mtsu_av8er
Well-Known Member
That's comical.
Multi Time vs. CFI Time
- Thread starter jkca22
- Start date
That's comical.
popaviator
Well-Known Member
I agree with the above posts. Get your MEI and find a school
that has the aircraft to teach in. If you start instructing at
a school it might be a while before you get the chance
to fly it because every other cfi is gunning for the same thing. Just make sure that you're instructing because you want to or it will
be a bumpy ride.
that has the aircraft to teach in. If you start instructing at
a school it might be a while before you get the chance
to fly it because every other cfi is gunning for the same thing. Just make sure that you're instructing because you want to or it will
be a bumpy ride.
Blip16
Well-Known Member
I disagree with B being most likely to get a job. Nearly 1/2 of my dual given(over 2000) is in a multi and I have been in very similar situations in both sel and mel. I think cfi time is valuable, tou learn a lot and you really learn to be pic because student do the stupidest things and put you in situation you would probably never get yourself into by yourself. So you learn how to make good decisions and how to avoid bad situations.
I am not saying mutli time in the book is bad because it is good, but I thinking instructing is more valuable overall
Pilot Hopeful
Well-Known Member
Some additional ideas if you opt to buy the multi-engine aircraft:
6) Use the aircraft in furtherance of your engineering business.
7) When training, consider unusual, challenging locations to hone your skills.
8) Develop a market for unique student training that may not be provided with a typical quick, add-on multi-engine program.
9) Volunteer with an organization like Angel Flight. Find another pilot who may be interested in joining you to offer assistance . . . and maybe split costs.
10) Do NOT fly only 1-hour out-and-backs (e.g., for $100 hamburgers). The time will not build quality skills that future employers desire. (This is not a prohibition on such flying but rather a recommendation not to pursue this type of flying exclusively.)
6) Use the aircraft in furtherance of your engineering business.
7) When training, consider unusual, challenging locations to hone your skills.
8) Develop a market for unique student training that may not be provided with a typical quick, add-on multi-engine program.
9) Volunteer with an organization like Angel Flight. Find another pilot who may be interested in joining you to offer assistance . . . and maybe split costs.
10) Do NOT fly only 1-hour out-and-backs (e.g., for $100 hamburgers). The time will not build quality skills that future employers desire. (This is not a prohibition on such flying but rather a recommendation not to pursue this type of flying exclusively.)
Absolutely I would enjoy instructing, single or multi. One of the reasons that I am hesitant to buy a share in the plane is that the costs associated with it would require me to keep working my day job that I really dont enjoy doing at all (which is part of why I am doing flight training in the first place).
Patrick
Well-Known Member
As someone who owns an airplane (a Twin Comanche, as it happens) I can tell you there are high and low points to this idea. Currently there is very little demand for multi instruction outside of foreign pilot mills and programs like ATP.
Call your insurance agent, and tell him you want to give dual in your Twinco and make sure you have someone there to hold your jaw off the floor while he gives you the quote. Now, run the numbers on how many students you'd have to give dual to to even make up the added cost of insurance, and it won't look so pretty. No one likes working for free.
If you have the finances to afford owning an airplane, do it for that reason. You'll enjoy going on personal trips, get experience in the process, build your total time (though nowhere near as fast as you would working as a full time CFI obviously).
If you really are looking at a Twinco, shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to help you out with the process. Personally, unless the asking price was attractive and the rest of the plane was great, I'd look for one with lower time engines. You also didn't mention what the times were on things like props, governors, vacuum pumps, mags, exhausts, etc, as all that comes into play as well.
Call your insurance agent, and tell him you want to give dual in your Twinco and make sure you have someone there to hold your jaw off the floor while he gives you the quote. Now, run the numbers on how many students you'd have to give dual to to even make up the added cost of insurance, and it won't look so pretty. No one likes working for free.
If you have the finances to afford owning an airplane, do it for that reason. You'll enjoy going on personal trips, get experience in the process, build your total time (though nowhere near as fast as you would working as a full time CFI obviously).
