Instructor rating questions

[mathias_now]

Hi there,

I'm looking at starting my instructor rating in the next month or so and had a few questions. Firstly, how much is an instructor rating going for these days ? Also, I've heard of a couple different ways to go about it. One way was to complete all the ground stuff, then go onto the flying portion - any recommendations/suggestions ?

Thanks in advance,

MN

[KK7]

You can do some very limited ground stuff before you start the flying portion. The idea of the ground portion of the instructor rating is that you couple the ground briefing lessons with the same lessons in the air. Doing the briefing long before the air portion of a lesson is pointless. The bit you can do before the flying portion is covering things like learning factors and that whole accompanying section of the course.

[Dagwood]

In fact, I did most of my ground portion before the flying. A bunch of us did it as a class to save costs. It also helped to brief in front of a crowd, and critique the others and learn from it. When you start the flying, be sure your Class 1's availability suits you. Most of them like to complete the training from start to finish, so you might be delayed if they have a vacation scheduled.

One more thing, Git 'er done before all the schools have hired their instructors for this summer.

[mathias_now]

Thanks for the replies. The issue I'm going to run into by flying and doing the ground portion at the same time is that I could be changing location in a few months time for financial reasons. With that said I'm not sure what the best approach to take as I have money left on account at my present school.

MN

[Big Pistons Forever]

There is no other rating where how much you spend is so closely tied to how hard you work. All of my Instructor rating students have told me they truly did not realize how much work they were in for until the actually started. I would also say that IMO no other rating is so dependent on the quality of the person teaching the course. All Class 1's are not created equal and it is extremely important that you do your research into the school and the Class 1 before starting the course.

[KK7]

Some good points of view put out here so far.

BPF's comments reminded me of something. The Instructor Rating was perhaps the most difficult and most time consuming flight training I have ever done, from PPL to PPC on a heavy turbo prop. If you want to get the most out of the training, find a very experienced Class 1 who has been at this for over a decade or more, who has a good reputation, and follow his or her training plan on how to get it done properly. Work hard and spend the time to get the lesson plans done well. If you put in a lot of your own time getting the lesson plans done well, you'll be able to get the rating done in the minimum required time. But if you don't put in a lot of work outside of the briefing room, expect to spend more time and money on the training.

[Bede]

+1 to BPF post. The FI rating will be the most demanding of the ratings.

To the OP: if you have money on account at your school, you are entitled to it back if you want.

When I do class 4 ratings, I do about 8 hours or so of ground time, than I start with the class 4 candidate starting teaching me ground lessons and flying thereafter.

Here's the syllabus I use:

Class 4 Flight Instructor Course Outline

Ground School

1) Introduction to being a Flight Instructor (0.5 hr.)
2) Applicable Canadian Aviation Regulations (2 hr.)
3) Learning Part 1 (1 hr.)
4) Learning Part 2 (1 hr.)
5) Learning Part 3 (1 hr.)
6) Ground Instruction (1 hr.)
7) In flight Instruction (1 hr.)
Teaching Exercises 5-9 (3+ hr.) *
9) Teaching Exercises 9s-15 (3+ hr.) *
10) Teaching Exercises 16-18 (3+hr.) *
11) Teaching Exercises 19-22 (3+ hr.) *
12) Teaching Exercise 23 (3+ hr.) *
13) Teaching Exercise 24 (3+ hr.) *

Minimum Ground Time: 25 hr. (usually much more)

Flight Training (may begin after ground lesson

1) Right seat check out (1 hr.)
2) Review of CPL flying (3 hr.)
4) Review of instrument flying (1.5 hr.)
5) Demo and teaching of 5-9 (4 hr.) *
6) Demo and teaching of 9s-15 (4 hr.) *
7) Demo and teaching of 16-18 (4 hr.) *
Demo and teaching of 19-23 (4.5 hr.) *
9) Demo and teaching of instrument flying (4 hr.) *
10) Review for flight test (4 hr.) *

* these lessons take place over several sessions

[bona]

How much money do Flight Instructors make?

The pay scale for Flight Instructors varies from school to school. Typically, you can expect to earn something like $20/hr for instructional time. Many schools also pay their instructors a base salary, as well. The Air Transport Association of Canada website has excellent materials on aviation jobs in Canada including information for flight instructors.

thanks.......

[Living 5500ASL]

I have to wonder for those who answered anything less than $7,000 if their rating was done recently or at least a decade ago. I've personally have heard $10,000 used as a good average cost on a number of occasions but then again I'm not actively shopping around to get an instructor rating anytime soon.

