Annual instructional hours in the UK
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Annual instructional hours in the UK
A question for UK based flight instructors out there:
Given the British weather, on average how many instructional hours do you fly per year?
In generally sunnier climates in the US it is possible to fly 60-80 hours a month. How does that compare to the UK?
Given the British weather, on average how many instructional hours do you fly per year?
In generally sunnier climates in the US it is possible to fly 60-80 hours a month. How does that compare to the UK?
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Back in the early ninties when I was hour building in the states the instructors there were logging 1500 hours a year
Last edited by Mickey Kaye; 10th Feb 2010 at 20:36.
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who were clearing 120 hours a month for at least 4 months last summer
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I wish it was billiebob. But it depends on who you speak to.
When I was full time i refused point blank to go over a hundred but I can think of 2 schools i knew that did get to those sort of hours over the summer.
Some CAA bods say 100 hours somesay it doesn't apply to instructors but none will put anything on paper.
Your ok until you have an accident I think.
But as dutchess says you bugger all use to man nor beast doing a ton a month after about 3 weeks.
When I was full time i refused point blank to go over a hundred but I can think of 2 schools i knew that did get to those sort of hours over the summer.
Some CAA bods say 100 hours somesay it doesn't apply to instructors but none will put anything on paper.
Your ok until you have an accident I think.
But as dutchess says you bugger all use to man nor beast doing a ton a month after about 3 weeks.
Duchess Driver and Mad Jock have both raise the point, are you talking about 'Giving Instruction' as a Flight instructor or just hour building?
Ground instruction, and de briefing are very important. If you jump out of one aircraft and straight into the next one, engine running student ready to taxi, then I would suggest that firstly you have not prepared yourself mentally for the next student, and the students are not getting very good value for money..
Ground instruction, and de briefing are very important. If you jump out of one aircraft and straight into the next one, engine running student ready to taxi, then I would suggest that firstly you have not prepared yourself mentally for the next student, and the students are not getting very good value for money..
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It will be flight instruction
6-7 day week flying 3-4 hours on a week day and 5-7 on a weekend proberly doing a 10-12 hour shift at the school.
At first you think its great your log book fills rapidly and your actually getting payed to fly!!!!!
Then the fatigue sets in and the constant bitching and unpaid extra things that CFI's think are part and parcel of the job start getting right on your tits.
Then its time to move on....
6-7 day week flying 3-4 hours on a week day and 5-7 on a weekend proberly doing a 10-12 hour shift at the school.
At first you think its great your log book fills rapidly and your actually getting payed to fly!!!!!
Then the fatigue sets in and the constant bitching and unpaid extra things that CFI's think are part and parcel of the job start getting right on your tits.
Then its time to move on....
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I average about 50hrs/month in the air but don't work full time (about 4 days/week). On the months where I have hacked much more than about 70 I haven't done myself, or my students, any justice.
I can't imagine 1000+/year. Who is kidding who?
I can't imagine 1000+/year. Who is kidding who?
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Ah what a good example of why the industry is in such a shocking state.
Instruction is about teaching, the passing on of learning not the hours you can cram in your logbook.
This thread says so much about the attitude that is a disease in the industry.
Instruction is about teaching, the passing on of learning not the hours you can cram in your logbook.
This thread says so much about the attitude that is a disease in the industry.
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Your right bose.
But its hardly a new problem I did 850 hours in 2002 and did 3 months straight doing 100 hours instructing and about another 10 in ferry flights. One school at the time had increasing sliding scales on the number of hours you flew a month, over 100 you were on double money.
The CAA have know about it for years. nobody has crashed and killed someone after doing 100 plus so they won't do anything about it.
When I read a report in the wee incidents mag and see the instructor has done 20 or 80 hours in the last 28 my first thought is I wonder how many hours in the school they have done. When was the last time they had 2 days off in a row.
Sitting on your backside with nothing to do in a school is just as knackaring as flying your backside off.
And some of us who were doing those sort of hours did care about the quality of our instruction and loved teaching folk. Recently I got my rating back after it being lapsed for nearly 5 years. Did 3 days in a row on my tod with 2-3 lessons on the first 2 followed by 4 hours on the 3rd. I was utterly shattered, more so than doing 3 earlies followed by 3 lates with 9-10 hours duty I would do in the turboprop.
And its this need to make slaves out of FI which means that the PPL instructor won't make much difference to the schools. They need FI's to do all the crap jobs, sit doing nothing when nothing is happening, come in at the crack of dawn and leave after the last flight has come home.A PPL instructor (like myself now) would tell the owner to go f
themselves doing a 10 hour day for a chance of an hour in the air.
But its hardly a new problem I did 850 hours in 2002 and did 3 months straight doing 100 hours instructing and about another 10 in ferry flights. One school at the time had increasing sliding scales on the number of hours you flew a month, over 100 you were on double money.
