CFI positions open in Atwater, CA

H

Hom

New Member
Sierra Academy of Aeronautics in Atwater, CA is hiring CFIs. CFII/MEI is preferred but not required. They currently have plenty of students with more on the way, so getting plenty of flight time should not be an issue. Fleet of C152s, C172s, Piper Seminoles and CH2T Alarus. Pay begins at $17/hr for private, jumps to $18/hr when you begin training instrument students, and jumps to $20/hr when you begin training in the Semiole.

Resumes can be e-mailed to:
chiefsierra@gmail.com



Major improvements have been made in the past 6 months at this school and more are on their way. Now operating (beta testing) an electronic syllabus, an instructor breakroom has been added to the dispatch building with DirecTV, a refrigerator and microwave, and computers. Instructors are offered lunch for free at the on-site restaurant. Breakfast and dinner are $3 per meal. The food is mostly Chinese food and has received complaints in the past, however there have been many improvements made to the quality of meals provided. A free dorm room is provided if you would like to live on campus, although there is a $125 utility fee per month. The fleet is older but they are in the process of installing new carpets and in general making the planes look nicer.
 
I think the word is pretty much out on just how aweful the Atwater school is. I think it would take actual CFI's to attest to all these positive changes to make them creditable as anything said by management is untrustworthy.
 
I have a friend instructing there. Don't have specifics but he doesn't seem to mind the place. Says lots of hours, decent money, housing provided. He said instructing the foreigners are about the same as other places...fun, fun, fun. If you have specific questions you can PM me and I can ask as I don't think he's a member on here.
 
Inverted said:
Yes I am, at least I assume so.
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"The food is mostly Chinese food and has received complaints in the past, however there have been many improvements made to the quality of meals provided".

I started laughing at this immediately, I'm sure we're all on the same page....:yup:
 
I had the displeasure of stopping at Kmer last year...should have gone 5 more miles to KMCE where people speak English. The problem with having a flight school at Atwater is that the runway is way too short and there not enough ramp space. Very depressing place.
 
subpilot said:
I think the word is pretty much out on just how aweful the Atwater school is. I think it would take actual CFI's to attest to all these positive changes to make them creditable as anything said by management is untrustworthy.
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We know it has. I've also read the other Sierra Academy post on this forum, hence the careful wording of my original post. We're doing our best to change that, and we are succeeding. There are other exciting changes taking place that are not quite official yet, so I can't give details, but we truly are heading in the right direction as far as our relationship with employees. Students are also put into an English course before they begin private. That will not solve the language barrier but it will hopefully help it.

As far as the runway being small here, that's very interesting. We operate out of KMER (former Castle Air Force Base). It is not the longest runway in the United States, but it is pretty close at 11,802 feet. It also has more ramp space than we even know what to do with. Carpets do not make airplanes fly better, I know that. They're Cessna 152s, they fly just fine its just an older fleet. The interiors on our 152s were a bit rough and it had been commented on a lot by current and former employees. They've been re-done.

The food I remember being a big issue in the other Sierra topic here. Its cool if that made you laugh, the food here has been bad. A new chef and higher quality ingredients seems to have improved that situation greatly.

Long story short, Sierra is hiring. Currently the perception about Sierra by pilots is a bad one, but we are working hard to change that. It isn't a perfect place to work, no flight school ever will be, but Sierra today is a much better place than it was.
 
Good post Hom and I respect you coming on here to discuss the situation. By the way, the short runway and ramp comment was obviously sarcasm. If English is your second language then I understand how you did not pick up on that... Cheers!
 
I guess my comment sounded more sarcastic in my mind than it did in print. Like home said, no flight school is perfect. That being said, I'd much rather fly a crappy looking airplane with crappy carpet and paint over one that looks nice but runs like crap. But hey, that's just me.
 
Hom said:
We know it has. I've also read the other Sierra Academy post on this forum, hence the careful wording of my original post. We're doing our best to change that, and we are succeeding. There are other exciting changes taking place that are not quite official yet, so I can't give details, but we truly are heading in the right direction as far as our relationship with employees. Students are also put into an English course before they begin private. That will not solve the language barrier but it will hopefully help it.

As far as the runway being small here, that's very interesting. We operate out of KMER (former Castle Air Force Base). It is not the longest runway in the United States, but it is pretty close at 11,802 feet. It also has more ramp space than we even know what to do with. Carpets do not make airplanes fly better, I know that. They're Cessna 152s, they fly just fine its just an older fleet. The interiors on our 152s were a bit rough and it had been commented on a lot by current and former employees. They've been re-done.

The food I remember being a big issue in the other Sierra topic here. Its cool if that made you laugh, the food here has been bad.A new chef and higher quality ingredients seems to have improved that situation greatly.

Long story short, Sierra is hiring. Currently the perception about Sierra by pilots is a bad one, but we are working hard to change that. It isn't a perfect place to work, no flight school ever will be, but Sierra today is a much better place than it was.
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WOW, this is a load of...

Depressing city, crappy airplanes, management doesn't care about you, cp and acp's barely know the actual reg's. the only reason that stays in business is because Linda makes a killing on all of her checkrides, and knows that these kids aren't ever going to fly in the states, so she'll pass them just to make money.

She once passed a student on his Instrument checkride, on a vor approach, that continued straight and level after the faf, when he was supposed to decend, when asked what he was doing? he said "i don't know"...and continued to fly into the abyss.

If your dying for flying, and feel like getting violated or losing your license feel free to apply.
 
dtoTUL said:
Is this the place one of the Chinese students ran through a prop?
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Yep, they lost a student a few years ago due to negligence with a moving prop. I believe the student pilot snuck another pilot to ride with him on a solo cross country, and was afraid someone would see them, and ran into the moving prop trying to hide or something along that line.
 
ok, yeah, that sounds like the story I heard. Only I heard both students were logging the solo crosscountry (pre-private) and that this was a regular time-building technique for them. (but my source does tend to exaggerate things, so I don't know the extent of the truth). I almost went to work for them in 06, but ended up doing the aerial mapping thing instead.
 
dephicon said:
Yep, they lost a student a few years ago due to negligence with a moving prop.
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I had some free time, so I went and dug up the NTSB report (it's here), and it's pretty much what you described.

The accident actually happened about an hour after sunset, so that goes a long way towards explaining how the deceased student failed to see the prop before he walked into it.
 
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