Which is Harder? 121 Groundschool vs. CFI certificate

Doug Taylor said:
CFI you can get a 'do over', bust 121 initial ground school as a new hire and you're out of a job.

The pressures are TOTALLY different.
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Here's the difference I see: airlines want you to pass, FSDO's really don't care. I don't know of anyone that washed out in the ground school portion of training here. Everyone either loses it in the oral or the sims. Even then, you get two shots at each (aka a "do over").
 
Thanks for the input once again guys. Looks like its almost split between which one is harder, guess it depends on what your learning style is. The most interesting thing Ive realized studying for CFI is that I can read about something and understand it almost immediately. But explaining to a student is where the tricky part comes. Ive learned to make it as elementary as possible.
 
I think your first 121 training is harder. You can't cover the matierial at your own pace, and for most the systems associated with the equipment is new to you. Regs are have many differences. Lots of rote learning. Transition or upgrade are probably another story. A challenge to be sure, but maybe not as difficult as that first time. Like others said, the pressure on you is greater.
 
CFI. By the time I got to Air Middy newhire, I was ready for a "quick" course on a new airplane. Was the 121 a bit more stressful? Sure, but that's because you REALLY don't want to fail your first 121 checkride, so there was more pressure. But, 3 hours at Air Middy vs 9 hours with a DE ... no comparo.
 
mikecweb said:
:yeahthat:
My 135 training at Airnet was the hardest training I've ever gone through.
Back when i went through it was a 60% pass rate.
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I worked for them when it was USCheck. I agree. Their training program was brutal. They washed a lot of folks out. They are preparing guys for single pilot IFR (hard IFR) in high performance twins in more variety of weather than Baskin-Robbins has flavors of ice cream. They've got to get guys that won't buckle under that pressure and kill themselves.

BTW, that is where I feel that I truly learned how to fly and has resulted in the instrument skills I have today. I think I had 1800 hours when I got that job.

Oh and 121 school vs CFI. I don't know. They both require preparation and attention to detail. Did I mention preparation and attention to detail? I've always enjoyed studying and preparing for these things and that's made the evaluation process fairly stress free (not entirely, though). (I typically lock myself up in a hotel room for a couple of weeks when studying for a new airplane checkout.) I enjoy the difficult challenge...it presents the opportunity to be at your best when your best is required.
 
kellwolf said:
That's the problem I have with ATP's program. It's a gouge. I didn't have a gouge for my CFI, so it was prep for the worst and hope for the best.
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Ummm, I know ATP has that reputation and I can agree on most of their checkrides they do have a pretty good idea of who the DE is since they get to choose and usually use one particular DE that they know his/her profile for the rides... Well on my MEI, (which was my CFI initital) I didnt get any gouge at all because ATP doesn't get to pick the DE on CFI rides. The FSDO told me who it would be with the day before. The only gouge I had was the PTS.

At ATP the way they did it when I was there was to have you study to the PTS and then usually the day before the checkride they would give you a sheet with everything that has historically been in the oral and on the flight so you can focus you last minute studying on what will most likely be on the checkride.
 
Initial Part 121 ground school was worlds harder than initial CFI.

Of course, I was trained by a REAL airline.



(ducks for cover :D :D )
 
I don't know anything about 121, but my 135 training was easier than my CFI training. Not by much...but definetely easier.

Knowing the information makes up only part about 30% (you can always look something you don't know) of the equation. You have to figure out the best way to convey the information to the student where it doesn't come off dry and boring. And you have to be able to tweek your presentation to get your student to understand something that he/she may be confused about. That is extremely challenging.
 
CFI. Less pressure than 121 training, but during your CFI oral you're pretty much responsible for knowing the entire far/aim, every advisory circular, every little detail of the systems on your aircraft, and the maintenance history/practices of that aircraft. You're responsible for much less during your 121 training, it's pretty much limited to the company ops manual and aircraft systems.

The flying is no more difficult in the 121 environment than it is in a CFI situation in my opinion.
 
They were both freakin hard...CFI was more difficult in the sense of the vast amount of knowlege needed + learning how to be a teacher. 121 was more difficult because of the large amount of knowledge crammed into a little amount of time + trying to keep up with the speed of the airplane. I have to agree with what was said earlier though...preparing for/being a cfi definitly made 121 training go a little smoother.
 
