CFIs Needed

More than likely, they are former "bachelor airmens quarters", single occupancy, with you and your next door neighbor sharing a bathroom and shower connecting your two rooms. The facilities are probably somewhat spartan, but it's hard to knock "free".

If you figure 100 hrs flight instruction and 100 hrs ground instruction per month, you're looking at $43,200/year before taxes. Add the value of room and board (which will likely have to be valued as income for tax purposes), and that's a $50-60k CFI job. Not even Lloyd is doing that well!
 
have fun guys...

This may be the exact same contract that I was instructing under when I was an instructor. However, my flight school has gotten greedy and since I left has been losing these contracts.

If Sierra has the contracts we used to have, it will be a great opportunity for instructors wishing to build time quick. My first day instructing the contracted students I was handed 4 Air China guys (on top of my 10! domestic students) and it was off and running...flew about 7 hours a day when the weather was nice....if it got crappy, we "visualized" on the white board for the entire 14 hr duty day. You will fly bunches.

The tough parts:
1) HORRIBLE ENGLISH!! It is tough to explain pitch angle and such for straight and level flight on the first lesson when you first must explain what a HORIZON is! And what you mean when you say sky, ground, angle, pitch, elevator, up, down, yes, no....etc.. Doing it while they are nervous, and talking through a crackling intercom over an engine at 2500rpm makes it even worse :)

2) The Chinese students will say "yes sir" to everything...whether they understand you or not. Making the question, "do you understand?" irrelavent. You have to make them show you.

3) Our students had never driven a car in China, so the normal hand-eye coordination most students have is not there. Does make it easy to teach taxiing. (no pre-programed muscle memory on how to turn a vehicle)

4) Finishing quickly was a matter of pride within their class. So sometimes they didn't want to learn the finer points. Tough to get them to listen sometimes.

5) Some of the toughest instructing you will ever do!!

But it is flying...a lot. So it is worth it. These students already have degrees in Engineering and Physics and stuff, so they are smart...and motivated. Just not the most prone to flying, the term "duck out of water" comes to mind.

Just the other day I recieved an email from a former student. He just finished his A320 training and is now observing for a year until he takes the right seat. Pretty cool to know that I planted the basics in him...now he is flying a 320.

You will be frustrated...but keep it fun and pray you get a student with decent english skills.
 
Philip said:
you weren't around when UND was training chinese students, were you?
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no, but I've heard some stories. I'm interested in seeing how things go when we start getting the ANA students here, but that would require staying here....and that is osmething I am sure I dont want to do :-P
 
CAVOK said:
The tough parts:
1) HORRIBLE ENGLISH!! It is tough to explain pitch angle and such for straight and level flight on the first lesson when you first must explain what a HORIZON is! And what you mean when you say sky, ground, angle, pitch, elevator, up, down, yes, no....etc.. Doing it while they are nervous, and talking through a crackling intercom over an engine at 2500rpm makes it even worse :)

2) The Chinese students will say "yes sir" to everything...whether they understand you or not. Making the question, "do you understand?" irrelavent. You have to make them show you.

3) Our students had never driven a car in China, so the normal hand-eye coordination most students have is not there. Does make it easy to teach taxiing. (no pre-programed muscle memory on how to turn a vehicle)

4) Finishing quickly was a matter of pride within their class. So sometimes they didn't want to learn the finer points. Tough to get them to listen sometimes.

5) Some of the toughest instructing you will ever do!!

But it is flying...a lot. So it is worth it. These students already have degrees in Engineering and Physics and stuff, so they are smart...and motivated. Just not the most prone to flying, the term "duck out of water" comes to mind.

Just the other day I recieved an email from a former student. He just finished his A320 training and is now observing for a year until he takes the right seat. Pretty cool to know that I planted the basics in him...now he is flying a 320.

You will be frustrated...but keep it fun and pray you get a student with decent english skills.
Click to expand...


He's totally right. I picked up a Chinese....uh I mean Tawainese student this summer. He was tough to train but I finally got him through his private a couple of weeks ago. His english wasn't to bad but it wasn't to great either. They do tend to get nervous during simulated emergency situations. Don't let them get away with blabbering through an emergency instead of speaking properly where it is understandable. And be careful. If you fly with them enough you will start to understand there blabber.

They tend to say "pardon me" alot...like they don't understand your english when they don't know the answer to a question.

Also keep them at ease. One reason my student was so hard to train is because I picked him up from another instructor who consntantly yelled and cursed at the student. He had the student a nervous wreck.

