Lots of new commercial pilots wince at the idea of undergoing even more flight training and stepping up to the plate to take what is widely regarded as the most difficult checkride in aviation. Stories abound of 8+ hour oral exams and the lowest pass rate of any checkride, and while some of these stories may be true, every day, the list of certificated flight instructors grows.
The reality is that, by far, your best bet for finding a job as a low time commercial pilot is to get your flight instructor certificate and instruct. Why?
Once you have your commercial pilot certificate, there is no additional minimum aeronautical experience requirement before you are eligible for your CFI checkride, except the 3 hours of training with a CFI within 2 calendar months of the checkride. Looking ahead long-term, so long as you keep your flight instructor certificate current by taking a computer course every two years, freelance instructing is something you can do for the rest of your life. Even if you lose your medical certificate and you are no longer able to act as a required crew member, your skills, knowledge, and experience are valuable and the FARs allow you to give instruction to pilots in an aircraft so long as the pilot you are working with is legally able to act as the pilot in command.
If you become a freelance CFI, you are not required to carry any insurance for your services. The policy on the aircraft being used for instruction may require additional premiums to cover instruction, but it is not likely that your inexperience affects that amount by much. As an employee of a flight school, the flight school’s insurance will cover you. There are 200 hour CFIs instructing at flight schools all across the country, so it is clear that most insurance companies will not have a problem with it.
As of this writing in early 2022, there is a high demand for instructors everywhere because flight instructors reaching ATP minimums are leaving for the regional airlines the moment they can. It is a chain reaction:
Even in down times or as a side-gig, having a flight instructor certificate allows you to conduct one-off flight instruction services such as flight reviews, discovery flights, mock checkrides, aircraft checkouts, or ground instruction sessions. As a freelancer, depending on your geographic location, you may be able to charge $40-$75+ per hour for your time, which can certainly help pay the bills during slow periods, or give you some extra money in your pocket. With additional ratings on your flight instructor certificate, such as your instrument (CFII) and multiengine (MEI) ratings, your opportunities are even more numerous. You will be all the more competitive when applying to flight instructor positions and can charge even more. These additional ratings can sometimes increase the quality of flight an instructor enjoys as well. Instead of working on low-altitude ground reference maneuvers and bouncy landings with a brand new student pilot, a CFII might spend more of their time flying airways in smooth air with advanced students who are already competent and skilled pilots.
Most flight schools are happy to hire brand-new flight instructors. There can definitely be a learning curve involved, but the advantage all brand new instructors have is that they’ve all been in the student’s shoes before. They have observed their instructors at work, which gives them at least some familiarity with what they might expect working as an instructor.
Because of the sheer number of flight instructor positions out there, the remaining obstacles that we discussed - reputation & integrity, personality & presentation, public perception, geographic location, gatekeeping, and education - are not very limiting for flight instructors beyond what might be reasonably expected for any job.
Should you find the idea of flight instructing unappealing, consider this. It may be that the most efficient way to build the thousand or so hours you need in order to land your next flying job is through instructing. Or, you might instruct for a few months, log a couple hundred hours, and find yourself now eligible for a new copilot opportunity which otherwise would have gone to someone else with more hours than you. This is exactly what happened to me. Just because you get your CFI and start flight instructing doesn’t necessarily mean you will be stuck doing it for long. It can sometimes be the perfect short-term gig that bridges the one or two hundred hour gap between you and a more appealing flying job.
For those of you with a genuine interest in furthering your knowledge of aviation, there is no better way to go about achieving this goal than to obtain your flight instructor certificate and spend a little time instructing.
As you might recall from a section earlier in the course, the act of highlighting information and writing it down in an organized way is what solidifies it in the mind. The vast majority of flight instructor training and preparation for the checkride is spent on the ground. Usually this time is best spent creating lesson plans for each maneuver and topic found within private and commercial pilot training.
