How much money do you think a GV instructor pilot makes?

jtrain609 said:
Teaching ground, sure sure, but doing full motion sim instruction? Heck we even have our ground instructors do FTD's, which seems to work out fine, but I think the junior flight instructor here has 15 years seniority?
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I'd hate to have a ground instructor who has not flown the airplane. I think he or she would lack any sort of depth of experience. There are of course a few exceptions, but I'd be surprised if the airline couldn't find a line guy who has some CFI experience who'd be willing to teach instead of fly.
 
jtrain609 said:
Teaching ground, sure sure, but doing full motion sim instruction? Heck we even have our ground instructors do FTD's, which seems to work out fine, but I think the junior flight instructor here has 15 years seniority?
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I would hope this is how it is. 250 hour pilot teaching others primary without even hardly knowing how fly themselves... but at higher levels? That's just dumb. The most experienced should be the one's teaching, not the least.
 
I'm gonna throw a stake in the ground and say $69,000/year, depending on position and longevity.
 
jtrain609 said:
Teaching ground, sure sure, but doing full motion sim instruction? Heck we even have our ground instructors do FTD's, which seems to work out fine, but I think the junior flight instructor here has 15 years seniority?
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If you've never been in the "non-121 side of the jet industry," please hold your opinions.:insane:

Seriously, my first ground school instructor in the Lear 60 was a RIO on F-4's, and talked like he was the pilot, not a back seater. He had never been in a Lear 60. He was knowledgeable about the airplane due to the crews coming through recurrent educating him on the airplane. I found out about him being a RIO after 2 years of his war stories in recurrent, and to this day am amazed he never once mentioned he is not even a pilot. Yes, I know being a RIO does not mean he could not have flown outside, but he does not have a pilot's certificate from what I have been told. I also had a sim instructor on the 60 that was talking about performance of the airplane. I asked if he had ever flown one, and he said no. I told him the reason I asked, is your performance numbers are unrealistic on what the airplane can do. He had come from the airlines, knew his procedures, but knew nothing about day to day ops in a business jet, much less the daily operation of the airplane I was in recurrent for. He was a retired airline guy. These were both Bombardier instructors.

During initial on the G-450, I was at FSI Savannah, the mecca of Gulfstream. I was told numerous times this airplane can go straight to FL430 max weight no problem. I get into the airplane for the first leg, and the highest we could get, being 5000# less than MTOW, was 39,000'. I do not know where they came up with their information, but with the corporate side of the sim houses, buyer beware if they are talking about day to day ops in the airplane.

So, to answer your question, I would not be surprised if the instructor did not have a type rating. The Examiner will have to have the type, and hopefully he/she has experience in the airplane, but I would not count on it.:beer:
 
Stone Cold said:
If you've never been in the "non-121 side of the jet industry," please hold your opinions.:insane:

Seriously, my first ground school instructor in the Lear 60 was a RIO on F-4's, and talked like he was the pilot, not a back seater. He had never been in a Lear 60. He was knowledgeable about the airplane due to the crews coming through recurrent educating him on the airplane. I found out about him being a RIO after 2 years of his war stories in recurrent, and to this day am amazed he never once mentioned he is not even a pilot. Yes, I know being a RIO does not mean he could not have flown outside, but he does not have a pilot's certificate from what I have been told. I also had a sim instructor on the 60 that was talking about performance of the airplane. I asked if he had ever flown one, and he said no. I told him the reason I asked, is your performance numbers are unrealistic on what the airplane can do. He had come from the airlines, knew his procedures, but knew nothing about day to day ops in a business jet, much less the daily operation of the airplane I was in recurrent for. He was a retired airline guy. These were both Bombardier instructors.

During initial on the G-450, I was at FSI Savannah, the mecca of Gulfstream. I was told numerous times this airplane can go straight to FL430 max weight no problem. I get into the airplane for the first leg, and the highest we could get, being 5000# less than MTOW, was 39,000'. I do not know where they came up with their information, but with the corporate side of the sim houses, buyer beware if they are talking about day to day ops in the airplane.

So, to answer your question, I would not be surprised if the instructor did not have a type rating. The Examiner will have to have the type, and hopefully he/she has experience in the airplane, but I would not count on it.:beer:
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How can you give flight instruction without a pilot certificate?
 
I'm fairly certain all sim instructors at FSI are typed in the aircraft. They tend to prefer guys with at least jet experience, if not time in type, however that doesn't mean that there aren't some that have neither.

The FSI pay scale is determined by what category of aircraft you instruct on. I don't remember the classifications but it ranged from 40-80k a year. Again, depending on the size/complexity of the aircraft.
 
bLizZuE said:
I'm fairly certain all sim instructors at FSI are typed in the aircraft. They tend to prefer guys with at least jet experience, if not time in type, however that doesn't mean that there aren't some that have neither.

The FSI pay scale is determined by what category of aircraft you instruct on. I don't remember the classifications but it ranged from 40-80k a year. Again, depending on the size/complexity of the aircraft.
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How do you get a gig like that?
 
At sim com about 5 years ago my instructor had never flown a PC12 only KA variants. It was a PC12 initial. It sucked
 
bLizZuE said:
I'm fairly certain all sim instructors at FSI are typed in the aircraft. They tend to prefer guys with at least jet experience, if not time in type, however that doesn't mean that there aren't some that have neither.

The FSI pay scale is determined by what category of aircraft you instruct on. I don't remember the classifications but it ranged from 40-80k a year. Again, depending on the size/complexity of the aircraft.
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I would definitely agree with that, along with where the facility is located. For example, I don't see the Falcon EASy / EX folks earning much less than $100K or so in a major market. I mean, they have to live, and as I said, this is not the airlines. These folks often fly the planes part 91 on the side and, yes, they're typed. My friend makes about $200K a year doing this, and he is in his 60's and retired from the USAF on C-141s.

Who said the airlines were a viable career these days (if one wants to earn money)?
 
Stone Cold said:
Seriously, my first ground school instructor in the Lear 60 was a RIO on F-4's, and talked like he was the pilot, not a back seater. He had never been in a Lear 60. He was knowledgeable about the airplane due to the crews coming through recurrent educating him on the airplane. I found out about him being a RIO after 2 years of his war stories in recurrent, and to this day am amazed he never once mentioned he is not even a pilot. Yes, I know being a RIO does not mean he could not have flown outside, but he does not have a pilot's certificate from what I have been told.
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To be honest, for what he was doing as a ground instructor, he didn't need a pilot certificate in order to have credibility. USN/USMC RIOs from the F-4/14, as are many NFOs, are trained in pretty much the same things as the pilots minus being at the actual stick. To teach ground, his experience would be more than adequate insofar as jet time and operations and subsequently teaching items specific to an airplane that one would learn in ground school. NFOs are essentially co-pilots, for all intents and purposes, in the USN/USMC. Unlike the USAF, which doesn't really utilize the average Navigator in a co-pilot fashion except for a few airframes.
 
MikeD said:
NFOs are essentially co-pilots, for all intents and purposes, in the USN/USMC. Unlike the USAF, which doesn't really utilize the average Navigator in a co-pilot fashion except for a few airframes.
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And yet, there are no controls in the back seat of Navy fighters, where in the USAF there are.
 
MikeD said:
Which is indeed an oddity, in terms of how each service views their Nav/NFO aircrew.
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I'm fortunate that in my little corner of the world, Navs are somewhat seen with equality on most tactical subjects....there's no "good for carrying my helmet bag" attitude in general.
 
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