What to do?

jordane93

jordane93

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jordan
Here's the situation. I work at a flight school doing scheduling, billing, and customer service. I take lessons at a different school (I know that's weird) but I realy like my CFI and have used him sincemy IR. Both places have offered me CFI jobs when I finish my training which I'm hoping to get knocked out at the end of the month. The place I currently work at does mostly introductory flights and I'd say we have about a 20% turnover rate of people turning into students. We have a fleet of 5 Piper Warriors, just opened another school in a nearby airport and are starting inspections for a 141 certificate. The only thing I'm worried about is the introductory flights. While the school does have students, the majority of our CFI's build time through these intro flights which I feel won't make me a good CFI. I would much rather have students as I would feel like it would make me a more rounded CFI. However, these guys build up hours extremely quick. We average about 1-1.5 years and then the CFI's apply for the regionals. Now, school #2. I train at a different school and my CFI is the Chief CFI and he offered me a position a few weeks ago. This school is a really well known 61 school on the field has a very diverse fleet of Warriors, 172's, Cirrus (Cirrus Certified Training Center), Aviat Husky, and just acquired a Beechjet. The clientele is a lot different in this school. The school tends to attract wealthy people and I feel like it would be good to make connections with these people (one of the students bought us the Beechjet). Ibelieve the Beechjet is going to be operated Part 91 and my CFI is going for training next week so it would be cool to somehow get involved and maybe fly SIC. I'm not sure how many hours these guys get a month but I know its an extremley busy school with lots of students. My plan is to build several hundred hours of instruction then go get my multi add on then CFII and MEI and start building up multi time for the airlines. I don't really want to offend anyone and have a good relationship with both schools. I'm thinking the school where I train at will be the better fit for me and will make me a better CFI/pilot. Thanks for reading! Any thoughts?
 
Go with your gut. But offer to help the other school out if you have the time. Getting challenging lessons across can be satisfying, also grueling. A change of scenery knocking out easy intro flights laying out the canned intro speech might be a nice change. Congrats two job offers is a nice problem to have.
 
Go to school # 2 ,better opportunity for time building.
 
You don't need to build multi time for the airlines. There are regional airlines hiring at 25 hrs multi
 
ClimbnSink said:
Go with your gut. But offer to help the other school out if you have the time. Getting challenging lessons across can be satisfying, also grueling. A change of scenery knocking out easy intro flights laying out the canned intro speech might be a nice change. Congrats two job offers is a nice problem to have.
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Yea that's what I was thinking. Sometimes they get really booked and need some extra CFI's to do intro flights.
 
NJP_MAN said:
You don't need to build multi time for the airlines. There are regional airlines hiring at 25 hrs multi
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Yea I meant the regionals. I would rather try to instruct multi students and build up the time rather than paying for it
 
Seems like #2 is the no brainer..... Intro flights are glorified sigh seeing tours. I'm no CFI, but I am a professional instructor in my field and you learn so much more teaching in depth than what your bulk clients will be at #1.
 
Unit74 said:
Seems like #2 is the no brainer..... Intro flights are glorified sigh seeing tours. I'm no CFI, but I am a professional instructor in my field and you learn so much more teaching in depth than what your bulk clients will be at #1.
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Yep. The school I work at does have students but the intro flights make up the bulk of the time that the CFIs get and I agree that teaching students will be more valuable than doing intro flights.
 
If the second school can get you flight time somewhere in the ballpark of the first one, I'd definitely do that. It's cool that even though your goal is the airlines, you're interested in being a more well rounded CFI/pilot. The industry definitely needs more guys like you in the younger instructor ranks. :)

That said, the regionals need you to meet ATP mins, and that's it. They're desperate, so while it's admirable that you're looking to get more rounded, looking at Beechjet time, and so on - none of that stuff is going to matter when it comes to getting your first airline job. Therefore, make sure you're not delaying your path significantly by choosing school number 2. The hiring wave is ramping up now, so the faster you can jump into the game, the better off you'll be.
 
jordane93 said:
Yep. The school I work at does have students but the intro flights make up the bulk of the time that the CFIs get and I agree that teaching students will be more valuable than doing intro flights.
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Something is wrong with the instructors at school #1 if they are not converting those intro flights into students. If I were in a hiring position, those short PIC flights would not impress me in the least.

Insofar as getting jet time is concerned, if the plane requires two pilots you will need your multiengine (not type rating) to check the SIC box. 61.55(a)(1).

I hold a LR-JET type rating, but I flew right seat in Citations under that provision.

Bob Gardner
 
kayoh190 said:
If the second school can get you flight time somewhere in the ballpark of the first one, I'd definitely do that. It's cool that even though your goal is the airlines, you're interested in being a more well rounded CFI/pilot. The industry definitely needs more guys like you in the younger instructor ranks. :)

That said, the regionals need you to meet ATP mins, and that's it. They're desperate, so while it's admirable that you're looking to get more rounded, looking at Beechjet time, and so on - none of that stuff is going to matter when it comes to getting your first airline job. Therefore, make sure you're not delaying your path significantly by choosing school number 2. The hiring wave is ramping up now, so the faster you can jump into the game, the better off you'll be.
Click to expand...
The second flight school is just as busy but has primarily students and not intro flights. Either job will get me hours quickly which is the goal. The one thing that neither school had is a multi engine plane which I'll eventually need to build time. The plan is to instruct for several hundred hours and then get my multi add on and MEI. Ideally I would want to fly at a school that has multi students and build up time that way instead of splitting costs with another pilot and logging safety pilot time.
 
bobmrg said:
Something is wrong with the instructors at school #1 if they are not converting those intro flights into students. If I were in a hiring position, those short PIC flights would not impress me in the least.

Insofar as getting jet time is concerned, if the plane requires two pilots you will need your multiengine (not type rating) to check the SIC box. 61.55(a)(1).

I hold a LR-JET type rating, but I flew right seat in Citations under that provision.

Bob Gardner
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That's why I'm thinking that school #2 will make me better by having lots of students and me giving quality instruction and sending students off to checkrides instead of just doing intro flights that don't really need much instruction
 
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