My template for lesson plans was simple:
In actuality, once complete, most instructors never actually use their created lesson plans when they begin instructing. They don’t have to - that information was imprinted into their minds via the process of creating the lesson plans. The “lesson plan binders” created during the study process are usually brought to the checkride to assist in their oral exam, and then tucked away on a bookshelf until the end of time. But the knowledge and understanding that results from the creation of those plans is retained.
Once the instructor begins to instruct, he or she will be forced to think deeply and critically about any given maneuver or topic in order to find a way to explain and teach a student who may be struggling with the conventional explanation. This challenge can result in the instructor coming up with an entirely new way to view a maneuver or topic, and through this, they will have gained an even deeper understanding which will serve them throughout their aviation career in whatever position they hold.
By instructing in aircraft, an instructor’s senses will be sharpened to notice all kinds of feelings, sights, and sounds. Through repetition and a mandatory deep understanding of each maneuver, the instructor will become ever more skilled at performing maneuvers as well as noticing subtle or not-so-subtle errors and their causes. There is no doubt about it - flight instructing is an absolutely fantastic way to become a better pilot.
It is not all that unusual for flight instructors to develop relationships with clients such that when a client upgrades into larger and larger aircraft and requires a copilot or more experienced PIC, the client chooses to hire their flight instructor to be their pilot. This can be a great way to begin to build high-performance, multiengine, or even turbine time, and could lead to type ratings.
In fact, the mere possession of a flight instructor certificate - even if you never instruct - can open doors for you and set you apart from other candidates, as the dedication and depth of knowledge required to obtain the certificate is in itself proof of competency and can speak volumes about you.
The reality is that, by far, your best bet for finding a job as a low time commercial pilot is to get your flight instructor certificate and instruct. Why?
Once you have your commercial pilot certificate, there is no additional minimum aeronautical experience requirement before you are eligible for your CFI checkride, except the 3 hours of training with a CFI within 2 calendar months of the checkride. Looking ahead long-term, so long as you keep your flight instructor certificate current by taking a computer course every two years, freelance instructing is something you can do for the rest of your life. Even if you lose your medical certificate and you are no longer able to act as a required crew member, your skills, knowledge, and experience are valuable and the FARs allow you to give instruction to pilots in an aircraft so long as the pilot you are working with is legally able to act as the pilot in command.
If you become a freelance CFI, you are not required to carry any insurance for your services. The policy on the aircraft being used for instruction may require additional premiums to cover instruction, but it is not likely that your inexperience affects that amount by much. As an employee of a flight school, the flight school’s insurance will cover you. There are 200 hour CFIs instructing at flight schools all across the country, so it is clear that most insurance companies will not have a problem with it.
As of this writing in early 2022, there is a high demand for instructors everywhere because flight instructors reaching ATP minimums are leaving for the regional airlines the moment they can. It is a chain reaction:
- Mandatory retirements, in addition to the COVID pandemic, saw quite a few early retirements at the major airlines, opening up captain seats.
- These seats are being filled by the major airline’s first officers, which means major airlines must increase their hiring. They hire captains from the regional airlines.
- This, in turn, forces regional airlines to upgrade many of their first officers into the captain seat, leaving many copilot vacancies.
- How do they fill these vacancies? By hiring anyone legally eligible to fill them, which in most cases happen to be flight instructors with the bare minimum number of hours which makes them legally eligible.
- At the bottom of this food chain, flight schools are left with a shortage of instructors, which means lots of flight instructor jobs are available.
Even in down times or as a side-gig, having a flight instructor certificate allows you to conduct one-off flight instruction services such as flight reviews, discovery flights, mock checkrides, aircraft checkouts, or ground instruction sessions. As a freelancer, depending on your geographic location, you may be able to charge $40-$75+ per hour for your time, which can certainly help pay the bills during slow periods, or give you some extra money in your pocket. With additional ratings on your flight instructor certificate, such as your instrument (CFII) and multiengine (MEI) ratings, your opportunities are even more numerous. You will be all the more competitive when applying to flight instructor positions and can charge even more. These additional ratings can sometimes increase the quality of flight an instructor enjoys as well. Instead of working on low-altitude ground reference maneuvers and bouncy landings with a brand new student pilot, a CFII might spend more of their time flying airways in smooth air with advanced students who are already competent and skilled pilots.
