EASA planning to relax CPL requirement for instructors

[lady in red]

Homeguard, you have muddled up two different concepts. There has been no reduction in the 100 hours required for becoming unrestricted. The reduction from 100 hours to 50 hours relates to the experience requirement for instructors to achieve in the 3 year validity period of their rating - in fact it is simply a halving of the preivious requirements for 100 hours in 3 years and 30 in the third year to 50 in three years and 15 in the third year. It is in LASORS but I cannot give the reference right now.

[homeguard]

Instructor Hours

Lady in Red

Thanks for the clarification.

With regard to the 3yr bit in LASORS, it is found at; Section H 1.7

[Mach Jump]

I remember when the fiasco of JAR FCL was forced on us, and with it the requirement that Instructors should have professional licences.They said that it would improve standards, and raise the status of instructors by creating a shortage that would force instructors' pay up to a level that would make it a worthwhile career.

I'm not convinced that the standard of instruction has improved much since I learned to fly in 1978, but, at least, the shortage of instructors is here, and , if alowed to continue, will have the originally stated effect of pushing up instructors' pay.

Unfortunately, the industry is taking its usual short sighted view, insisting that the solution is to reduce the qualification requirements. this will pull the rug out from under the latest generation of instructors who spent thousands of pounds getting their qualifications, abandon the prospect of PPL instructing as a real career, and condemn future generations to continuing poverty.

[Solar]

Mach Jump
As you say instruction standards don't seem to have changed much that I can see, and as you rightly point out the pay has not exactly balloned either with the present shortage. What has happened is that schools/clubs are finding it increasingly difficult to survive due to the dearth of long term instructors added to the increasing economic woes that they are subjected to.
I fail to see what is wrong in having suitably trained (dare I say it) more mature instructors who would like to put something back into aviation.
Isn't this what is termed as corporate memory loss where all the experienced people are replaced with bright youngsters with no memory of how the company functioned previously.
As has been pointed out instructing is not only about flying but interacting with people.
I know as do many of us quite a few good pilots that would not be good instructors.
Bits of paper are just that, some people are good at academia and collect bits of paper with ease, does not necessarily make them good instructors, plumbers, mechanics or whatever.

[Mach Jump]

Hi Solar

There will never be any long term career PPL Instructors until The pay is enough to attract them. The only way that will happen is for there to be a shortage of of instructors so severe that schools are forced to compete for the ones that are available.

I was a long term dedicated instructor and examiner, living in poverty, for many years, but I would give up my airline job tomorrow, if I could go back to it on even half my present salary.

MJ

[Pringle 1]

Well said Mach Jump!

Solar, I disagree about pay, it is definitely on the up at the moment. Supply and demand applies even to this industry. Salaries of 20 to 30k for PPL instructors have been advertised in the press lately.

[Mach Jump]

Really Pringle?

Where was that?

MJ

[Jetscream 32]

MJ,

Im sorry but you are missing the point - the reason you cant get enough pay, is because nobody has yet correctly costed the numbers / true cost...

Based on the spreadsheets we produce, your average flight in a nice shiny new DA 40 or Skycatcher should be in the order of £250 per hour in order for the operator to pay for all things required to turn the propellor, from admin, marketing, DOC's, maintenace, landing fee's, engine fund, rotables, consumables, premises, non flying staff, pilots, blah, blah, blah plus depreciation, cost of finance plus return on capital employed = profit......

All the time schools set up in portakabins, rent aircraft from Singh for £35 per hour dry, offer trial lessons for 99 quid and try and sell a few PPL's off the back of it - but never correctly cost the true numbers - so never make a profit and always look for cost savings - which normally comes from people first....

In my view this is the fault of AOPA and the magazines - collectively they hold the key to rasing the pay and standards of flight training in this country.... But these are my personal views and i doubt viewed the same by many others......

The day the flight training industry pulls together commercially for the benefit of all and agrees to a common pricing / marketing policy the better.

People wanting to learn how to fly deserve to get the same treatment and facilities as they get if they walk into a gym or golf club or yacht club........

