sharing their experience with young pups like I was ( and still am ) or just to keep flying.

But if you want to Flight Instruct for the duration of your adult life . By all means do that. Give me a call when you retire and we can write a detailed analysis on you experiences.

JJ

[This message has been edited by JJflyer (edited 17 October 1999).]

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

OK so instructing may seem like nothing but a stepping stone to those who only want to use students to fill their logbook. Thats not instructing, that's bulk flying, and god knows we get plenty of "refugee" students who have been messed around and had thousands of dollars wasted by the schools who employ these types.

By saying that instructors are people who have "failed" to get a "real" job you are insulting many of the readers of this forum and showing a total lack of understanding of a vital part of our industry. Not all of us want to fly a big jet. It takes all sorts.

dlV and JJ flyer, if you want to slag flying instructors, this is not the appropriate place and I am closing this thread before we have to read any more of your ill informed comments.

PA38HM, this has shown how instructors are regarded by the ones who think they are superior. Sad, isn't it.




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