Most flight schools are happy to hire brand-new flight instructors. There can definitely be a learning curve involved, but the advantage all brand new instructors have is that they’ve all been in the student’s shoes before. They have observed their instructors at work, which gives them at least some familiarity with what they might expect working as an instructor.
Because of the sheer number of flight instructor positions out there, the remaining obstacles that we discussed - reputation & integrity, personality & presentation, public perception, geographic location, gatekeeping, and education - are not very limiting for flight instructors beyond what might be reasonably expected for any job.
Should you find the idea of flight instructing unappealing, consider this. It may be that the most efficient way to build the thousand or so hours you need in order to land your next flying job is through instructing. Or, you might instruct for a few months, log a couple hundred hours, and find yourself now eligible for a new copilot opportunity which otherwise would have gone to someone else with more hours than you. This is exactly what happened to me. Just because you get your CFI and start flight instructing doesn’t necessarily mean you will be stuck doing it for long. It can sometimes be the perfect short-term gig that bridges the one or two hundred hour gap between you and a more appealing flying job.
For those of you with a genuine interest in furthering your knowledge of aviation, there is no better way to go about achieving this goal than to obtain your flight instructor certificate and spend a little time instructing.
As you might recall from a section earlier in the course, the act of highlighting information and writing it down in an organized way is what solidifies it in the mind. The vast majority of flight instructor training and preparation for the checkride is spent on the ground. Usually this time is best spent creating lesson plans for each maneuver and topic found within private and commercial pilot training.
My template for lesson plans was simple:
- 1 - Maneuver or topic name
- 2 - What is it, and why is it important?
- 3 - When does it occur?
- 4 - How is it performed?
- 5 - A list of teaching aids (YouTube video links, usually)
- 6 - Common Errors
- 7 - Any other relevant notes pertaining to the maneuver or topic
In actuality, once complete, most instructors never actually use their created lesson plans when they begin instructing. They don’t have to - that information was imprinted into their minds via the process of creating the lesson plans. The “lesson plan binders” created during the study process are usually brought to the checkride to assist in their oral exam, and then tucked away on a bookshelf until the end of time. But the knowledge and understanding that results from the creation of those plans is retained.
Once the instructor begins to instruct, he or she will be forced to think deeply and critically about any given maneuver or topic in order to find a way to explain and teach a student who may be struggling with the conventional explanation. This challenge can result in the instructor coming up with an entirely new way to view a maneuver or topic, and through this, they will have gained an even deeper understanding which will serve them throughout their aviation career in whatever position they hold.
By instructing in aircraft, an instructor’s senses will be sharpened to notice all kinds of feelings, sights, and sounds. Through repetition and a mandatory deep understanding of each maneuver, the instructor will become ever more skilled at performing maneuvers as well as noticing subtle or not-so-subtle errors and their causes. There is no doubt about it - flight instructing is an absolutely fantastic way to become a better pilot.
It is not all that unusual for flight instructors to develop relationships with clients such that when a client upgrades into larger and larger aircraft and requires a copilot or more experienced PIC, the client chooses to hire their flight instructor to be their pilot. This can be a great way to begin to build high-performance, multiengine, or even turbine time, and could lead to type ratings.
In fact, the mere possession of a flight instructor certificate - even if you never instruct - can open doors for you and set you apart from other candidates, as the dedication and depth of knowledge required to obtain the certificate is in itself proof of competency and can speak volumes about you.
The above text is an excerpt from The Pilot's Guide To Low Time Flying Jobs: Bridging The Gap Between 250 And 1,500 Hours. This 283-page book is a detailed, actionable, and proven guide to getting hired as a low time commercial pilot.