Yet do they...!!! - do they heck as like - the reason they dont???

None of the flying schools make money because they dont know how to cost their operation correctly for the UK weather, and dont know how to write a cash flow forecast.......

If they did - the UK flight training industry would be as healthy as the golf industry and as popular and well supported as it is in the USA..........

Go for it - give me both barrels......

[Jay_solo]

Just to clarify;

With this proposed PPL/FI ruling, is it the case you would not need to do the ATPL or CPL ground school as well? Just jump straight into an Instructor rating course with just a PPL and 200 hours under your belt? Then get paid for PPL instruction?

If you have a multi engine rating, or Instrument rating, can you teach PPL level multi and IR? (once you'ved added the ME and IR instructor ratings to your PPL instructor rating?)

Overall it seems like a good idea, as not everyone is airline bound and some people would rather teach. But obviously 2-3 years down the road we'll see the impact.

Personally my main concern is that the cost of obtaining an instructor rating is very high! £6,000 on average and thats if you complete it in the minimum time.

[TheOddOne]

Im sorry but you are missing the point - the reason you cant get enough pay, is because nobody has yet correctly costed the numbers / true cost...

Jetscream,

Well, I fully agree with most of your post but I don't think it's that people haven't done the numbers, more that they're afraid to put prices up to correct levels in the fear that they won't have any business.

The day the flight training industry pulls together commercially for the benefit of all and agrees to a common pricing / marketing policy the better.

...which is I believe against the law. Whilst there is always one person who is so desperate to be in the business that they will undercut everyone else, so everyone else follows suit and so the downward spiral goes.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[ATR42300]

I have just read in the latest edition of Flight Training News that EASA is indeed planning to go ahead with the withdrawl of CPL requirement so it would appear to be getting close.

Anyone any idea when it is supposed to happen?

[VFE]

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now, at first thinking that PPL holding instructors with 200 hours could only be a good thing to the flying club community... getting rid of those nathty time wasting airline pilot wannabes right?

Now, the more I think about it, the more I think that more instructors and students will die as a result of the EASA change.

If anyone is interested enough to ask why I think this I will happily write an elongated essay about it but you're all smart enough chaps and chappesses - you have a little think about it.

Regards,

VFE.

[Jay_solo]

Only time will tell if this proposed regulation change would be good or increase the risk of someone dying. I think in 2-3 years we will see, so I keep an open mind.

The key area of focus is on the aptitude of the instructor and whether that deminishes when a CPL is removed. Because all over the world we have freshly graduated flight school students with just 200-250 hrs and an instructor rating teaching future pilots (airline cadet pilots as well!). So what is the major component that will be missing when that instuctor with a CPL is now just an instructor with a PPL?

And who is to say that every PPL pilot with 200 hours will jump into instructing? some might say they want more experience (i.e 500-1000) while others would say, for the £6,000 it cost for an instructor rating, I can get a CPL with that!

Only time will tell, too early to say I think.

[Pringle 1]

Mach Jump,

March's Pilot Mag shows PPL FI/FI(R) 's required at Cranfield Circa 30K, and a club near Sheffield FI 's 24.50 PH and FI/R's 18PH and I think it was Truman aviaition Nottingham were advertising 20 to 30 K on these very forums a month or so ago. FTN has half a page of FI Jobs including Cabairs Instructor Sponsorship.

I guess the problem is, how long will it last, and you cannot make career decisions if the market could change overnight with a potential influx of PPL instrucors prepared to work for less, or god forbid, nothing!

[MIKECR]

With the current recession things perhaps dont look too good on the airline recruitment front. Airlines consolidating, laying off aircraft, overcrewing etc......i would imagine there will be many current FI's who will be clinging onto their jobs for the foreseable future.

[TheOddOne]

I guess the problem is, how long will it last, and you cannot make career decisions if the market could change overnight with a potential influx of PPL instrucors prepared to work for less, or god forbid, nothing!

Pringle1,

You make it sound as if this change will happen in the next couple of weeks! It'll be probably at least 2 years before this comes in. You could do the FI course, get a job, get the restriction removed and a senior position at a flying school before then!

