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flight instructor pay?

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MJCEK

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Posts
18
what is the average pay for a flight instructor at a small/medium FBO?

Are benefits usually included???
 
I was just offered a position for $20/hr (80 hr guarantee) and benefits. Medical, dental, etc.

Seems like a good place to me...so they can be found.

-mini
 
our pay ranges from 14-24 an hour and you bill all your own time. We pay half our medical.

Benefits: free soda, bagels on tuesdays, softball, fly-in to OSH in formation, camping there and free booze, bowling and once in a while a concert or something with food and booze. working with cool dudes and dudettes...to use the parlance of our times.
 
I used to make $18/hr, no bennies. Now they are paying $30/hr. I'd be making a lot more than what I'mmaking now....
 
MJCEK said:
are most flight instructor jobs full-time 40hrs a week???

It depends where you wor and how much are you willing to/ need to work. I used to fly about 80-120 a month, plus ground. This was going to work 7 days a week, spending all day at the school almost every day. I also had to find my own students. That's when working for an universuty is better,they give you studdents. But I was able to choose who to fly with, and I got most of my students by word of mouth.
 
Where I instructed until 5 years ago in the SF Bay area it was accepted practice at the better flight schools to (rightly so) charge block for the entire lesson- preflight and postflight briefings, supervising the preflight of the aircraft (unless one was eating your lunch then or it overlapped with a postflight of another student), and of course the actual flight- so a 3 hr lesson was 3 hrs pay. Pay was $35-45 an hour, as we were all freelance. On the peninsula, $50-70 an hour was not uncommon. Unlike the airlines, where you only get paid for half the time you work on average, a good freelance instructor can thus get paid for all his time at work if he keeps busy, and thus a $35/hr instructor can effectively be paid like a $70/hr regional Captain.

Benefits? Normally none... but one huge benefit vs the airlines- unlimited dropping of trips, unlimited pickups, and if weather is borderline you can easily work or cancel a lesson depending on whether you feel like extra money or going to the movies that day. However, it is hard to make money without working both weekend days so like the airlines, the working on weekends part is a drag. But at least you don;t feel any need to work holidays.

QOL (sp. being home every night) overall, when I instructed was far superior to any of my airline experiences. However, the actual work of airline flying is much much easier than cheating death from the occasional hamfisted maniac who is trying to kill you... at least if one discounts all the commuting, crashpadding, and killing time unpaid in hotels and departure lounges.
 
Last edited:
skyaddict said:
Where I instructed until 5 years ago in the SF Bay area it was accepted practice at the better flight schools to (rightly so) charge block for the entire lesson- preflight and postflight briefings, supervising the preflight of the aircraft (unless one was eating your lunch then or it overlapped with a postflight of another student), and of course the actual flight- so a 3 hr lesson was 3 hrs pay. Pay was $35-45 an hour, as we were all freelance. On the peninsula, $50-70 an hour was not uncommon. Unlike the airlines, where you only get paid for half the time you work on average, a good freelance instructor can thus get paid for all his time at work if he keeps busy, and thus a $35/hr instructor can effectively be paid like a $70/hr regional Captain.

Benefits? Normally none... but one huge benefit vs the airlines- unlimited dropping of trips, unlimited pickups, and if weather is borderline you can easily work or cancel a lesson depending on whether you feel like extra money or going to the movies that day. However, it is hard to make money without working both weekend days so like the airlines, the working on weekends part is a drag. But at least you don;t feel any need to work holidays.

QOL (sp. being home every night) overall, when I instructed was far superior to any of my airline experiences. However, the actual work of airline flying is much much easier than cheating death from the occasional hamfisted maniac who is trying to kill you... at least if one discounts all the commuting, crashpadding, and killing time unpaid in hotels and departure lounges.


nice post! It can be done, and be done easily if you are around decent people that value your time and experience.
 

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