And finally be patient. They come from totally different backgrounds than you do and they wouldn't be over here if they didn't want to do this for a living. If you treat them as you would want to be treated, it shouldn't be a problem.
 
aloft said:
If you figure 100 hrs flight instruction and 100 hrs ground instruction per month, you're looking at $43,200/year before taxes. Add the value of room and board (which will likely have to be valued as income for tax purposes), and that's a $50-60k CFI job. Not even Lloyd is doing that well!
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You're absolutely right, aloft! I spent last night going over the fine points of this place - doesn't seem too bad!!!
 
aloft said:
More than likely, they are former "bachelor airmens quarters", single occupancy, with you and your next door neighbor sharing a bathroom and shower connecting your two rooms. The facilities are probably somewhat spartan, but it's hard to knock "free".

If you figure 100 hrs flight instruction and 100 hrs ground instruction per month, you're looking at $43,200/year before taxes. Add the value of room and board (which will likely have to be valued as income for tax purposes), and that's a $50-60k CFI job. Not even Lloyd is doing that well!
Click to expand...
You hit the nail on the head with the quarters. That's exactly it. Share a shower and a toilet with the guy in the next room, but you get a sink to yourself. They are larger and nicer than my college dorms, but some instructors were saying their dorms were better in college, so I'd guess its about the same as an average college dorm.

I do think you are a little optomistic about the amount of instruction you'd be doing. 100 hours hours of flight instruction might happen ocasionally, but 80 to 90 is more realistic, and you probably won't do more than about 50 hours of ground unless you are are teaching groundschool (in which case you'll have fewer students). Our chief estimates you'll bank about $2500 per month. Add in free room and board and its more like 35-40K, which is still not bad for a CFI though.
 
My guesstimate was based on .5 pre- and .5 post-flight instruction/brief/debrief, which would presumably be more on some flights and less on others. Even so, it's still a good deal and a good opportunity to save some cash for the poverty of 1st yr regional FO pay.

I am serious about my concern over flying with stinky dudes...one wing of the dorms I lived in in college was devoted to graduate students--most of whom were Chinese--and that wing absolutely reeked. There are apparently no health reasons to shower more than once a week, so many cultures only shower once a week. Not sure I can handle sitting in an airplane with that sort of stench every day, hopefully hygiene can be incorporated into their CRM training or something!
 
Going for my CFI tomorrow with the FAA and I am currently in Fresno. This looks very interesting if everything being said is accurate. I would love to get my hands on a Twin Star.
 
flyguy said:
They are charging China Air and Shanghai airlines lots of money.

We'll need 12 instructors right away to start in December-January. That is guarenteed. If you want to talk projected, between the two airlines we'll have over 200 students and will need over 50 instructors, and according to the chief, Air China just asked us if we could handle 800 students. Its safe to say we'll be continually hiring instructors for a while, and starting new classes every few months.
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Flyguy
I would love to come up and fly as an instructor but cant start until Feb. 06.
Question
How many planes will you have for 200-800 students and 50 instructors.
 
sent my resume too, I can start whenever.
Just need a couple days to pack and tie things up here and drive out.
 
I think I'll pack up and mov... oh wait, I'm still stuck here in Charleston in the Navy!!! Darn stupid Nav... grrrr :banghead:

In all seriousness, this sounds like a good opportunity for the willing and able. That's a very livable salary!

Good luck to all that are applying!

Sounds like all of JC will be out there!!!
 
Screaming_Emu said:
does the cafeteria have free booze?
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BYOB?
doesn't matter to me anyway. Hate the crap.

BTW if anyone gets a call they should post it here :o
that way I'll know if I suck and they don't want me, or if they're just not calling anyone for awhile.
 
Should I also be sending my resume directly to Sierra Academy? I trust that you are hooking us up and I appreciate this but I just want to cover all the bases.
 
If you send it to Sierra Academy most likely it will go to the main campus, and whoever gets it may or may not realize you are aplying for the castle program and it will most likely get thrown out because the main campus is not hiring from outside Sierra. There's really no way of contacting the castle campus because as of yesterday we didn't even have phones installed. I don't think we have a mailing adress yet either. If you send me a resume I'll get it to the asst chif who is in charge of hiring. If you already sent it to me as of yesterday morning it has been directly handed to the asst. Chief already. If you sent it after yesterday morning I'll get it in some time next week. He was excited to see the resumes and you all should be expecting calls some time over the next few weeks.
 
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