USMCFLYR

Then I'm glad that you have not yet agreed to anything. The bolded statements above sounded like you were happy with the discount and had decided to go with this new *deal* I'm sure in your mind it is seems like a good deal and you're probably very excited about getting started on your CFI, but you're walking into a minefield in my opinion (and many others).

USMCFLYR

proskuneho

gilz16 - I have been teaching other people to become CFIs, CFIIs, and MEIs for a couple of years. Let me tell you, you should absolutely be able to find QUALITY training for all three instructor privileges for less than $10,000 together. Like Rickair mentioned, American Flyers does CFI & CFII academies all over the country each month for $5-$6K. Adding your MEI anywhere just depends on how much PIC multi time you have. If you have 15 multi PIC, you just need proficiency. RUN!!!

Photon

I paid about $6000 for my MEI initial, about $1800 for my CFI, and $2000 for my CFII a little over a year ago.

And this was at a big part 141 school.
What you're quoting is totally LUDICROUS, just don't even think about it, go away and get it somewhere else...


Seriously, there's no discussion or thinking to be had, it's like trying to figure out if you should pay $100 for a cheeseburger at the McDonnalds in Hollywood cause their burgers is made from famous cows...

gilz16

hahaha that was a good one! Ok I have made my mind and I really appreciate the responses, now the question is: where can I go to get a good quality non ridiculously expensive training?

ABerry23

You go where you can get a job upon completion! Not an interview, but a JOB!

wrxpilot

Regardless of how "good" this place claims be be regarding their instructor training, you still aren't going to know what the heck you're doing until you actually start teaching. After about 50 hours dual you'll start to get a clue, and after 250 you'll start becoming competent. After about 500 you'll probably be decent at teaching.

Some good advice for you:

You live in Florida, where there's plenty of schools to choose from. Call around to five schools in your area and see how much they quote for the CFI/CFII. You'll quickly find that $17,000 is way out of line. If you live near Palm Beach, PM me and I'll tell you a good school to go to that won't rip you off.

As a reference, almost three years ago I spent about $2,000 for my CFI, and after a few months of teaching, the flight school paid for my CFII. These days the school probably won't pay for your CFII, but still it should be very cheap (after about two flights, I was ready to take the CFII).

Also, DO NOT get your CFII right away. Spend some time teaching primary students with your CFI first. This will give you the experience of teaching while also building up your list of clients/students. Then, when you start working on your CFII, you'll have the benefit of teaching experience. This will make the CFII the EASIEST rating you've ever added. You absolutely need to have some decent teaching experience before you start teaching instrument students anyway. These more advanced students will become very frustrated and irritated if they sense that you don't know what you're doing. At least you can somewhat pretend you know what you're doing with a primary student until you get a little bit of experience.

rickair7777

Sir,

The very fact that this outfit TRIED to get you to pay $20K for CFI/CFII tells me all I need to know about them...they are CROOKS!

I would not have anything to do with them at all, at any price. If a mechanic tried to charge you $10K to change your oil, would you go for it? Of course not! What if he then offered to do it for $5K, or even $35.99? you wouldn't trust the dude to do it for 30 bucks! He has shown his true colors, who knows what he might do once he gets under your hood?

Run away from this outfit as fast as you can. I would like to see their name too, so others can avoid them...

This assumes you have limited financial resources...if you have a nice trust fund, suit yourself.

ryan1234

You guys are very patient

14CFR

I should have clarified. The $11-$12k would include all three CFI ratings.

Regarding starting pay, the last company I was affiliated with started in the mid $30k's and topped out at just over $50K.

The target goal of any CFI candidate, aside from building time (we are all doing that to some degree or another), should be the motivation and desire to truely teach another person. The rewards are more intrinsic than extrinsic. Sadly, this is not case, more often than not. If one finds him or herself lacking this motivation, then he or she should not acquire the CFI ratings. It's not for everybody and it's nothing personal. Similar to persuing any other pilot credential. If one were to go into it with only the former in mind, then he or she will simply be fueling the fire of ignorance and misnomer which seems to be self-perpetuating at many flight schools at present. There are other ways of building time besides instruction. Not all of them are glamerous, but we all start from the bottom and work our way up. This applies to all of us.

14CFR

I agree with most of what is said here, as well, except for postponing the CFII, unless $$ resources are deminished. The principals/physics involved in instrument flight are exactly the same as in non-instrument flight. Power + Attitude = Performance, whether one is looking outside or inside. The rest is FAR's & navigation.
In the current CFI job market (as cut-throat and expedible as it is) an applicant still has to get past HR. The first place these departments look, especially now, is qualifications: what ratings, how much dual given, period. If it meets what they are looking for, then they will read the rest. This is the absolute truth unless you get on the networking bandwagon. Right now we're in an ebb. This will not be the case when aviation starts to flow again.

Hopefully we're not too far off again from CFI's being in great demand where we see such benefits as aforementioned.