Becoming an Instructor & related FI questions
 

Anyone got any info regarding the health of the UK instructing market? Thinking of going this way next year, so any constructive remarks on good places to do the course and good places to try and find work would be appreciated. Also rates of pay for freelancing. Cheers...

As on FI(H)R...AFI(H) in none JAR speak ibelieve there are not enough QHI's to go around. With a NVQ going and the introduction of the relatively new JAR PPL(H,), it has taken the helicopter training industry some to adjust. I belive (taking the two schools I work for as a yard stick), that we are over the worst now as far as its introduction goes. Schools now feel more confident in discussing the 'new' JAR PPL(H) to prospective students.

I think the long term picture should be good if you do go the instructing route - the cost of getting there on a self sponsor ticket seems to be more and more unrealistic for too many people who would otherwise have considered instructing under the old system.

I assume that you've already got 300+ hrs and a CPL (H) - the PPL(H) +200hrs P1 before instructor course route died with the intro of JAR -grrrrrrr!!!) Good luck!

Huwey, thanks for your reply. You mentioned that NVQ may be available for the Instructor's course - do you know any details about this?

Instruct or not to instruct?
 

Guys...advice please.

Am starting down CPL(H) path and really want to instruct at the end of it all. I even have the lucky offer of "interested parties" once all is said and done. Any R22 instructors out there care to give me a ball park figure of possible earnings?

Cheers

it's a long path,155 hours before the 35 hr commercial flying course,theoretical exams (if you can find a school,as yet i think JAR are still running ATPL(A) with helicopter add ons only) hour building to 300 hrs .then 25 hrs for instructor rating +100 ish ground school.
After all that you can look to earn 30-40 £ a flying hour.
having said all that i does seem there is demand at the moment for instructors after the glut of 2 years ago
good luck

In that case:
I'm based Derby, got the CPL(H) and would like to get an Instructor's ticket. Anyone know of a good place within striking distance?

Am also looking to step down that road and was wondering if you know who requires instructors. Reccomend a copy of BHAB handbook, it is ideal for all the questions of who does what were and with whom.

That, presumably, involves handing fistfuls of Filthy Lucre to the BHAB?

Nah, only a little bit of Filthy Lucre. I'm another wannabe instructor, and I got one about a week ago, and it cost me all of £7.50. It has lots of potentially useful info, and even lots of pictures of helicopters. Details are on their website.

While the BHAB Handbook is OK, there are many flying schools that are not members and therefore not listed. If you go to the CAA SRG website, there is a pdf file of FTOs and TRTOs at:
<a href="http://www.srg.caa.co.uk/documents/srg_fcl_ApprovedFTOs.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.srg.caa.co.uk/documents/srg_fcl_ApprovedFTOs.pdf</a>
This should give you a fairly good list of both places to do your instructor rating and/or places to instruct once you have the rating. However, the CAA list is not complete and out of date, so it does not contain all the schools. Try copies of Flyer and Pilot too.

The instructor who does your instructor training is key. Do spend time talking to him/her?; the course is very intense and you will need to get on.

When it comes to getting work, an outfit is likely to look more favourably on you if you have spent some money with them and if they know you.

I was talking to a couple of CFIs recently, and they both mentioned that there was a difficulty getting new instructors.

Good Luck

I'm an instructor, AFI, London-area, and work is very thin on the ground.

Robbo

If you want to borrow my copy of the BHAB handbook, e mail me direct. I am only 10 miles from Derby.

SJK,

I would like to start by disagreeing with your initial premise, I was lucky enough to get an instructor rating under the old system i.e. on my PPL, and having done more than 1000 hours instructing you will find that it is ok but you will want to move on to the next challenge, i.e more and bigger types on your licence plus commercial flying, instructing is a great way to increase your experience and pass on your skills but in itself it is quite limiting.
expect difficulty getting started. e.g i did 30 hours in the first 6 months (all trial lessons)and 200 hours i the next six months, i was running about 500 hours a year when i finished which equates to £20k pa.

it is harder to find work when you are a new instructor FI(H) (resticted), because you need cover from a senior instructor, so he/she really needs to have a program before you do.
much easier to find work when your instructor rating is upgraded because you can work unsupervised (t'aint natural - work is available around london for a FI(H) (unrestricted,
however gettting the restriction removed is tougher than it used to be - in particular you have to supervise 25 solos, as well as do 100 hours instruction, 25 solos takes ages believe me, way over 100 hours normally, i reckon i must have done about 300-400 before i had done 25, you really need active help from the senior instructor to help you get the upgrade.

dont give up it may take time but you will succeed, you must be flexible (i.e travel at shirt notice long distances to do 1 or 2 trial lessons), if you say no to work they will ask someone else first next time

i have done various types of helicopter flying now and the thing that keeps it interesting is doing varied stuff, so dont set your sites too low.

hope this helps

Thanks for the input, folks. £7.50's not bad, I'll get in touch with BHAB, Whirly. Ta for the CAA link, Helinut - I'll have a dekko after posting this. And thanks for the reality check, elpirata. Always a good idea to keep one's eyes open. I was thinking of part-timing initially, so it may be a while building the instructional hours for me.

