CFI's: Don't think of the job as just a timebuilder

[DruDown]

I love how people with thousands of hours tell other pilots that they need to be the best CFIs they can be. I fully agree that pilot mills focused on jets at 100 hours are a bad thing, but let's not forget that being a CFI sucks, sucks, sucks.

I remember my wife crying in the grocery store because we didn't have enough money to eat, again. I remember working 6 days a week to make less than $1000 a month. I remember driving all the way out to the hangar, only to have the guy be a no-show. I remember eating one bowl of cereal for breakfast, and one can of Chunky's soup for lunch everyday, because it added up to less than $2.50. I remember not having any insurance.

I had some great experiences too, but like remembering an old girlfriend, lots of you fellow airline pilots quickly forget the bad.

Ask any doctor or lawyer about their first years out of school. I bet you get similar responses. If a doctor just looked as his/her residency as a "timebuilding" process to get to a private practice, I wouldn't want that doctor treating me. Why would I want a flight instructor who only cares about filling in the blanks teaching me how to fly and airplane that will have my family on board?

No one forgets about how tough it was (and is). We all know, we've lived it. I was just having a conversation today with some other former CFIs about how much fun we had going through it. Sure we were broke, our students no-showed, planes weren't perfect, but it's all about what you take from it and what you can pass on to your students. Don't forget, being a CFI is being a PROFESSIONAL pilot, too.

 

[urflyingme?!]

HMR ever fly into TOA, thats where I did my private.

I think this is a great thread. A good CFI is like gold! As a current student I can tell the good guys, the great CFI's and the time-builders apart. All you CFI's out there, keep on trucking, you're what makes us students great(eventualy). I remember back (just 2 yrs!) when I thouhgt my CFI was the king of the sky! Thanks to all you guys who put up with the stupid questions and lame excuses. iIthink you should keep all we pay you, if the school wants to keep some, then they can charge more for the plane.

 

[Goose Egg]

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that aspects of this job definitely suck. My point is that I love it anyway, and I can't think of anything I'd realistically rather be doing right now. And I don't anticipate anything different with future flying jobs that I may have.

-Goose

 

[Lead Sled]

A good CFI is like gold! As a current student I can tell the good guys, the great CFI's and the time-builders apart.

You hit the nail square on the head. The CFI you use is the single most important factor in determining the quality of the instruction you receive. In the end, it doesn't matter what type or how new your training aircraft is or what school or how fancy their facilities are - none of that will matter if you have a "golden" CFI and none of that will help you if you don't.

'Sled

 

[bender]

ATP doesn't have a policy of no flight into IMC. I flew around 6 hours in IMC in the program and shot a couple night IMC approaches during my XC phase. Perhaps your instructor didn't feel comfortable or maybe there was icing?

 

[hindsight2020]

my 02 cents

LOL Good replies. I don't think anyone expects an instructing job to be paradise but I think the money is the big hang up for most people. Not making enough money to pay the bills effects your attitude a lot. If they would pay the instructors even half of what they bill the students it would make the whole experience a whole lot more tolerable. Why we can't have a union like electricians and other skilled laborers is beyond me. Well actually that's not true I know the answer to that a cfi union would never get off the ground because too many instructors would see a union as limiting their potential by restricting their ability to build time. It is the very "time builders" that everybody loathes that drive down the quality of life for flight instructors because they are all to happy to accept long hours with low pay just to get the time and move on. If you stand up and refuse to work 14 hour days for 8 bucks an hour the next guy will so what can you do. I don't understand why it's considered noble to accept poor working conditions as a flight instructor but you're a wh*re if you go to work for a low pay airline like Mesa. They use all the same justifications that cfi's do, "I'm just doing this for now until I get the experience" etc. etc. I see people rage against pilots who PFT and work at bottom tier airlines but turn around and pat someone on the back for flying 150 hours a month at slave wages. It's the flight instructor double standard. Just my observation.

Pretty good observation, in my opinion. The problem I have with the "it's all about the flying" rationalization for the status quo that we face is that the valuation is placed on an artificial "top goal". That is to say, the major airline gig, and everything below that is a stepping stone. In the process, the QOL goes down the sh$tter. The market, fully aware that people are whorin' themselves for hours, keeps the salaries low and the only difference between bitter and banking is an individual's ability to artificially sustain a living, meaning not having a NEED to depend on the income your flying job provides.

Of course as we all know, the majority of people looking to get on the airline track do not fall into this category, they all depend on that below-poverty-line salary and most can't compete with the kid that pretty much uses the regional pay for pocket change while daddy ran and continues to run with the differential that is needed to sustain that quality of life most seek and few enjoy.

Then it gets better....Furloughed? Well, that kid didn't feel a dent, his access was compatible with a job whose compensation wasn't crucial for the survival of his lifestyle (read rich) while you, dreaming of that wide-body jet, just f%cked yourself. It wasn't Sept. 11, or the unions, YOU decided to pursue a vocation in a manner that created a scenario where the compensation for that vocation became moot. People go all day talking about flight instructing being a de facto part-time pursuit. LOL I say F$ck that, your airline gig is a de facto part time job.

We all understand how irrelevant and self-defeating a life can be when it doesn't involve pursuing one's talents and insight, and that is why we all share this same interest and struggle to make ends meet in the process. But let's not go off the left end because we don't like living in the far right end. So we hate the Office Space that America has become? I second that, but don't trade one evil for the other. My friend, watching the sunset with you sitting on the controls, free as can be, IS NO different than popping pills @ lunch at your desk hoping they'd fire ya and your 50K/year, when you land and have to go flip burgers to pay rent.

If the pilot community would attain a balance in the valuation of things, we would all be better off. Compensation would be more appropriate (instead of top heavy) and more flying careers would be thought of as worthwhile endeavors and not mere stepping stones. I personally believe there are options, even in this airline-centric age; niche markets to be tapped into, better compensating jobs for career CFI's with other formal education such as engineering or management just to make a few examples. Options that are not inherently selfish and do attain a balance between what's important to all of us as pilots (pursuing our passion) and those who surround us (our families, our support structure)....IMHO anyways.

Happy flying folks

 

[sigler]

Yeah, instructing really sucks. I hated it, and while I did have fun sometimes, for the most part I simply hated it. That said, I always tried to put myself in the student's place and realize that it is not the guy's fault that I didn't like my job, so I always tried my best to be the best CFI I could.


The problem I see is that I really didn't have a choice. There I was, fresh out of flight school, ready to fly as many hours as I could in any given day, but there was no way I'd be able to get a job outside of flight instructing. If I had any choice at all I would have not worked as a CFI, but nowdays people just don't have a chioce but to instruct.

It really sucks for the students who would be much better off flying with someone who actually likes to ibe a CFI, but that's just the way the industry is set up. Oh well.

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