If the desire to teach people how to fly is your passion and long-term goal, then you'll be prepared to ride out the troughs and peaks of the economic cycle. It's people talking down the economy for their own ends (cf MOL) that gets a recession kicked off. The shops seem just as busy, the roads crammed with cars. Our flying schedule is pretty much full every day; it's only the weather stops us flying even more. What recession?

I depend upon instructing now for my livelihood but I see nothing wrong with PPLs teaching weekends or for beer money for nothing at a small RF, this never has affected the big schools like the one where I work and probably never will. There's room for both.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[expedite08]

Pringle 1 has hit the nail on the head. Maybe not immediatly, buit this is going to cause problems for the CPL's out there. Why are schools going to pay for somone when jo Bloggs can and will do the same thing for nothing! purley out of the goodness of thier hearts!

CPL instructing is safe for the obvious reasons of needing the licence to be able to do it.

Time will tell. A glut of ATPL's with little hours all in search of jobs is inevitable though at some point! (if not already!)

[Pringle 1]

The Odd One,

I hope you're right, but I'm not sure why you think the PPL/FI's will stick to the weekends and the smaller clubs. Why not be a PPL/FI 6 days a week at a busy school to build hours before doing the CPL.

Do you really think your school will continue to pay existing rates when they can get a PPL to do it for less.

2 years you think? Again, I suspect the industry will push this through ASAP and that the MPL will eventually be adopted by the bigger CPL/ATPL schools. So 2000 hours intructing in light singles, or twins for that matter, will count for nothing if the traditional CPL training system is no more.

I know I am a doom munger, but I have very little faith in an industry that changes its mind on things every few years.

[IO540]

Interesting read (don't come here often, as they say). I am a JAA PPL with 900hrs (later did the FAA PPL/CPL/IR). Flown all over Europe, VFR and IFR.

I don't think many private pilots (regardless of experience) will all of a sudden come in and start instructing for free, or at all for that matter.

You are all instructors, presumably. Take a look at the profile of the PPLs around your airfield.

For a start, most of the people that passed their skills test pack it in more or less right away. Just a small % are left flying after say 1 year. Folklore suggests about 10% and that is probably right from what I can see.

Now, look at those who are left behind after say a year or two. Take out those in their 70s and 80s, many of whom don't find it all that easy to climb into say a PA28.

Most of them are either relatively skint and working hard to save up for each rental hour or syndicate hour (in which case they certainly won't be instructing for free) or they are aircraft owners in which case they are most likely business/professional types with very limited time (quite a lot of these have an IR, and most of those did the FAA route precisely because they are not blessed with copious spare time).

Then you get airfield politics. One could make a whole soap opera around airfield politics. Certainly in the initial stages of any change such as this proposed EASA one, there will be a lot of bad blood between a school employing a bunch of ATPL hour builders (who have not yet found jobs and are really keen to hold onto their instructor jobs even if poorly paid) and any would-be "PPL instructor". He better not have any ties to the airfield (for example be in need of hangarage for his shiny fibreglass IFR spaceship) because his name will get thoroughly slagged off behind his back. Every time he does a less than perfect landing (don't we all?) there will be a lot of "all these amateurs doing training now " gossip, and it will definitely be done within earshot of any prospective students, to make sure they "know" where their bread is buttered.

Not that I am thinking of ever instructing - due to lack of time and lack of willingness to climb into some of the 1970s machinery I see flying. But I would like to do some of the mentoring as proposed by AOPA UK recently. But local airfield politics ("usurping instructors' authority") will absolutely ensure there is no chance of me doing even that. I need the airfield and have to know which side my bread is buttered, too.

I suppose this means I don't have a clue as to which bit of the private pilot population will be interested in instructing.

Please note I am using "private pilot " because you may get a few PPL/IRs wanting to instruct when the changes come in. I don't think these will be criticised for lack of experience.

[chrisbl]

The day the flight training industry pulls together commercially for the benefit of all and agrees to a common pricing / marketing policy the better.

That I am afraid is called price fixing and is illegal. It is anti-competitive.