Muffin, I'd noticed you're location is Ashbourne and was thinking of getting in touch, but I'm awful shy. I'll fling you an e-mail - not to borrow the book, just to chew the fat.

SJK,

elpirata's story is IMHO realistic. The restricted instructor is of limited use to a flying school. It is also useful to remember that, wonderful as "free" flying is, the school assumes you are working. Most schools are looking for some one prepared to add lots of non-flying hours to the valuable flying hours for which an instructor is paid.

Elpirata: Spot on about the 25 solos. After three years I have 17, out of over 400 hours instruction (part-time). In theory I can only send my own strudents solo (as a part-timer I simply don't "own" any) and I can't authorise their first solo or their qualifying cross country. How long before I get the other eight? If ever.

Thanks guys for the candid responses...
ok, what can a pilot with frozen ATPH earn on the North Sea Rig runs? Its the other end of the scale but at least you can come back to instructing later I suppose!
Cheers

R22 Instructor (part-time)
 

Ladies and Gentlemen
I am an airline pilot (ex-RN rotary) and for some time have held an ATPL (HG) with a type rating on the R 22 (AFI). I have tried several times to obtain gainful employment on a freelance basis as an instructor at several schools around the London area (Stansted based). I've not had much success as I believe instructor jobs are either jealously guarded or just not there in the first place.
For me, such a position would be ideal especially for when things are a bit slack over the winter period. I would also be interested in any charter work and quite willing to obtain a type rating on the B206 or twin squirrel if the work could be guaranteed.
Please can anyone help me? All comments (even rude) welcome.

Moneyshot: I too do AFI work here and there around London, and the plain fact is there aren't enough students coming forward to keep everyone in business. We British contrive to make learning to fly difficult, expensive and unrewarding, and especially so with helicopters. It's not that the jobs are "jealously guarded." People who have them are by and large keen to move up.
Keep trying. You're better qualified than most, and I'm sure you'll find something now that the weather is picking up. It's the Bank Holiday weekend - anyone who can't sell flying time this weekend should give up.

T'aint
Thanks for that . That's more or less what I thought. Unfortunately I've got to do my main job this weekend but I'll take any opportunity to do do some real flying. It's a shame that fixed wing is where the money is!!

Moneyshot. Perhaps this should be posted on the Instructor forum for their opinions?..

Jealously guarded AFI jobs? That is only to be expected. Many of the AFIs around havent been lucky/priveledged/hard working* (delete as necessary) enough to have your helicopter background. They are freelance, trying to build hours for their chosen career - in helicopters - and probably getting the hours in at an abysmally slow rate.

Now imagine that you come along. An airline pilot earning £40/50/60k whatever p.a. And you want to take some of those few precious hours away from them, not because you need them, but because your day-job is boring. Mmmmmmmmm. Going to be about as popular as a f~rt in a spacesuit, aren't you?

Now then, if you wanted a full-time commercial pilot / AFI job, I'm sure you could get one no bother. Depends which is most important to you, job satisfaction or the money, and I think you've answered that yourself!

From an AOC point of view, I get a lot of requests from airline / mil pilots for part-time work. The fact is that, like most small operators, we could use freelance pilots in the summer months as back-up for the full-time boys, but we are not going to waste time and money base + line checking people who are going to have limited availability. Now, if the CAA would allow all commercial pilots to have one base / line check that covered all AOC operators, rather than the current idiotic set-up, we could set up a pool of people like yourself safe in the knowledge that if we needed a freelancer, there wpuld definiteley be one who was on a day off.

But thats another story...

Nice 1 StevieT.
I think you have said what a lot of people are thinking.
Stick to your plank Moneyshot!!

OK guys I only asked.
It would appear that I've hit a raw nerve somewhere. Maybe I am some sort of over-qualified super git but we're all helicopter guys together..... right. I have my set of circumstances and you have yours. It's not my fault that students are in short supply because no-one can afford to fly helicopters. Given the choice,money aside, I would rather fly helicopters anyway. I guess there's no help coming. I'll just go back to my plank and forget about the idea. cheers guys.

