American Flyers

[antney]

i currentllt work at the flyers inthe chicago area, full time pay is 1200$ a month, for the first year, after that it goes up to 1400$. their are perks though, their is a trainer pool for full time instructors i believe 10$ for every hour the simulator makes revenue. after 100 hours of revenue time your pay is then hurly on top of your salary, its 12$ hour for up to 150, then 16$ aboove that, this increases after a year of time. you can easly pull in 1500 clar of taxes each month, thats not even working hard. i really dont know how other flyers schools work, i do believe its the same. i am now part time and my pay is 15$, but from what i seen you can negiotate this, not to sure though, im happy with 15$ im not in it for the money, but does not mean ill take nothing.
antney

 

[bobbysamd]

AF Training

I just wanted to add that when I started at ERAU thirteen years ago an instructor who was training with me was an AF grad. He trained in Florida, I believe. I remember him saying that he started from zero time and flew 700 hours his first year flying. I remember him talking about applying at that point to Comair. Then, just over a year later with a bunch more time under his belt, he got hired.

Evidentally, the place works.

 

[antney]

overall the school is probaly one of the best to instruct at. a lot of our instructors work at chicago express, while some are at some nice cargo or corporate outfits. american flyers is one of the most repetuable flight schools out there, is it the best i cant answer that ive only been at american flyers and panm in phoenix, i do believe panam is just as good, but the nice thing about flyers is that its a tight nit group of instructors, youll make lifetime friends with the group your with, i do believe that is more important than a lot of the other things that we have been posting here. everyone is in the same boat, and you meet some dedicated people that you can share the misery with.
antney

 

[ILLINI]

Pay at AF

When I left the American Flyers at Chicago, DPA last August I had been there just over two years. During the two years that I was there, the way we were paid changed at least three times. Not really pay raises, but just different methods used. And I am pretty sure that each Flyers school pays its instructors a little differently.

When I left this is what a new full timer at DPA could expect:

$1200 base salary for 0-100 revenue hours
$12/hour for 101-150 revenue hours
$16/hour for 151+ revenue hours

After one year of full time employment you got a raise as follows:

$1400 base salary for 0-100 revenue hours
$15/hour for 101-150 revenue hours
$19/hour for 151+ revenue hours

***A revenue hour is that time billed to a student weather it was in the a/c, trainer, or ground.

The base salary is nice because you are guaranteed to make at least that no matter how many rev. hours under 100 you work. This comes in handy when the Wx goes to pot and nobody is flying. Like antney said, there are other incentives that go along with this as well. These bonuses can add an additional $50-150 to each paycheck. Additionally, if you taught one of the weekend groundschools, you were paid for 34 revenue hours for 24 hours of class time. Other bonuses were unlimited use of the Frasca 141 trainers, and a few hours a month in the a/c for proficiency... all at no cost to the instructor. Once a month we would have an instructor meeting and afterwards the school manager would take us out for dinner and drinks. We instructors ALWAYS took advantage of this. Tack on another $35 per instructor for those nights! My two years at Flyers were not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I do not regret working there at all. Again like antney said, I made some life friends there and had a blast working with them while I was there! Come to think of it, I actually miss it sometimes. How wierd is that!

Like I said, for an instructor, I think I made pretty good money at DPA Flyers. A heck of alot more than my first regional job.... while it lasted anyways.

 

[Slim]

I left American Flyers in 1997. I spent about 18 months there between FTW and ADS. I had two other sources of income in addition to my wife's. She was a computer programmer.

We knew I was underpaid. However, that was what the instructor market was throughout Texas. I knew instructors at other schools who were paid six dollars/hour for flight time and nothing for ground and sim time. Comair Aviation Academy instructors were paid something like nine dollars/hour for flight time and four-five an hour for ground and sim time. That was also in 1997.

I worked part time with my CFI (got my CFII at AF) at another school prior to AF. I earned $12/hour there but had to recruit most of my own students.

 

[bobbysamd]

Flight School Perks

I should also add that at Riddle instructors had unlimited use of the AST-300s. Great for preparing for the ATP and interviews. Also, three hours proficiency time per semester in all aircraft in which you were qualified. Instructors would fly together and give each other BFRs, comp checks and night currency.

FlightSafety was far less generous with the perks. Only limited use of the Frascas and NO proficiency time. I thought that not receiving proficiency time was really wrong because I considered it unconscionable to stay current on the students' nickels. Good health and 401-K, though.

 

[EMcx2]

In the current business climate, what are the odds of being hired at AF if you go through the instructor program?