If you really are looking at a Twinco, shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to help you out with the process. Personally, unless the asking price was attractive and the rest of the plane was great, I'd look for one with lower time engines. You also didn't mention what the times were on things like props, governors, vacuum pumps, mags, exhausts, etc, as all that comes into play as well.
Baronguy18
Well-Known Member
Just remember, If you do buy a plane....you can do all the estimated costs of ownership (insurance, maintenace, etc) and once you come up with a number.. DOUBLE IT! I can afford to fly mine about 250hrs a year but I must say iv had some serious fun going places in my plane!
Mark815
Well-Known Member
Sorry you find that it's comical. When I was teaching, I taught out of a GREAT airport. Untowered, local FBO with good airplanes, good staff and an even better boss that was always there for us. At the same time the most complex flying I did was in an arrow with a few complex transition or checkout students. Most of my time as a CFI was spent in the practice area and local class D airports. I had a few students that I had the opportunity to take to the Boston bravo, and more often the windsor locks charlie, which was ALWAYS a great learning experience for both myself and the student, and was also a lot of fun, but in my job now I'm constantly dealing with complex airspace while VFR. Flying in and out of the DC ADIZ and holding up BWI traffic is def better experience to have than doing a few touch and go's with a student. Now again, don't take that as me saying 'well being a CFI is not interesting or difficult' because it is, but there are some things you do as a CFI that don't gain you a ton of experience, other than how to handle different students in different situations.
Now don't get me wrong. Like I said above, CFI time is not invaluable by any means. It absolutley teaches you to be PIC and how to handle unusual situations, i've been in many 'WTF?' situations during my year and a half as a CFI. If I was an MEI than yeah obviously dual given in a multi is def going to be very valuable and respectable time. What I'm saying is if you're looking to go 121\135, after a certain point, single engine dual given time isn't going to be of much value, there's no way someone can disagree with that. I know first hand of a couple CFI's that I've worked with who have thousands of hours dual given in a single (we're not talking MEI), but less than 50multi and have gotten turned down for jobs because of the lack of multi. The fact that I was a current CFI def helped me get the job I have now I believe, but it's a job flying skyhawks. I have friends who were never instructors, yet have landed a 135 job because they had a lot of multi time. Hell one of my best friends is a CAL pilot, and he made his way there never even holding a CFI certificate, but he had a lot of multi time when he got his first flying gig.
Blip16
Well-Known Member
multi time helps, but it does not guarantee a job. I have been trying to find 135 jobs for over a year now, but I am also picky about what companies I want to work for and where I want to live. But I do think after a certain point the amount of multi does not matter, then again neither does more and more dual given( although the instruction I do is not primary students, it is advanced: multi and cfi )
my point is don't skip cfi just to get multi, go for a mixture of both
my point is don't skip cfi just to get multi, go for a mixture of both
Patrick
Well-Known Member
In the same boat as you. I'm perfectly willing to move for the right gig, but I'm not going to just move to the middle of nowhere to take a freight run that may be gone in 2 months. There are also certainly companies I simply won't work for.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Don't listen to the haters.
Go flight instruct, you'll learn more in your first 100 hours of dual given, while being paid, than you would in a few hundred hours of flying a twin around.
And let's cut this down to size; people get wrapped around the axle about multi time. I can appreciate that, and I have more multi engine time than single engine time. But really? If things are functioning normally, then a twin is almost no different than a single, and drilling holes in the sky just to drill holes in the sky is going to be the same in a twin or a single.
You'll go faster in a Mooney than you will a Seminole, so twins aren't always faster than singles, you'll have two engines to manage, which is a little bit of a joke when they're IO-360's, you'll burn more gas, pay more money and in the end, learn less while just burning holes in the sky in a twin.
Now TEACHING in a twin? That's a whole different story, and you'll be dealing with a whole new set of issues.
Get your CFI, enjoy instructing, don't listen to the haters that think flight instructing is crap because they're not flying shiny jets. Quite frankly, the shiny jet is boring as crap compared to being tossed around the pattern by a pre-solo student.
