CFI Training

RiddlePilot

RiddlePilot

New Member
Sorry if this has been posted in the past, but I figured I'd get a fresh outlook here.

I'm about to get off my lazy butt to go do my CFI over at an FBO under Part 61. I've got the usual price estimates from the place, but I'm interested to hear some actual figures from folks on both price and hours spent on the initial CFI. I trust the people at the FBO I'll be training at, but I'm concerned that their estimate might be a little, uh, "optimistic."
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Any insight would be great. Thanks.
 
I did the FBO thing after a long break in flying (8 years) after Riddle...It took me a year, but my instructor milked me for some time. I think it was right around $3500 and about 25 hours of flying (I have the information at home and will confirm later). Most of what I needed was the ground portion and my instructor (who has been fired as Chief Pilot for the flight school) wasn't the best on ground school (I'll just leave it at that).
 
My numbers would be a bad example, since I took the log way - little by little over a 3-year period (I thought my CFI was going to kill me in frustration!)

More than any other certificate or rating, how much time/money it takes for the CFI in a Part 61 enviornment is very much up to you. There aren't any real time requirements that you haven't already met and you have already covered all the material and maneuvers in the course of getting your private and commercial certificates and your instrument rating.

Once comfortable with the right seat, the amount of instruction you need to get proficient in the maneuvers from that side of the airplane is very individual. Most of the time can be practicing by yourself (and talking to yourself) . And if you can manage to teach yourself with minimal input from your CFI, think of how good an instructor you will be!

The biggest hurdle with the CFI tends not to be the flying itself, but the ground work. It's developing a fairly good-sized knowledge base and, more importantly, the ability to effectively communicate it. With all the book and videos out there, not to mention forums like this one, again, teaching yourself ~can~ be effective if that method works for you.

(BTW, the secret to using these forums as a CFI candidate is to answer questions about maneuvers, regulations, etc. If you don't know the answer, look it up, massage it, and put it into your won words. You'll be amazed how fast and how well you learn something when you try to teach it, even online.)
 
I second what has been said... just remember you don't need 50 hrs of ground to become a CFI; actually you can do almost all of it on your own: take the writtens, learn the FOI, and learn how to teach.

You really only need an instructor as a way to check progress and to sit left seat the first few times you go up from the right.
 
Like the others said, the flight part is a small part of training for the CFI. Most of the ground work can be done on your own, and the quicker you get it done, the easier the whole process will be. Know the FOI material. As for flying, flying from the right seat wasn't a big deal for me, the harder part for me was getting used to talking pretty much the whole time. I spent probably 20 hours flying for the CFI, but I also had three instructors as one is in Iraq and another got hired. If there are any ground schools at the FBO you will be flying at sit in on them. That really helped me get comfortable teaching, and you never know you may get a job out of it. After sitting in and helping with ground schools, I am know teaching a private pilot ground school at my flight school, and after I take the flight portion of my checkride (finished the oral on Friday, but the weather didn't cooperate), they offered me a full time instructor position, and this is a fairly busy flight school.
 
Save yourself some money by getting another pilot to go with you to sit left seat while you get used to flying right seat.
Like everyone else said, you can save tons of $ by studdying yourself. Use the instructor to help with anything you don't understand and to prepare you for the checkride. You don't need to pay someone $40/hr to read a book to you. I found the King DVD course very helpful for the written.
 
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