[Grey_Wolf]

I have to wonder for those who answered anything less than $7,000 if their rating was done recently or at least a decade ago. I've personally have heard $10,000 used as a good average cost on a number of occasions but then again I'm not actively shopping around to get an instructor rating anytime soon.

I spent $6800 and this was in 2006.

[Spokes]

I have to wonder for those who answered anything less than $7,000 if their rating was done recently or at least a decade ago. I've personally have heard $10,000 used as a good average cost on a number of occasions but then again I'm not actively shopping around to get an instructor rating anytime soon.

I spent $6800 and this was in 2006.

$5k 2005

[justwanttofly]

Like I mentioned in another thread, it seems to be costing students at the school I'm at $14 000 or more. I had to stop my rating due to a lack of funds since I only budgeted for around $10 000.

Any suggestions ?

[Shiny Side Up]

Did you get a quote or an estimate before you started your training? Instructor ratings are pretty standardized since the flight time to get to Class 4 standard isn't usually the issue. What's your dual rate you're being charged? How do you get charged for ground school/briefing time?

Keep in mind that both of these threads you've resurrected quotes on price are all at least 5 years old. In that time the price of avgas has increased about by 150%.

[justwanttofly]

I did get a quote before starting and I was told to budget for 10K. That was before I realized the class one wants multiple lesson plans for each exercise including six for instruments. The class one also drags each PGI out so it is almost impossible to complete each one in less than 2hrs to his standard. One of the students above 10K is a Webster Trophy finalist a few years back.

Rental rates at the school are $135 for the plane and $55 for the instructor. At those rates does over 14K still sound steep?

[Shiny Side Up]

That was before I realized the class one wants multiple lesson plans for each exercise including six for instruments.

This is standard. Not all of the excersises have multiple PGIs associated with them but some do. 16 and 18 are the prime examples, though 24 also has multiple PGIs that the instructor candidate has to develop.

The class one also drags each PGI out so it is almost impossible to complete each one in less than 2hrs to his standard. One of the students above 10K is a Webster Trophy finalist a few years back.

Don't mistake impossible, for stuff people just aren't doing. I know that the first few PGIs I have a new class 4 teach are always a long drawn out process, spending 2 hours for them to take their first few stabs at something is typical. Generally they get better though which is what we push for. As a class 1 I'll try to do my best to prepare you for everything a student might throw at you, and I'll pick apart your PGIs mercilessly. That's my job. Winning the webster trophy is irrelevant to this task, since being a good pilot doesn't mean you'll be good at instructing. Not to say that it isn't necessary for this endeavor. There is going to be a ton more work for this task than most anticipate and its going to require far more work on your own time than anything else you do in aviation. You still never answered the question on how you get charged for your class 1's ground time.

Rental rates at the school are $135 for the plane and $55 for the instructor. At those rates does over 14K still sound steep?

Rates for the planes sound typical. Are people completeing the course in the 30 hours? If not I'd have to ask why. The flying part of the instructor rating is the easy part if the class 4 candidate already is at CPL standard skill level or better. If a student candidate is not at this flying standard then any review to get them up to this shouldn't be counted as part of their instructor rating but rather time and money spent so that they meet the prerequisites to start.

Out of curiousity, how far are you through your rating? What lessons are you working on and how many hours have you done?

[Colonel Sanders]

The class one also drags each PGI out so it is almost impossible to complete each one in less than 2hrs to his standard

He has no clue what he is doing. Get a new class 1 instructor.

Lesson: not all class 1 instructors are good at teaching new instructors - they are qualified to do so, but that doesn't mean they're any good at it, or that they have any (successful) experience at doing it.

There are plenty of class 4 and 3 instructors whom are qualified to teach ab initio but don't do a very efficient job at it, either.

Earlier this year, I had a CPL come to me. He had just dropped $$$ at a very big name school - I won't mention it - and he had failed his initial class 4 flight test (with a TC Inspector) badly. Didn't even make it out to the airplane. High-priced school did not want to touch him - he was damaged goods. Incredibly, his class 1 instructor blamed the CPL, despite the fact that he did exactly what he was taught.

Came to me. I looked at his PGI binder and saw the problem. Just like your class 1 with a 2 hr PGI (death by briefing), his class 1 had him put everything but the kitchen sink into his PGI, in a feeble attempt to not be criticized by TC for leaving anything out. Sigh.

