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Why not become an instructor?

Peter wrote:

in the UK

Even today the UK do things different than everybody else. I’m not sure the specific UK regulations means anything. ICAO is not regulations. Everybody can say they comply with ICAO, until someone complains or makes a point out of it.

Last Edited by LeSving at 25 May 07:36
The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving wrote:

Hasn’t that always been the case? at least the last 50 years or more? But things were different back then. The normal route was PPL, build hours, then CPL and so on. Lots of people had CPL.

I wrote “CPL TK”! Why did you cut before “TK” when you quoted me!?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

It can’t be that simple because for decades a PPL+FI in the UK could teach the PPL.

UK filed a difference to ICAO on that, like Germany did. However, when JAA/EASA FCL rules were crafted, not all memberstates (especially those with much more restricted GA) were happy to deviate too much from ICAO, since opening towards ICAO was a huge step.

Having said that, the introduction of the LAPL can assure the same as before: an easy entry on club-level. We have plenty pilots flying with the LAPL and if we had LAPL only instructors (for some reason all our club FI either have a CPL/ATPL, were grandfathered or have the early ATO-TK and thus are full PPL-FI) we had many students for whom the LAPL is pretty sufficient. (We have constantly around 25-30 students, but only one or two go for the LAPL. It would be more, if they weren’t required to fly 10 hrs solo before taking anyone.)

Peter wrote:

Has that always been the case? Can a CRI do the 2-yearly PPL reval every 2 years? I am not referring to reval by experience, which I could never understand how that works… I have been told many times only a proper FI can do a PPL revalidation.

Yes, that was always the case. But this reval IS the reval by experience. So you either need your 12 hrs with one hour training (with FI or CRI) and that FI or CRI can validate the PPL, OR you can fly a skill test / review with an FE or CRE. In that case you don’t need the 12 hrs.

Last Edited by mh at 25 May 07:53
mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Airborne_Again wrote:

I wrote “CPL TK”! Why did you cut before “TK” when you quoted me!?

No particular reason, finger trouble? But when you mention it, AFAIK the TK is an EASA thing exclusively (not ICAO). Could be wrong of course. Anyway, my point was that my impression is that a larger portion of private pilots had CPL before (pre EASA-JAR). Thus a lot more could easily become FI. When I got my PPL there were 3 flight schools at ENVA with on average 3-4 FIs each. Today we are lucky if we get a single FI to stay longer than 2 months at our club, the only PPL school left in 300? NM circumference.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Neil wrote:

I think the biggest reason more people don’t become instructors is because of the requirement to have CPL TK. In my view the pleasure from passing on some knowledge and the challenge and interest I would have in teaching people to fly is far outweighed by the fact I am not prepared to put in the time and work to do the CPL TK.

I know…..bone idle.

The FI training is a very long and time consuming training. All of the training is done at the ATO. You should plan 20 to 30 days at the airfield

The CPL TK training requires only 2 to 3 days in a classroom (20 hours), and I think only one day to take the exam. The part in the classroom is not unpleasant, you can take that opportunity to grow your network which will help to get a job. You will probably meet only people willing to instruct as future commercial pilots go directly for the ATPL TK .
Yes you have to do your homework (Which is officially 180 hours), it means reading about aviation half an hour a day during one year. The reading will mostly be about things you (should) know already as you are considering teaching them. I did the ATPL TK in 18 months, I enjoyed it as I learnt many things even if most of them where useless(Grid navigation) or archaic (LORAN).

So if you are ready to spend the time and effort required for the FI training, you should be ready for the CPL TK.

Last Edited by Piotr_Szut at 25 May 09:53

Not sure anyone has mentioned the reward. It’s a given helping people, networking etc, but at £14 an hour it’s not exactly inspiring…….

Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

I’ve said this a lot elsewhere, but the CPL TK is a total red herring and changing it will do nothing for FI availability. Most of the very people who tell me ‘they would be an instructor if it wasn’t for the CPL exams’ don’t have the life time or money to even keep current / turn up at the airfield once a month and struggle to keep up with even basic knowledge and developments. If it was removed, there would just be pages of forum complaining about why the FI course takes 6-8 weeks and costs £7000+ / there would be people with the rating that are totally unemployable due to their lack of availability.

The real issue is Instructor terms and conditions which don’t make it viable as a career – especially second careers or part-time. Instructing is massively time hungry and continuity of availability is vital, I know a number of CRIs who schools won’t consider because their instructing is so sporadic they aren’t up to it.

Now retired from forums best wishes

Balliol wrote:

The real issue is Instructor terms and conditions which don’t make it viable as a career – especially second careers or part-time. Instructing is massively time hungry and continuity of availability is vital, I know a number of CRIs who schools won’t consider because their instructing is so sporadic they aren’t up to it.

This is the real reason – if you can’t dedicate yourself to teaching, you can get FI privilege credited for flight hours only and still you won’t be able to teach. From time to time I’ve been considering that (both for flying and diving) and every time I concluded that I’m too selfish about my free time to become (part time) instructor.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

But luckily, a lot of CRI and IRI work can be done without touching a school. I do all my diary management directly with the student, only involving schools when it is time to turn the student over to them.

EGKB Biggin Hill

This touches on the topic of mentoring, much discussed previously. I have done a fair bit myself. One often needs to handle freelance work delicately because schools generally dislike freelancers – even if they have all the paperwork.

Regarding my earlier comment on the training industry objecting to the EASA “PPL-FI” proposal, I didn’t invent it. It came from various places, including FTN which is a UK training industry newsletter in which various FTO officials air their concerns.

The CPL TK training requires only 2 to 3 days in a classroom (20 hours), and I think only one day to take the exam

I must be mis-understanding this, because the CPL TK is 13 exams. The mandatory classroom time can be done in a week at say CATS, plus some online time. One previous thread is here. I’d say this is a pretty significant workload. I am not saying it is easier or harder than the FI course (which I have zero experience of) but I speak to an awful lot of pilots, right up to hugely experienced ones, and almost to a man they cite the theory exams as a big hurdle.

The more “professional” they are (in terms of working in the industry) the more lengths they go to to avoid doing these exams. Accordingly, EASA and the whole system make bloody sure there is no way to avoid them (currently, there is only a route involving something vaguely like 2000hrs LHS in a Part 25 aircraft, whereby an ICAO ATPL can be converted to an EASA ATPL with a simride without doing the 14 exams). It may be an unreasonable perception but these exams are universally hated, and the more the candidate knows about “flying” the more they hate having to do them… the young ATPL cadets at the FTOs correspondingly are ok with them

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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