Go flight instruct, you'll learn more in your first 100 hours of dual given, while being paid, than you would in a few hundred hours of flying a twin around.
And let's cut this down to size; people get wrapped around the axle about multi time. I can appreciate that, and I have more multi engine time than single engine time. But really? If things are functioning normally, then a twin is almost no different than a single, and drilling holes in the sky just to drill holes in the sky is going to be the same in a twin or a single.
You'll go faster in a Mooney than you will a Seminole, so twins aren't always faster than singles, you'll have two engines to manage, which is a little bit of a joke when they're IO-360's, you'll burn more gas, pay more money and in the end, learn less while just burning holes in the sky in a twin.
Now TEACHING in a twin? That's a whole different story, and you'll be dealing with a whole new set of issues.
Get your CFI, enjoy instructing, don't listen to the haters that think flight instructing is crap because they're not flying shiny jets. Quite frankly, the shiny jet is boring as crap compared to being tossed around the pattern by a pre-solo student.
Nihon_Ni
Well-Known Member
This isn't a one-for-one comparison. If you CFI for a year you may get 500-1000 hrs in singles. If you buy a twin and fly it for a year, you may get 50-100 hrs in a twin. TT is probably more important until you have about 1000 hrs. As others have pointed out, you will need multi time to get into the 121 world, but who knows where the bar will be once the doors open again. You certainly will need TT to get into 135 work.
What's your TT now? How much ME time do you have?
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Unless you already have 1000+ hours TT then I would work on that and worry about the ME after you meet the minimum requirements that most airlines will have when they start hiring.
As far as 135, they have been putting people that just meet the 135 mins into planes and sending them across the country for years now so its more about timing or who you know than about how much ME time you have.
As far as 135, they have been putting people that just meet the 135 mins into planes and sending them across the country for years now so its more about timing or who you know than about how much ME time you have.
I currently have about 275 hours. I currently am workign on both a cfi and multi rating. Either way I would instruct. But if I bought a twin the intent would be to build atleast 250 hrs a year in it. I dont think it would be cost effective to buy a twin and build only 50-100 a year in it (compared to renting).
To me that is the whole advantage of buying a twin, that you can build a whole bunch of hours in it. Whereas if I didn't buy it, id be limited to the hundred or so that I could get while rernting, plus whatever I could get as an MEI, which I don't think is that much.
To me that is the whole advantage of buying a twin, that you can build a whole bunch of hours in it. Whereas if I didn't buy it, id be limited to the hundred or so that I could get while rernting, plus whatever I could get as an MEI, which I don't think is that much.
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
Just start instructing, if you can get a full time gig then good. It'll take you a year or two to reach 1200 hours unless youre instructing like mad. By that time the industry might be in a better position -- and you could apply at Ameriflight or Airnet or whatever and fly a Navajo for $25k a year rather than pay to build multi-time. And that experience at already flying for an air carrier, acting as a PIC where you're the only one there is more valuable than an extra 100 hrs of time putzing around in a Aztec or Seminole.
Airlines want to hire professional pilots. A professional pilot is not someone who has "X" amount of hours in "Y" type of airplane. A professional pilot is someone who has enhanced his skills and qualifications over the course of his career by taking on new experiences and challenges in different types of flying. Buying an airplane and flying it around at your leisure is not at all the kind of flying that commercial operators do, which can be best summed with the words "go fever." An airline wants a pilot who will look for every possible way to complete the flight, rather than someone who says "No" at the first opportunity, which is the choice that flying your own airplane gives you.
That said, some multi-time building has its value (mostly in building minimim competence and confidence levels). But beyond 50 or 100 hours, you need the kind of experience that can only be gained in a commercial aviation operation. So, in the context of your original question, I would say being an instructor is of more value.
Now, if you can buy your own twin, and start a multi-engine flight training operation....
Nihon_Ni
Well-Known Member
I used to have a Seneca on a lease-back. My insurance was $1200/month.