CFIs Needed

flyguy,


I also VERY much appreciate the walk in, but I've also secured a job. I'm going to e-mail Carlos and ask him if I could do an interview a little bit down the road maybe as this is a pretty good deal, but questions off the ATP written for 300 hour flight instructors? Dunno man, that's a bit overkill for me.
 
John Herreshoff said:
flyguy,


I also VERY much appreciate the walk in, but I've also secured a job. I'm going to e-mail Carlos and ask him if I could do an interview a little bit down the road maybe as this is a pretty good deal, but questions off the ATP written for 300 hour flight instructors? Dunno man, that's a bit overkill for me.
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I appreciate the effort too, I imagine it took a bit of time putting up with all of us.
the written doesn't surprise me, the UND CFI written was un-freaking-believable. In fact, I'll take ATP questions over what I had to do for an interview there.
 
You're a dispatcher though, right? So you've probably had some experience with those questions. I majored in philosophy in college and I have not started looking at the ATP written quite yet. So those questions might as well be in greek to me. I know Part 61 and Part 91 answers, but that's it.
 
John Herreshoff said:
You're a dispatcher though, right? So you've probably had some experience with those questions. I majored in philosophy in college and I have not started looking at the ATP written quite yet. So those questions might as well be in greek to me. I know Part 61 and Part 91 answers, but that's it.
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Yes, but in 135 land I don't have to deal with much of it. Nor do I need a dispatchers ticket (not that the guys at work with dispatcher tickets seem to know much.) The majority of my job focuses on scheduling, dealing with bitching crews, coordinating crap, setting things up, and selling.
I haven't ACTIVELY flown since I graduated in dec '02, no money.

I guess I'll agree that asking questions beyond the scope of what you're teaching is probably a little unreasonable, ask me sometime what the interview is like at UND :)
 
I have the advantage of being in Fresno so I don't have to arrange airfare and take several days off. $18/hr sure beats my current $10/hr. Here's hoping.
 
Mr. Lemesch seems to have his act together and I wish I could fly out there to interview or tour or even attempt the test. I wish I had my II and MEI now and not in two weeks. I am looking forward to the next wave of hiring here if there is one.
 
Thank you

flyguy

Thanks for your effort to walk - in my resume also. I have received the same email. Like many others, I have found something else for now. I would send an email regarding the future interview. If I see you in person, I would buy you a drink. Thanks a lot


adreamer
 
I replied back to the email the very same day and still have not heard back with an interview day or time. I hope they are not expecting me to open up my schedule from Wed-Fri or drop everything when they email me back with the interview time 24hrs in advance.
 
BTW,
What is the outlook for this school being at full capacity from day one?
What size is the current training fleet?
How many students can a CFI expect to have from the start of their employment?

I like the pay scale and I also look forward at the chance of flying diamond twin stars, but diamond only recently began delivering these planes and $18/hr does not mean much if I only have one or two students for the first two-four months.
 
We are currently have 12 instructors, 43 students, 11 airplanes, and we are going at it full time. Representitives from Air China are very impressed with the operation and will be sending more students. We have prospects of a few other airlines wanting to send students also. We may also be re-opening the Stockton campus to accomidate one or two of them, but that's a bit further down the road, and hopefully we'll all have moved on by the time they get that going.

Unless you are hired as a team leader or ground school instructor you will get 4 students and will have those same four students throughout the whole program (unless changes need to be made for whatever reason). You will be training full time from day one (assuming TSA and weather cooperate, which is currently what is slowing us down a bit) As Carlos said in the email, you can expect 120 hours per month of activity (ground or flight instruction) so in 10 months you should grab at least 800 hours TT, 150-200 ME, and can expect $2000-$2500 per month on top of free room and board. You will be extreemely busy. Even with the above mentioned delays, we are on the verge of burnout.

I was told to stop handing in resumes for the time being however as we do have quite a few. But given the short notice he gave you all, I'm afraid we'll still be short a few instructors so he may start taking them again. The next hiring will be for a program beginning in July. If you don't get hired this time around and are still looking for work then, you might be able to interview then. Hopefully things will have settled down a bit by and they will have worked out something better for the hiring process.

Good luck to everyone. Sorry this hasn't turned out quite as nicely as we'd hoped.

Eric
 
Just got the inventation to interview on Thursday. I can't find my ATP test prep book to save my life right now, oh well.
Thanks for everything Flyguy and see you Thursday.
 
Cool,

I'll be teaching ground school until 12:15 but I'm free any time after that if you want to say hello.
 
I am a ground instuctor and hopefully soon to be CFI. Right now none of the CFIs are teaching ground school but they can if the need arises.
 
CAVOK said:
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.
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I have to agree with CAVOK on this. When I was an instructor at Pan Am I was a brand new CFI with 3 Chinese as my first students. WOW what a challenge! It was of course the English problem that was the main issue. A couple of the students had such a hard time learning English they were sent back to China (in total discrace because of their culture). I took them through Private, Instrument then Commercial Multi and I built up a boat load of time, and more importantly experience.
Then we got a contract with Korean Airlines and I got three South Korean students. WOW what a difference! These guys knew English pretty well, and that made all the difference in the world. Instructing actually became easy for me. And the $30K a year salary with weekends off was icing on the cake.
Now I make less money and work more. What the hell did I do?
 
Philip said:
curious how the interviews are going.
Good luck!
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Wow, what a day. The test was 100 questions. The first 50 were essay and covered fundamentals of instruction, VFR, IFR, system knowledge, FAR's, airport markings and signs, weather, weight and balance, aerodynamics. Every answer had to be explained as if you were teaching to a novice student. The next 50 questions were multiple choice and in one word...easy. The test took 5 hours to finish!!!

After the test I toured the facilities and flightline. Very nice in my opinion and they are growing very fast. They will have a Level D King Air flight simulator in May and a King Air on the flightline later this year. The Twin Stars are not there yet but they are using Duetches(sp) right now. The dining facility was not the cleanest. They could use a full time janitor to pick up after the students. Every meal is chinese food, except weekend brunch includes french toast and hamburgers??? Why on the weekend when the instructors leave town??? The next group of students arrive next Thursday and all four applicants got offered a job. They guarantee 100 hours per month, add pre/post and ground equates to about 120-140 hours of pay per month. Should be a challenging and rewarding experience.
 
yikes, well congrats!
Too bad I couldn't make the interview, keep us updated on how things are working there.

Doesn't sound like the test was ATP questions at all.
 
They told me they are looking for more applicants still. I talked about the pros and cons of this job with my wife and I may end up not taking this job. My current job just gave me a raise, I can still get 100hrs a month where I am at, and I control my own schedule. At this school they have a lot of pressure to get these students done in the 10 months and pressure, just like s**t, rolls downhill. We (the family) are going to visit Atwater tomorrow and check out the community and places to stay and then make up our mind by Monday. This school looks like a great place to work for a single guy but for a married guy with kids it looks like it may be a little to demanding and unflexible. If they contacted me one month ago before I got hired by Mazzei then I would have taken this job with no second thoughts but man...Mazzei is a very good school to work for. I would hate to make the mistake of leaving a good deal for greener grass because the grass aways seems to be greener on the other side, but what if I am already on the greener side.
 
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