Simultaneous training Commercial/CFI

Hckey2477

Well-Known Member
I was wondering if it is possible to work on your commercial ticket and cfi at the same time. I was looking in the FAR's about the CFI requirments and it states that you must be commercial or ATP to obtain the rating; But I couldn't find anything against simultaneously working on them. I am currently working on the commercial license monday through friday. (i would like to do cfi training saturdays and sundays) I am eager to get finished up because honestly my loan money is running thin and my 13 month lease will be expired Aug. 31st. Not wanting to sign another 7-12 month lease I will have to pay month to month at $1,100.
 
I was wondering if it is possible to work on your commercial ticket and cfi at the same time.

Sure. Do all your commercial from the right seat and you're almost done with the CFI training (flight anyway). There is no minimum amount of training required for the CFI.
 
Sure. Do all your commercial from the right seat and you're almost done with the CFI training (flight anyway). There is no minimum amount of training required for the CFI.


I wonder if it's possible training under part 141. I completely dig the idea of doing this.
 
I wonder if it's possible training under part 141. I completely dig the idea of doing this.

I'm sure you could do the Commercial right seat, but the CFI under Part 141 is 20 hours, if I remember correctly (I don't do 141 training). That's why many prospective CFI's do the CFI training Part 61, if they can.
 
You can do your commercial from the right seat under part 141 and you can be enrolled in the two programs simultaneously with approval from the chief flight instructor or assistant, however you must still do the 20 hours for CFI in addition to the 120 for Commercial.

There's nothing wrong with training for both at once. I had several students do their commercial checkride in the right seat (we did Multi-initial) and did the MEI checkride the next day with the feds(they had a private Multi so they had the 15 ME PIC).

Definitely something you can do. Good luck.

-mini
 
Thats the way I did it.

Honestly if you really want to instruct I would highly recommend doing it that way. I will not say it was easy, it was one of the more stressful periods of my life, but it was definately the right way to go.

Ask any questions you want
 
I did it the following way.

My Commercial was a Multi initial. About 100 hours towards the 120 hour total requirement, I ended up flying from the right seat with my MEI and worked on the Commercial manuevers, and teaching.

The last 5 hours of the 120, I went back to the left seat, made sure I was still performing above standards so I could knock the checkride out of the way. Sure enough, good as green - and checkride completed. CMEL in hand. Same day, I also took my CSEL ride (as I had also been flying some SE stuff during those 120 hours).

All 141, and the VA paid for it. Now, by being extremely pro-active, I knew how much money I would end up getting back from the VA. It ended up being $5000 more than what I ended up paying for the training I had already completed to that point. (I had a 20k loan that took me from Instrument airplane, through to CMEL and a good portion of CSEL), and ended up flying on credit with the school I was training at since they had a few issues with the VA and my paperwork. In the end, I racked up 14k on account. I got 19k back from the VA after the paperwork was finally filed.

That 20k + 14k gave me a grand total of 34k spent on my training post-PPL.

I soon found out what the CFI 141 minimums were, something outrageous (I'd look it up. . .but it was what - 15 or 35 more hours of additional flight time?)

Hell no. . .sorry. . .I'm already proficient why the hell am I going to go into MORE debt, just for that when I can do it all Part 61.

In the end, after my CMEL checkride, I did 3 more hours of twin flying in prep for my MEI.

Those 3 hours cost me just shy of a grand. Plus a 1.5 hour flight, my MEI (Initial CFI) cost right at a grand.

Part 61. $4k left to do my CFI SE-Addon. 10 more hours in the right seat of our single trainer, plus a checkride - about $1200.

Leaving $2800 to throw towards the loan.

Just think about it, do your math, and see if doing your CFI's Part 141 will really leave you in a better financial position.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I made $2800 by doing all of my instructor ratings Part 61.
 
Surreal, thanks for the break-down on your training. I'll run all the numbers and see what's best for my situation here.
 
No problem. Let me know what you come up with. I'll be more than happy to help you figure out a solution that'll get you the result you want, on a Part 61 time frame (especially if you end up having enough money coming in to cover it) instead of a Part 141 over-kill CFI program.
 
sounds good to me. The CFI is really more ground preparation-intensive. I had to put together a large binder with hundreds of figures, lesson plans, etc. The flying part is a glorified CPL ride where you talk through the maneuvers you're flying.
 
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