The CAA have know about it for years. nobody has crashed and killed someone after doing 100 plus so they won't do anything about it.
When I read a report in the wee incidents mag and see the instructor has done 20 or 80 hours in the last 28 my first thought is I wonder how many hours in the school they have done. When was the last time they had 2 days off in a row.
Sitting on your backside with nothing to do in a school is just as knackaring as flying your backside off.
And some of us who were doing those sort of hours did care about the quality of our instruction and loved teaching folk. Recently I got my rating back after it being lapsed for nearly 5 years. Did 3 days in a row on my tod with 2-3 lessons on the first 2 followed by 4 hours on the 3rd. I was utterly shattered, more so than doing 3 earlies followed by 3 lates with 9-10 hours duty I would do in the turboprop.
And its this need to make slaves out of FI which means that the PPL instructor won't make much difference to the schools. They need FI's to do all the crap jobs, sit doing nothing when nothing is happening, come in at the crack of dawn and leave after the last flight has come home.A PPL instructor (like myself now) would tell the owner to go f
themselves doing a 10 hour day for a chance of an hour in the air.
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As long as the aviation industry continues to use P1 hours as a currency there will always be people trying to get as much as they can. The flying training environment really needs to move away from this ethos. I'm lucky, I get paid a reasonable daily retainer and a relatively small hourly rate. Consequently, I'm not being motivated by flying hours. Of course, some of my co-instructors are still furiously trying to populate their logbook in order to impress an HR department sometime in the future.
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Neither of the two companies I work for employees people based on instructional hours. We see no advantage to be gained from a thousand hours sat in the RHS of a Cessna when flying a turbine. Other than maybe making the tea.
I teach and examine for the pleasure of teaching and the hope that if I can ignite a spark of passion for aviation in my students they will keep on fanning the flames.
Whenever I see threads about hours builders it fills me with dismay.
I teach and examine for the pleasure of teaching and the hope that if I can ignite a spark of passion for aviation in my students they will keep on fanning the flames.
Whenever I see threads about hours builders it fills me with dismay.
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On the subject of hour building in the last 18 months there has been a significant increase in pilots who previously would never even have considered becoming a FI doing the course.
I have a sneaky feeling things are going to get even worse.
And on a note i didnt particularly want to be doing those sort of hours it seemed to be goal by the owner for me to do them. Turning down the offers of part time instructors to come in and doing as little as possible himself.
There is as much an issue with the school owners and old school CFI's as there is the FI's.
I have a sneaky feeling things are going to get even worse.
And on a note i didnt particularly want to be doing those sort of hours it seemed to be goal by the owner for me to do them. Turning down the offers of part time instructors to come in and doing as little as possible himself.
There is as much an issue with the school owners and old school CFI's as there is the FI's.
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How do you define an 'hours builder'?
In my experiance all the instructors I have known, and myself, enjoy there job (mostly!) and do there utmost for their students, but if offered the chance of a turboprop job would take it, if only for the better salary.
Just because your ultimate career goal in life is not instructing, does not mean you don't try your hardest at it and try to be the best instructor you can.
I've had a couple of people say to me 'oh, so your just hours building at the minute?' and it makes me cringe - no, I'm instructing!
I speak for the UK by the way, sadly the situation in the US seems very different.
In my experiance all the instructors I have known, and myself, enjoy there job (mostly!) and do there utmost for their students, but if offered the chance of a turboprop job would take it, if only for the better salary.
Just because your ultimate career goal in life is not instructing, does not mean you don't try your hardest at it and try to be the best instructor you can.
I've had a couple of people say to me 'oh, so your just hours building at the minute?' and it makes me cringe - no, I'm instructing!
I speak for the UK by the way, sadly the situation in the US seems very different.
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darn, meet someone who has no intention of pursuing turboprop etc. Unbelievably, there are some of us who have entered instructing later in our lives and are very happy with our lot.
Personally, I work with some chaps who spend most of their waking hours talking about airline job opportunities (lack of), rosters, salaries and anything to do with flying as long as it isn't instructing. I have seen instructors take students' money purely to meet their own needs - "OK Bloggs, lets go to **** today". Bloggs (who is actually somewhere near stalling in the PPL syllabus) then spends the best part of £300 going to **** so that his instructor can mosey over to the local AOC twin-prop organisation to sniff around for a job.
Don't get me wrong, there are many fine instructors out there who have varying career desires. But don't kid yourself that there aren't any 'hour-builders' in the UK.
Personally, I work with some chaps who spend most of their waking hours talking about airline job opportunities (lack of), rosters, salaries and anything to do with flying as long as it isn't instructing. I have seen instructors take students' money purely to meet their own needs - "OK Bloggs, lets go to **** today". Bloggs (who is actually somewhere near stalling in the PPL syllabus) then spends the best part of £300 going to **** so that his instructor can mosey over to the local AOC twin-prop organisation to sniff around for a job.