Moneyshot,

I think the reaction of some of my helicopter flying colleagues here is a little over the top. We don't all feel that way, and I'm one of the instructor wannabes who I suppose would have a right to. But I don't see your situation as much different from mine. OK, you're an airline pilot who'd rather fly helicopters; I'm a freelance researcher/writer who'd rather fly helicopters; we have at least a couple of IT consultants who post here who'd rather fly helicopters. And some of us want the best of both worlds, ie to only do it part time if possible as we know it's insecure and badly paid. It's not as though you'd be taking a job away from some poor starving unqualified 18 year old - unlikely anyway. If you got an instructing job I was after I'd be disappointed, but you'd be better qualified and that's life. It's not fair, but not much in life is. So I hope you get an instructing job, if that's what you want. And I hope you come back and read this; I tried to e-mail you, but it looks like I can't.

Moneyshot: You can't hang around one area and expect to get a job. Helicopters & jobs are scattered all over the globe, with a few exceptions. I have moved around in Scandianvia, North and South America since '97 to keep my career going. I am about to move again within a few weeks. Muhammed has to go to the mountain. I think that this will go on until I hit around 3,000 hours. My ultimate goal is to fly EMS in the cold north, and to achieve that -> sacrifice!!! :mad:

cheers

tigerpic :D

OK that's made me feel much better. I really hope that all of you get as much reward out of flying these beasts as I did in the RN. Just saw some crabs on the TV in Afghanistan flying the Royal Marines around in Chinooks. They should be paying to do that!!!! And one of them was a girl. Oh my word!!

Moneyshot,

Do you have a problem with GIRLS flying helicopters? Be careful; I might take back all I said!

Oops .. Nope, I think girls are great. Some of the most naturally gifted pilots around are girls obviously. Sorry, didn't really want to go there!

That's better! :) :) :) :) :)

JAR regs affecting the number of Flying Instructor candidates
 

Any body have any stats, real or anecdotal regarding the number of heli FI courses run in the UK since JAR implementation?

Anecdotally, a number of FI course instructors tell me that the numbers are way down, which is no surprise.

There was a peak before JAR FCL came in with many people getting in before the entry requirements became more difficult. Also, in practice you now need to get your CPL(H) before FI rating so people may be concentrating on that before (possibly) doing the FI course.:(

My guess is that the numbers will be permanently down, but JAR FCL has also reduced the number of people starting PPL(H)s, so there is less work for instructors too.:(

Helicopter Instructor Courses
 

Anyone recommend a good school to do the QHI bit(apart from CFS) in the south-easten area,and an idea of costs/hours that it would take to get an old QFI into fling-wing talking mode(enquiring on behalf of a friend!):p

check out www.helipan.com

:) 3top

Helicopter Instructor Courses
 

Call Mike Bowden, Operations Director at Sloane Helicopters, on 01604 790595 or Email:- [email protected].

They are the best...............

sycamore

I'm sure you realise some replies to posts of this type are genuine and some are not quite as independent and objective as the people who write them would like you to believe. ;)
Factors worth looking at:
* How many posts has the person made? If only a few, how many were plugging the same school?
* If someone posts not only the name/location of the school, but also the tel number, and the website/e-mail address, and the name of the CFI or similar, it's time to be just a little cautious.

Good Luck!
Heliport

Agreed but try Cambridge Helicopters. Very friendly and Professional, chap's a panel examiner and advertises in Pilot.

You should make your own mind up, but I would suggest that you talk to Mike Green at FAST at Thruxton as well as any other options. If possible, I would suggest that the instructor course is best done with another student. You can share experiences and practice on each other. It is, or should be, an intense course as well as very enjoyable.

Incidentally, the course normally gives you a resticted instructor ticket - you have to jump through various experience "hoops" before you get the equivalent of a QHI.

Any Recommendations for instructors course?
 

By early next year I should have the hours, and hopefully the money, to do an instructors course. Does anyone have any recommendations for good places/people to do this with (in the UK)? Or anyone you definitely WOULDN'T recommend. Email me privately if you prefer for the latter!

You can get a list from CAA website.

I think Tiger helis do one, i guess they're kinda not far from your doorstep.

Most of the instructors that I know did they're AFIC course with Geoff Day who freelances to several schools. I can give you his number if you want, just drop us an email and i'll send numbers to you.

You do know that you must a) pass the commercial exams to be an instructor, b) doubt your sanity to let people try and kill you, c) wise to do your commercial either instead or as well.

I think Whirlybird may be giving Tiger a miss as far as AFI courses go.

How about my neck of the woods ? Thruxton - one organisation in particular springs to mind . . .

And I think your points (a) and (c) are complied with.