ERAU-PRC
I can tell you how it was eleven-twelve years ago. I doubt that a whole lot has changed. I know that many of the same people are still there.
The long and short of it was ERAU was the best aviation job I had. I started at a higher pay rate because I had built up some flight time and instructing time before I started there. The rule was that you had to have thirty hours of "contact" time minimum with students per week. Contact time meant flight, oral (ground) and sim time. I wasn't getting my thirty hours of contact at first. When I started, my students needed 172s. There was a shortage of 172s. I couldn't get them, so, until I learned a few tricks about scheduling and became more creative about it, I wasn't flying and my students weren't flying. For a time, money was tight, but I was never a real big spender anyway and I never needed a second job.
There was an incentive program in which you were given a bonus if you put in more than 1000 hours of contact time per year. I always got a bonus. There were plenty of people who didn't. One of the ladies who worked downstairs in adminstration told me that she couldn't understand why more people didn't make bonus.
Something else I picked up on about Riddle was that you had to push your students because the stage checks were extremely tough. Riddle stage checks have a reputation. You absolutely, positively, could not send them for stage checks unless they flew at least to standards and preferably to higher standards. Many of the stage check pilots were extremely unreasonable. In looking back, I believe that was because there was an inexperience, immaturity and inbreeding problem. Most of the stage check pilots were ERAU grads who had not been instructing all that long and were not that much older than their examinees. They hadn't seen much of aviation outside of Riddle. They liked to show off how much they knew, which wasn't that much.
I came to Riddle with my MEI and it took me about eight months to get into the Seminoles. I kept asking. I'm sure they heard it all before. During those years, the commuters and freight were picking up our instructors from the moment they were ripe. It's probably much, much slower now. You might have quite a wait before you upgrade to the multis.
One other point is that ERAU is extremely political. Also frustrating, because you could never get a straight answer, or any answer, to your questions. You were always sent to someone else. That was known as the Riddle Runaround.
Finally, ERAU was an extremely stimulating learning environment, for instructors and students.
Before you apply to Riddle, you might try to determine if the place is hiring from outside. The place seems to go back and forth about hiring from the outside v. hiring only ERAU grads.
Hope that helps. Good luck with getting the job.
