Things You Wish You Knew When You Started

Things I wish I knew:

That buying a plane early on would have saved me a lot of money.

That networking is crazy important.

That I didn't need a degree in aviation and I didn't need to go to Riddle.

That I should have tried harder to figure out a secondary area of interest outside aviation to get a degree in.

And, maybe sadly, that you should have no loyalty to an employer. That the day you start a new job, you should be looking for another one that will move you up the ladder a notch. As a pilot, you are nothing more than a warm body to produce revenue for a company. I guess that's how the world works. But you need to look out for yourself.
 
Great advice in general here. I only have a few parts I disagree with:

Lead said:
When picking a flight school, try to find one that's inexpensive, and has a high pass rate.
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I would revise this to say, "Find a school that will get the job done right." There are SO many things to look at in a school beyond price. We could write an entire thread about those characteristics alone. The thing I try to avoid is having people price shopping for a flight school. Sure, you don't want to blow money down the drain for no reason, but I'd rank price somewhere between the middle and bottom of the priority list when it comes to shopping. Way too many people try to save a few grand and end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Lead said:
- How to pick a flight school to work for. The first flight school you work for will probably not be the last flight school you work for. In fact you may have to take just about anything for your first gig. Generally, once you have about 200 hours dual given your golden and can go to just about any school. Hopefully, you can keep your time as a CFI down to 1 to 2 employers. The things to look for when choosing a school:

How much do they pay? $15 an hour is probably the absolute minimum you should work for, and that should come with a promise of a raise (a real promise written into your contract, not "sometime down the road" or "if your doing good" BS). Personally, I've never worked for $15 an hour). If you can get on salary, its most likely a good thing. Working by the hour sometimes has the potential for more but you are limited by weather and maintenance unless your somewhere like PHX where there's 350 days of flyable weather a year.

Will you have students right away? Generally, you should have a full plate within one month, two at max. A lot of places offer $25-30 per hour but you have to bring in your own students, wait for them to "walk in" etc. This is BS and rarely works. Typically, you end up being the receptionist/tour guide and you don't get paid anything.

Will you get any multi time there? Do they have a multi engine airplane? Typically, if you hear - "we will be getting one soon" it isn't true. Usually, you get put on a seniority list of sorts before your allowed to teach multi. That's why its important to try and pick a good school at the outset or at around 200 hours dual given so that you can stay with them for a while. Multi time for low timers is like gold.

How much will you fly? I would say you should average between 50-100 hours a month of flight time (not billed time).

Don't be afraid to teach international students (aka students on contract). I think some of the best gigs for CFI's are teaching international students. Here's some + and -

Positives:
1. They are guaranteed work private through commercial multi.
2. Scheduling is easy because they are full time students.
3. You don't need to cater to their every whim because your worried about hanging onto them as a student. This makes it a better environment for instructing.
4. You use all your ratings.
5. They're a challenge.

Negatives:
1. They're a challenge.
2. It's frustrating. You may start to weigh the importance of them knowing something because of the amount of energy it will take to tell them.
3. Your pass rate will most likely suffer.
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This is a all REALLY subjective advice. I'd only agree with about 50% of it.

Not saying you're wrong. But the path you took won't work for everyone. I'm (for now) doing the "career instructor" thing in my dream job and this advice wouldn't have worked at all for me. My starting pay was only $18/hour, with no guarantees or timelines for raises, other than my boss's word. I worked hard and he held to his word, so now I'm making pretty decent money.

I also didn't have any students handed to me. I recruited all of them. Now I'm busier than I can handle.

I also don't have any prospects of acquiring multi time at this job. But that's ok, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. I'm not interested in building time and getting out. Multi time is only important if your next dream job requires it.

So as I said, nothing wrong with what you said. But if I had followed those guidelines, I'd have turned down what has turned out to be a perfect gig for me.

DE727UPS said:
And, maybe sadly, that you should have no loyalty to an employer. That the day you start a new job, you should be looking for another one that will move you up the ladder a notch. As a pilot, you are nothing more than a warm body to produce revenue for a company. I guess that's how the world works. But you need to look out for yourself.
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Totally disagree. A pilot certainly needs to be cautious, but my job is proof that loyalty is worthwhile. The quickest way to piss off the local leaders around my airport (flight school, charter, corporate, etc.) is to always be looking out for yourself. Obviously you shouldn't be a door mat to get walked on, but showing some loyalty to a place is a very, very respectable trait in the eyes of the people I hang around. Maybe it's just the old fashioned, small town, Midwest vibe going on here, but employee/employer relations are a two way street. It's important to get along.
 
jrh said:
The quickest way to piss off the local leaders around my airport (flight school, charter, corporate, etc.) is to always be looking out for yourself. Obviously you shouldn't be a door mat to get walked on, but showing some loyalty to a place is a very, very respectable trait in the eyes of the people I hang around. Maybe it's just the old fashioned, small town, Midwest vibe going on here, but employee/employer relations are a two way street. It's important to get along.
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Unfortunately, it is a rather old fashioned way of looking at things. Loyalty used to sometimes be a two-way street, but that is becoming rarer and rarer. A business these days won't blink twice about putting you out on the street if it suits their finances -- how's that for loyalty?

I come from a background in the military where loyalty is of supreme importance, and is many times practiced with religious fervor, and often to the detriment of the individual practicing it. Even given that, it's always against a backdrop of the knowledge that nobody cares about you as much as you do. If you don't look out for yourself, even bosses who do truly care about your success can miss important opportunities, weather that be through carelessness or completely by accident. In the AF, I think of every 'contract' with my bosses, my superiors, the organization, the country, etc, as a 1-way contract: that is, one that I am going to be required to adhere to, but one that the other party may breach at any time.

Regardless, it is foolhardy to not be selfish enough to always have your own best interests at heart first. Yes, a certain level of loyalty is required for an employee/employer relationship to be successful, but ultimately you can bet that the employer is going to act in a way that is in the best interest of the organization (and that is not necessarily the path that benefits the employee).

So, while the statement you were responding to appeared on prima facie value to preclude building loyalty with present employers, I think it is actually an important bedrock on which to build such a relationship with your employers.

That's so when they close the doors for that big payout to their shareholders, you have a plan B.
 
Don't chase a quick upgrade. Don't chase shiny metal. Don't chase flight attendants. Don't commute. If they tell you to wear the hat, just wear it. Don't be lazy. Defend the profession by your appearance and actions.
 
Try not to crash into anything and along the same lines don't knowingly do anything stupid because you'll do stupid stuff without even trying.
 
... and don't just do things because other people tell you about them/it/whatever.

Do the research and find out for yourself. Make the decision because you understand what you're looking at, not because someone supposedly more in the know told you so. How do you know that they know what they're talking about?

In other words, anything worth doing is worth doing yourself. Otherwise you're just living someone else's beliefs.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Don't chase a quick upgrade. Don't chase shiny metal. Don't chase flight attendants. Don't commute. If they tell you to wear the hat, just wear it. Don't be lazy. Defend the profession by your appearance and actions.
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Excellent summary. Excellent, especially the part about being a 'migrant worker'.
 
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