Balliol wrote:
I know a number of CRIs who schools won’t consider because their instructing is so sporadic they aren’t up to it.
And that is a huge problem.
Peter wrote:
One often needs to handle freelance work delicately because schools generally dislike freelancers – even if they have all the paperwork.
And then have your own plane. Dear God…….One said to me Rich Kids with their toys putting us poor hard working FI’S out of business. Eh, not quite….What he failed to appreciate was that I would not fly with him, ever, and in particular the scrap heap that they called an aeroplane, was the club plane. At £240.00 an hour hire.
It is a difficult gig. I felt the CRI was the correct and appropriate route for me. I look on it that it gets me some free flying. Contributes to fuel, and I enjoy it. Simples..
Emir wrote:
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.
Thank you for this post. That’s exactly what I meant. I love to interact with people and mentor fellow pilots and it satisfies me to see them grow into better pilots than me…but I cannot justify spending an entire afternoon at the airport for a total of 30 Euros worth of flight hour pay.
30 euros seem low. In Sweden the standard charge is 50-70 euros per block hour. Of course you get less “in your pocket” when taxes are removed but I try to use that money in my company to invest in other aviation related stuff. Gives you more bang for the buck.
Is there not a shortage of instructors in Austria?
Fly310 wrote:
30 euros seem low. In Sweden the standard charge is 50-70 euros per block hour.
I would agree with you in a ATO environment but nobody in a club environment is getting 50-70 €/h gross, at least down here in Skåne.
Indeed; in the UK my PPL instructors were on £10/day plus about £20 per flying hour. The only plus was that if they could send off say 5 people on solo flights they would be getting £100/hr while sitting on the ground 
but obviously this was extremely rare. I vaguely recall stories from France about working anywhere from €0/day to €30/day, plus maybe travelling expenses. But there are many volunteers on that scene, which is more or less the same thing.
In France you can expect to “earn” (ha!) anything between €14 and €18 per hour of flight time (takeoff to landing). And all instructors will know how much ground time goes into a 30-minute flight.
On top of that, most instructors can expect to pay the annual club subscription (anything between €100 and €200), plus other sundry expenses (cost of medical, cost of hiring club aircraft for revalidation of instructor qualification etc.)
No, you definitely don’t want to be in it for the money!
In a club (a group of people following a common ideal without commercial interest) I think it is ok to instruct for free, meaning you supply your time for free but any cost incurred to the instructor is compensated (e.g. instructed hours could discount membership fees, liability and life insurance is paid by the club etc…).
It is, however, not unheard of that commercially oriented ATOs pay ZERO for the first 100 hours of (restricted) instruction. The argument is that the flights have to be signed of by an unrestricted instructor and they cannot afford to pay two instructors. I don’t know if this is accurate or just an excuse though.
Anyway, no FI for me because I don’t understand the benefit of flying/paying for 30+ hours in the cheapest SEP available to tick the FI requirements. Not to sound arrogant, but what’s the point of another 30 hours of C150 time when I want to instruct in a Cirrus or other HPA? It should be competency based. It should be much cheaper. Hence I went and signed up for the IRI…
You could do an FI course in any aircraft you want. Well except the spin part, you should do that in a spin capable aircraft.
In the UK at least, a CRI can do a revalidation by experience (that is, a revalidation where the candidate has done 12 or more hours in past 12 years) with the flight, provided he has authority from the CAA to do that.
I have not yet been able to find out how you get this additional authority.
There is another “revalidation by experience” where your logbook is merely examined and signed (no flight) but I don’t know how this works.
I’ve never heard of that “authority” requirement. Part of the course was explaining when you could sign the licence (eg you need to have done the 1h yourself etc).
I’ve signed a few and the CAA never came back to any of my students saying something was wrong.
Where did you hear that?
