Farmingdale's Republic Airport (FRG)

[Dominicinco]

Any flight instructors

Are there any flight instructors out there who teach at Republic Airport with their own airplane? Please PM me with your rates and availabitlity.

 

[minitour]

...They'll gladly pay $2/bottle for water that's no better than what you can get out of the tap, spend $50k on a truck that slurps $2/gal gasoline at the rate of one every ten miles, pay the lawn guys $50/hr+ to cut the grass, pay $80 for a half-hour massage, yet grumble at paying $40 an hour for a flight instructor. If you ask me, that's a STEAL.

It's amazing what junk people will pay out the butt for, but complain about paying for something else that's quality..
-mini

 

[Tags68]

CFI76.. is that you doug?

CFI76 - Is that you doug. there was an instructor who left Air East to i think fly for American Eagle (after the FAA grounded Air East's jets) Is that you?

 

[Tags68]

I train out of air east. So far its going well. Took the summer off for the most part and didn’t fly. Although i did study for and aced the written exam. Just started to get back into it again after a few months off. As far as the school goes, i do like it there, i like the people there and feel they have gone out of their way to accommodate me at times. Sometimes i worry about the cfi's there and if they are getting the money they deserve. For example, a friend flies out of Nassau flyers, and the instructor charges him for almost every minute they are together, which makes sense.. With my instructor, i don’t get changed anything except what’s on the hobbs. So 1.0 on the hobbs, is 1.0 instructor fee. However, there was a flight not long ago, that we went to do pattern work. got about 800 feet, and we were in the clouds, and some how the airport was still VFR. Both the instructor and I agreed that we didn’t feel safe being in and out of the clouds, so went landed next time around. The instructor didn’t charge me. Said he didn’t teach me anything. Well i think he did as now i know what its like to be in the clouds and how i didn’t like it! I don’t know if this is air east policy or my instructor, but there are times where he spent time explaining concepts and i wasn’t charged.

Other then that air east has ok planes, seems the ugly planes have most of the components working while the nicer looking ones are a bitty ratty. "This plane has always been like that" is a term i don’t like, but am getting used to. I will say that one plane i like to fly in had a dg going out on it and it was fixed with in a week or so, so that was nice to see.

As far as the airport - dont train on sunday, or on the weekend in the afternoon. Train weekdays or very early or late at night on weekends. Busy airport, but ya see some pretty neat planes and ya get experience in a busy airport. Definitely learn to be quick on the mic.

Caelim tranquilities, or however you spell it. Didnt they go out of business , or was that BK aviation, or did they merge.. something happened don’t remember what.. whole lot of construction going on where they were located.

 

[I.P. Freley]

For example, a friend flies out of Nassau flyers, and the instructor charges him for almost every minute they are together, which makes sense..

...and as you say, it DEFINITELY makes sense.

Dare I ask if they charge for ground lessons? You know, wx is cruddy so you do two hours in the classroom, instead?

Schools that don't charge for the instructors pre/post briefings do their staff a gross disservice. You shouldn't charge students for nothing, but the instructor's time is valuable and you should be charged (and the CFI should be paid) accordingly. And doing a lap of the pattern and then suspending the lesson doesn't count as "nothing"... Your CFI not charging you because you "didn't learn anything" may seem noble, but as you pointed out you definitely learned something. Learning costs money.

 

[cfi76]

Hey Tags,

yeah, PM me if see this.

 

[Tags68]

While im not really early in my training I haven’t yet done my x-country training. So sitting down for a extended period of time hasn’t happened yet. So far its only to chat about procedures on either the pattern, emergency procedures, stalls.. etc.. This doesn’t take much time. So my instructor has only needed to say, hey, read up on ‘x’, x being what ever I needed to work on for the next lesson. A few things like vor’s and ils approaches I kind already knew how to do, so not much teaching had to be done on that. For the most part, ground school at air east taught me how to do those, as well as just playing around coming into land. I’m sure come x-country planning time, I will pay for ground instruction. I have no problem with that at all.

There’s an old saying, which I think someone on this board had as a signature. ‘Student pilots teach themselves how to fly, instructors keep them alive long enough to do it’. Or something like that.. im sure you know what I mean..

It still amazes me, when my company sends me out to do consulting (im a computer tech), how much they charge the company compared to how much cfi’s make. My company has charged over $200 bucks an hour to make sure someone’s email gets out as soon as possible in case of primary email server failure (just one example), and a cfi only makes 30-40 bucks an hours to keep someone alive?? Hehe.

That example is an extreme. When I set my prices - Im very greedy, I demand beer and pizza. If it’s a big job, I demand lots of beer and pizza! Hehe. Hell there are still a few police departments on long island who still owe me pizza! Hehe.

Im one of those people who have a hard time asking money for help people with computer work. It’s a computer, if it blows up and catches fire, its just a computer big deal. Nobody gets hurt… if in flight something goes wrong people die…and that’s why cfi’s should be paid better, because they save lives.. if im not mistaken, wasn’t duel instruction the safest way to fly.. I think that was in the latest study by the aopa.. or something like that.

Well anyway, I got way too chatty (getting tired, and I just type away when im chatty!).. anyway.. point being cfi’s should probably be paid more as they keep people from killing themselves!

And flying in FRG is pretty cool.. Good Year blimp landed there today. Kinda cool to see.. I have my digital camera in my flight bag, I should take more pics when I fly!.