Instructors, a rare breed indeed!!

[unfazed]

JerezFlyer

Agreed, but then we were talking about PPL Instructor candidates who have experience and hours under their belts as PPL's to pass on to students.

[foxmoth]

It is also worth noting that the 'pitance' you get (in many cases over £20 per hour) is someone elses hard earned cash - probably harder earned than the instructors role.

£20/hr may not sound like a pittance until you add up the fact that at most schools this is only paid when you fly so briefings etc are not paid and if the wx is dud you are not paid either, on a good day you might fly 5 hours or so but even at this rate you will only be getting £500/week - by the time you add in the dud days probably well under £20,000pa not a great salary these days!

[timzsta]

Just because you have gone down the fATPL and then FI rating route it doesn't mean you lack a passion for flight or get a buzz out of a good crosswind landing.

I tire of reading on here the kind of drivel that says "these young FI's these days don't know what they are talking about and are only in it for the hours" etc. "Bring back the PPL Instructor Rating - those guys are much better".

When I first started Instructing an experience PPL said to me and I quote "Your may have only got 250 hours flight time, but you have got 250 hours flight time of being trained. I have 500 hours, but 450 of those have been spent developing bad habbits".

I can assure you shortstripper they don't just give out things like CPL/IR/FI ratings willy nilly. You have to work damn hard to get those ATPL passes and get the examiner to sign your bit of paper on your flight test.

I take pride in trying to deliver quality instruction to my students and am constantly picking the brains of the experienced FI's at my club. And that is despite my ultimate goal being to get a job in the RHS of a jet. The amount I have learnt over a cup of tea on a rainy day or a beer at the end of flying.

And the thing at the moment I actually long for the most? To actually get away from my airfield on some nice social cross country flying - the kind of stuff that so many on hear seem to think counts for more then anything else when it comes to imparting flying knowledge it seems.

Anyway just felt I needed to get that off my chest. No doubt I will be slated for it.

[Delta Wun-Wun]

Speaking to an old friend the other day who started Instructing ten years ago. He was on £15/hr then. During the summer I worked flat out 7 days a week for one of the summer months. Left home at 0800 and quite often got back home 2000. Flew about as much as was possible.....at £15/hr and only justed managed to cover my monthly out goings. Now that the weather is on the change the average is about £600 to £700/ month.
Instructing is great fun but I cannot see how you can make a livable wage through the winter. Terms and conditions don`t seem to have improved much over the years, especially considering how much the investment is to qualify as an Instructor.
I spent in excess of £30000 of my hard earned cash to qualify for a new career that doesn`t pay a living wage.
Oh and worked out what the longest serving PPL Instructor working with me grossed last year.....£12780!!!
well below £20000