Sorry to re-resurrect an old thread but now that I've gone through 121 training I have to say the CFIs were WAAAYYY MORE DIFFICULT than 121 training. I thought 121 training is a cakewalk compared to the CFI. With the CFI you go through that beating called and "ORAL" where it seems there's an unlimited supply of questions that they can ask you and you can be failed on any of them. Then you have to go fly and explain everything you do while flying. 121 ground you go through 2 weeks of systems on ONE aircraft. All of it 3rd grade knowledge. After 8 HOURS of class you have plenty of time that night to review AND you have the weekends. Where's the firehose? Because I think I missed it. Speed of the aircraft? Never noticed it. Guess the ATR is really slow. Profiles, flows? No problem. Plenty of time after class to review AND the weekends. By no means is 121 training easy, but compared to CFI training its nothing.
 
I'd agree - regional 121 ground is cake, but I have a friend who is training with American and holding on for dear life!
 
Neither was very hard, really. In fact, cake compared to military training. But I'd probably say my CFI was harder than 121 groundschool. People made it out to be much more difficult and stressful than it really needed to be. Imagine having to put up with that level of stress for a whole year (military). In groundschool (at my carrier anyway) you didn't really have to prove much of anything except for a 50 question systems test where you couldn't miss a question unless you were in a coma during class (our instructor foot stomped pretty much all of them, plus there was plenty of gouge out there), about 5 "grade your own" quizzes, a couple of practicals, and a one-hour oral over mainly limitations and memory items. Sims were a little more challenging, but not really as long as you put some effort into learning the flows and procedures. Either you could fly the sim or you couldn't, but nobody in my class washed out (except for one guy who quit on his own). There were a few borderline folks who needed an additional sim, but they still passed on the first attempt.
 
C150J said:
Until your student(FO) tries to kill you, or knowing that your rear-end is on the line when it comes to sign-offs(every leg):). It's great experience though!!!!
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121 CA upgrade is much harder than my cfi was. I was more stressed for it any ways and there is much more to do(written,oral,type,ioe,linecheck,fed ride).

I agree on the FO 121 ground school being easier. There is less responsibility for a FO than a CFI. CFI is the CA and his butt is on the line.

So I guess my answer is either can be harder.
 
Hmm. That's funny. I thought the CFI was easy. I mean, all that stuff was just a review. 121 was a whole lot more work. I mean a ton more work. Flows, profiles, systems, etc. It's not that it's difficult. It's just a hell of a lot more work than the CFI. Not to mention recurrent training is a lot more than the joke of online CFI renewals.

Kind of scratching my head at the responses...especially 777forever. Didn't you do your CFI at ATP?
 
WalterSobchak said:
121 CA upgrade is much harder than my cfi was. I was more stressed for it any ways and there is much more to do(written,oral,type,ioe,linecheck,fed ride).

I agree on the FO 121 ground school being easier. There is less responsibility for a FO than a CFI. CFI is the CA and his butt is on the line.

So I guess my answer is either can be harder.
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My previous post was referring to FO training. I haven't been through a CA upgrade but I imagine it's a totally different game entirely. It wouldn't surprise me if it was much harder (as it should be).
 
P&H said:
Hmm. That's funny. I thought the CFI was easy. I mean, all that stuff was just a review. 121 was a whole lot more work. I mean a ton more work. Flows, profiles, systems, etc. It's not that it's difficult. It's just a hell of a lot more work than the CFI. Not to mention recurrent training is a lot more than the joke of online CFI renewals.

Kind of scratching my head at the responses...especially 777forever. Didn't you do your CFI at ATP?
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Yup I did my CFI at ATP. The magnitude of information you have to know for the CFI is immense compared to 121 which you have 2 months to study 1 aircraft. Plus you don't have to explain everything you are doing when flying on your check ride. I worked ALOT more for my CFI ratings than for 121 training.

germb747 said:
My previous post was referring to FO training. I haven't been through a CA upgrade but I imagine it's a totally different game entirely. It wouldn't surprise me if it was much harder (as it should be).
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My sim partner was a captain upgrade. The oral is more intense, mainly because they're going to test decision-making with situations where's there's no right or wrong answer but they want to see your logic behind your decisions. On the flight portion it was the same as mine except for no flap landing, single engine missed, and emergency evacuation.
 
WalterSobchak said:
121 CA upgrade is much harder than my cfi was. I was more stressed for it any ways and there is much more to do(written,oral,type,ioe,linecheck,fed ride).

I agree on the FO 121 ground school being easier. There is less responsibility for a FO than a CFI. CFI is the CA and his butt is on the line.

So I guess my answer is either can be harder.
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I agree - I think you quoted somebody else:). No biggy!
 
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