How many schools of any type are hiring instructors if you earn a CFI/CFII with them?

Thanks

 

[FlyersCFI]

I think our new HPN school is looking for CFI's. Getting your CFI ratings with us helps get a job. My school's director has come several times to me and asked my opinion of students looking for employment. If I said they were an annoying douchebag....then he took my word for it. It's kinda like the airlines...how you fit in with the rest of us is important.

Hopefully, my job will be free soon....you can have it. Good luck.

 

[bobbysamd]

Insider v. outsider

Most schools hire their own trainees. It is vital that you get that straight with the school before you train there. Don't expect a commitment, but you can at least ask if the school hires its own graduates.

Much depends on need. ERAU hires from within, but is still running ads for instructors in national pilot magazines. One ad appeared in the recent AOPA Pilot. I don't understand why that ad hasn't been pulled, frankly, because of furloughs since 911 and the recession. Maybe Riddle is just building a hiring pool.

In my case, I was always hired from "outside" because I trained with instructors who owned their own airplanes. I was hired at Embry-Riddle with a mixed group of outside and inside instructors. The next group that was hired was the same kind of mix. When I left Riddle-Prescott ten years ago, it had resumed hiring only from within because of problems it had with some instructors it hired from the outside.

Hope that helps.

 

[XJAVRO]

"Rumor, at the time, said instructors in Illinois made more because AF had to comply with state laws regarding medical insurance and state-mandated minimum compensation for full-time employees. I emphasize that as rumor. I do not know if it is accurate."



This is not true. I was an instructor at the flyers at DPA in 1997, 1998 full time. We made 500 a month, and $6 an hour. The most I ever made was $1000 in a month, and that was working 7 days a week. Flyers was the worst job I ever had, but I was at DPA which is the corporate HQ. We always had that slime ball Dave Huser watching us. We never got any medical insurance. A group of us asked about getting it and they laughed for days.

 

[antney]

well huser is still there, but not really invovled woth the instructors anymore, he is, but to a point. the new man on the block is Gene Rose, hes one of a kind.......... if anyone ever goes to american flyers at dupage airport youll run into him, and youll see for yourselve, but they do now have medical insurance, i think they only give you 50 a month, they must think insurance is dirt cheap or something like that.
antney

 

[Rerouted]

Caveat Emptor

As far as AF is concerned, I guess it all depends on what you're doing. My experience at AF Pompano was frustrating to say the least. Rather than going into the details and risk re-exploring my dinner, just keep a few things in mind when you talk to them. One, the "directors" you will be speaking to when you call are Sales Directors...and they will tell you just about anything to get you to sign up. Number two, the postings above that touch upon price are right on the money - given what you pay, you'd expect much better maintained aircraft. The only silver lining were the instructors. The guys I flew with were very bright and great teachers. Now that I'm instructing (at another school), I'm learning to like AF quite a bit. They opened up a school near us, and as usual, are spending a lot of money on advertising - then irritating their customers enough that they are quitting and coming over to our school in numbers that are too large to ignore. In all seriousness, you'd probably be better off elsewhere. Their planes are not well maintained, and their management....well.....they lied to me and got caught. I got a refund and went elsewhere. Let the buyer beware.

 

[Slim]

Rerouted has a good point.

When working on my CFII (1993), I put down a lump sum (mistake #1) and flew against that. When I passed the check ride, I had over $700 left and wanted that refunded. Mike Simmons said, "...that's not supposed to happen!" I thought he was joking at the time (mistake #2).

It took nearly a year for me to get the money back. I was close to getting an attorney to get that back.

If one wants to use a lump sum, open a seperate checking account (or some other interest bearing account) and use that to pay as you go for flight training. AF likes those interest-free loans.

Soo far as maintenance is concerned, the FTW and ADS airplanes were usually in good shape. There were some bad ones, but they had problems usually traced back to the original owners. N54003 was one of those. I refused to fly that airplane IMC.

 

[ILLINI]

Maintenance

Well, I really can't comment on the money side of Flyers too much more than I already have. As an instructor, I stayed away from that side of things. But as far as the maintenance goes, I had complete trust in our mechanics at DPA flyers. Some of the best guys i've ever seen! If they said the plane was safe to fly, I wouldn't doubt them one bit. They flew them too! Yes, planes broke every now and then, as they do, but Timmy (and Dusty & Josh) always had them up and running in very short time. To tell you the truth, I prefered the older 172 "P" models over the new "R" models any day of the week! I've had more things go wrong in the newer models than in the old ones!

Happy New Year!