Unfortunately the bad class 1's out there don't realize that if you dump 178 factoids in 2 hrs on some poor farmer that wants to just learn how to fly a frikken airplane, he's not going to retain at least 175 of them. You are wasting his time and money and pissing him off.

So I flat-rated the re-do of his instructor rating for $1000, flight time extra. He had lots of hours, his flying wasn't the problem. His PGI was. So, we went through his PGI, lesson by lesson, stripping it down to the essentials. I told him that I was going to charge him $10 for every word he spoke, so he better make them good ones. And, his PGI ought to fit on one page (he could use both sides) because that's all that 99.999% of the human race can retain during a PGI.

We re-did his PGI, flew I think 3 times to review all the lessons - charged him the solo rate - and he aced the retry of his class 4 flight instructor rating flight test.

Did another class 4 instructor this year, quite pleasantly from scratch. He didn't have to unlearn a bunch of crap. He aced his initial class 4 flight instructor rating flight test.

Learn to boil it down to the essentials. Keep it simple. Keep it safe.

Every cranky old instructor has "their thing" that they harp on. One of my "things" is forced approaches. People are horrible at them, and I have a theory why. Their instructor wasn't very good at them. The law of inequality says that the student will never be more proficient than his instructor - he might approach 50%. Maybe. The higher the level of the instructor's skill, the higher the level of the student's skill, on average.

There are some skills that flight instructors need to be very good at - crosswind landings, forced approaches, etc.

Anyways, every time I come back to our home airport with an instructor in training, the power is going to come back at some point. As the CPL gets better, the throttle starts coming back lower, and in stranger positions.

If you're going to be an instructor, you'd better be an ace at forced approaches and crosswinds, so that your students will, too.

[justwanttofly]

Shiny and Colonel Sanders check your PMs.

[Colonel Sanders]

Did that.

Emphasis: PGI is not ground school. As soon as PGI starts to smell
like ground school, you know you're doing it wrong.

[Shiny Side Up]

Came to me. I looked at his PGI binder and saw the problem. Just like your class 1 with a 2 hr PGI (death by briefing), his class 1 had him put everything but the kitchen sink into his PGI, in a feeble attempt to not be criticized by TC for leaving anything out. Sigh.

This is why I say that usually the first bunch of PGIs I go through with a new class 4 student it usually takes 2 hours per PGI they present because they're the ones who try to get in every little factoid and I got to be the ruthless editor who has to tell them to do some snipping. Most of the PGIs should run no more than 15 minutes if they're done well with a few notable exceptions. By the time a class 4 sets up, does his PGI, drops his airplane model seven times, digs through his bag and then asks to borrow a POH, we sit down and go through a run down of what they presented, do some editing, retry a few points, play with possible student questions and answers, 2 hours has gone by. That being said, class 4 candidates run the gamut on what issues they each need work on. Everyone has strong and weak points and the class 1's job is to help tailor your briefing book to capitalize on them.

Unfortunately the bad class 1's out there don't realize that if you dump 178 factoids in 2 hrs on some poor farmer that wants to just learn how to fly a frikken airplane, he's not going to retain at least 175 of them. You are wasting his time and money and pissing him off.

Worse yet in terms of the "stage business" you're boring them. Hence the limited ammount of time you got in the PGI. It might be great that you got a ton of factoids, but pick and choose the ones that are appropriate, you won't have time for them all and some are just going to be wasted on your audience. And like CS said above Keep It Simple Stupid.

[MIQ]

Well at least the poll is giving a pretty good indication of how much it is going to be...

[stef]

I would treat an instructor rating like a long job interview. Choose where you want to work, and do it there.

[AOW]

instructor.rating.cost = (25*class.1.groundbrief.rate+30*(aircraft.rental.rate+class.1.instruction.rate))*(1+applicable.taxes)

[Colonel Sanders]

Using the above formula (right out of the CARs) ...

With a $10k all-up cost, and an HST of 13%, and assuming
that the aircraft costs $120/hr (wet, before taxes) and assuming
that your class 1 charges the same per hour for gnd brief and
flight training ...

That's over $95/hr that your class 1 is taking home. Who
says instruction doesn't pay?

[AOW]

just went through my records... I spent $4,819.59 to get my class IV in 2006... but I was a special case.... it would have cost $8,126.18 to do a full class IV at the school I ended up working for!

[just curious]

Mine cost just over 900 bucks with the groundschool. Of course, it might be helpful to mention that many aircraft of the time were still made out of cloth and wood.