Don't get me wrong, there are many fine instructors out there who have varying career desires. But don't kid yourself that there aren't any 'hour-builders' in the UK.
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Cows Get Bigger - I'm sorry to hear that, I've not met any instructors with that attitude yet (in the UK anyway).
All I was really saying is don't tar all young FI's with the same brush.
All I was really saying is don't tar all young FI's with the same brush.
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At the busiest I did about 1200 hours of instruction in 9,5 months. That was busy as hell. However, possible and legal because;
1) school open every day from 0600 to 2400, sometimes earlier/later upon request.
2) major JAR instructor shortage at the time -- at the most I had about 15 students, mostly on the integrated course, mostly instrument and multi, some ppl and some cpl.
3) Allowed in the US to fly 8.0 hours per day, that's flying hours, not duty.
4) First six months worked 7 days a week either flight or ground instruction, last three months insisted on one day off pr week. ******* rat race.
5) Usually got up around 7 to be at work at 7:30 to brief, to go flying around 8. Then usually another flight before lunch at 12-ish, then 2-3-4 flights depending on length, finished somewhere between 18 and 24. Each student briefed and debriefed a total of about 1 hour depending. Then McDinner or a proper restaurant, then home, sleep and repeat.
6) Luckily there was formal groundschool from a staff ground instructor so not that much ground lessons requried, could usualy be fitted to days with bad weather, or cancelled slots, because most students lived on campus and were eager to take any opportunity.
7) About 1/3 of the time or so I was supervising SPIC flights, where we'd get an airplane for a day and go flying 8.0 hours, or as close as possible. Could sometimes fit in a ground lesson or two beforehand.
8) Having no ******* life for 9 months.
9) Would love to instruct again, but not at that pace. I was almost happy my visa expired.
So... is it fair to fly that much? I think that each of my students would have deserved more of my time. However with the situation at the school at the time, I had to try to fly equally much with everyone, which was only one flight pr person every 2-3 days. Of course the students were pissed that they didn't fly more but most were very understanding and took it out on the school instead of me.
As for me I took my job very seriously and I loved teaching and instructing. I did not see my goal of building hours as a conflicting interest. And as for choosing a life that consisted pretty much of eating, sleeping, briefing and flying for 9 months, that was acceptable to me as a short-term solution, and seemed to work out for everyone.
For the record 34/36 students passed first time, two partialled
1) school open every day from 0600 to 2400, sometimes earlier/later upon request.
2) major JAR instructor shortage at the time -- at the most I had about 15 students, mostly on the integrated course, mostly instrument and multi, some ppl and some cpl.
3) Allowed in the US to fly 8.0 hours per day, that's flying hours, not duty.
4) First six months worked 7 days a week either flight or ground instruction, last three months insisted on one day off pr week. ******* rat race.
5) Usually got up around 7 to be at work at 7:30 to brief, to go flying around 8. Then usually another flight before lunch at 12-ish, then 2-3-4 flights depending on length, finished somewhere between 18 and 24. Each student briefed and debriefed a total of about 1 hour depending. Then McDinner or a proper restaurant, then home, sleep and repeat.
6) Luckily there was formal groundschool from a staff ground instructor so not that much ground lessons requried, could usualy be fitted to days with bad weather, or cancelled slots, because most students lived on campus and were eager to take any opportunity.
7) About 1/3 of the time or so I was supervising SPIC flights, where we'd get an airplane for a day and go flying 8.0 hours, or as close as possible. Could sometimes fit in a ground lesson or two beforehand.
8) Having no ******* life for 9 months.
9) Would love to instruct again, but not at that pace. I was almost happy my visa expired.
So... is it fair to fly that much? I think that each of my students would have deserved more of my time. However with the situation at the school at the time, I had to try to fly equally much with everyone, which was only one flight pr person every 2-3 days. Of course the students were pissed that they didn't fly more but most were very understanding and took it out on the school instead of me.
As for me I took my job very seriously and I loved teaching and instructing. I did not see my goal of building hours as a conflicting interest. And as for choosing a life that consisted pretty much of eating, sleeping, briefing and flying for 9 months, that was acceptable to me as a short-term solution, and seemed to work out for everyone.
For the record 34/36 students passed first time, two partialled
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Glad I never got that gig.
I thought US instructors had to have a day off a week?
I am suprised though that any quality system would allow you to do those sort of hours. I know SPIC your not actually meant to do anything unless flight safety is at risk but......
I thought US instructors had to have a day off a week?
I am suprised though that any quality system would allow you to do those sort of hours. I know SPIC your not actually meant to do anything unless flight safety is at risk but......