Career as a Flight Instructor

[DHC-1 Jockey]

I’ve been out of work from my 705 airline job for over 15 months now, and being home has definitely given me perspective on the things that matter in life. Early on when I was single, it was all about chasing metal. Now, with over 6,000 hours and a family, I feel I’ve “been there, done that” and got the t-shirt.

My first aviation job over 10 years ago was instructing and I feel it was the most fulfilling type of flying I’ve done. To that end, I’m thinking of renewing my Class 3 Instructor rating and see if I can make a go at it full-time as a career with the goal of eventually reaching Class 2 and Class 1. And, as I’m not expecting a recall to my airline job in the short-term, I have the flexibility at this time to get back at it.

So,I have a question for those currently employed as full-time flight instructors:

What is the hourly rate you make as a Class 3/2/1? Are you straight-hourly, part-salary/part-hourly or straight salary? What's your annual salary?

13 years ago, I believe I was making $26 per hour at a small FTU with 5 planes, and I’m curious to see how that has changed. I have a spouse with a well-paying job, so while I know I’d be sacrificing a lot of future-earnings, being home every night and having the satisfaction of using my experience to help the new generation of pilots definitely seems intriguing. Aside from the paycheque and camaraderie of the crew, I’m not missing sitting hours in cruise on autopilot or that 36 hour layover in Regina or missing Christmas for the 5th year in a row. I've really been thinking of doing this for the past few years, and before I get the "golden handcuffs" from my 705 job, I'm trying to see if being a career instructor is financially feasible.

I’d appreciate if any answers state whether you’re at a small FTU/Flying Club or a larger school or college/university program.

Feel free to PM me as well if you’re more comfortable.

It’ll be a big decision to decline a recall to my airline job when it comes, so any advice or information you can provide now will be a big help in my decision-making process.

Thanks!

P.S. I'm hoping to leave COVID, the (looming?) pilot shortage, etc. out of the discussion. This is strictly just asking about the pay situation.

[Conflicting Traffic]

I made a career out of flight instruction for 20+ years. But in the pre-COVID hiring boom, I made the move over to the 705 world and spent a couple of years there. I'm seriously considering turning down my recall when it comes. And even if I accept the recall, it will definitely be temporary.

In the long run, you'll make more money in the airlines. But I don't think it's worth it. The lifestyle is trash. Of course, I say that as a commuter at a regional and with very little seniority. Maybe you're in a better position, and all that regional/low-seniority crap is a sunk cost to you. But from where I'm sitting, I don't think it would be worth it for me to stick around, gain seniority, and eventually move into the majors. The cost now is not worth the benefit then -- which might (eventually) look good financially, but is still very marginal from a lifestyle perspective.

As a senior instructor with supervisory duties and weather resistant students (i.e. - IFR students can fly in worse weather than VFR students, and the instructor course is very ground-work intensive), you can make a decent living as an instructor. You'll never get rich, but your income will be sensible and you'll be home every night.

If you're at a reasonably busy school and you can manage your schedule well, you should have no problem billing 1500 hours a year -- maybe more if you're in a location with cooperative weather. So when you're trying to figure out what your income might be based on an hourly wage or a base + hourly combo, that's a pretty good guide.

I suspect you'll hear a lot of nay-saying from people who instructed for 6 months to 2 years so they could build hours and get a "real job". They're not completely wrong. Junior instructors often have it tough for at least three reasons: 1) low hourly wage, 2) they often cave to pressure to work for free, and 3) they haven't figured out yet how to manage their schedule. This is compounded by the fact that many instructors don't actually want to instruct and are just there to get hours. I can't imagine how miserable they must be. Teaching well is hard work, and involves a lot of activities beyond flying an airplane. If it's not something you actually want to do, it must be hellish.

So, all of that said, the most important question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you actually want to teach full time (and potentially permanently). You've done it before, so you probably know the answer. If the answer is yes, and especially if you have a spouse with a decent income, it could be a good move.

You also may want to consider the freelancing route. I have a grand total of less than 10 hours of freelancing experience, so I'm not a good one to comment. But there are several people on this forum who have done lots of freelancing, so you may want to hear from them.

[Ozinater]

I work at a relatively large FTU in Ontario, about 30 airplanes and a mix of leisure, self-paced students and professional students in the college & IATPL program. I'm about to upgrade to Class 3 which will put me at $30/hr ($5/hr higher than the Class 4 rate), which seems to be a pretty standard rate of pay for Class 3's at nearby schools (from what I've seen), plus or minus a couple dollars an hour. My pay is straight hourly, so given that I flew 400ish hours in the past year that puts me in the $10-12k range for annual salary. Some of my colleagues flew 600+ hours in the last year which would put you in the $15-20k range as a Class 3 or 4.

Class 2 will put me at an hourly rate just shy of $40/hr (that will hopefully be later this year - I'm inching closer to the requirements). From my understanding most of the local FTU's pay Class 1's $50/hr or more. Base salaries don't really seem to be a common thing for instructors around here unless you hold some sort of non-flying administrative or management position. Supervising a group of Class 4's, conducting ALPD's, signing off licences/ratings (TC authorized person), being the CASO or taking on some sort of training admin role to oversee a specific group of students (college, international etc) are all things that could get you a base salary, aside from being the CFI/ACFI.

I do like the flexibility in work-life balance that instructing affords. I set my own schedule, and if I only wanted to have two students and teach ground school most of the time, I could probably do that. Even with the downturn in aviation it doesn't seem like FTU's are any less busy (at least from what I've seen), I don't think anyone I work with is unable to find students. My schedule is pretty full right now, and I'm past the point of wanting to do 5 or 6 flights a day every day of the week like many of us did as Class 4's. It is nice being able to scale things back when you want to. The pay definitely leaves a lot to be desired starting out, but I guess everyone's situation is different. Quite a few of the more senior Class 1's don't really seem to be in instructing to fly all the time and make buckets of money - and their schedules reflect that. Being a recent university grad, I was already pretty accustomed to keeping my expenses on the lower side. I live in a relatively inexpensive city, own a car that gets me to work and back, don't have kids, don't make any large/extravagant purchases. I guess I made it work.

[Conflicting Traffic]

I'm about to upgrade to Class 3 which will put me at $30/hr ($5/hr higher than the Class 4 rate), which seems to be a pretty standard rate of pay for Class 3's at nearby schools (from what I've seen), plus or minus a couple dollars an hour. My pay is straight hourly, so given that I flew 400ish hours in the past year that puts me in the $10-12k range for annual salary.

Yikes. You don't get paid for ground time?

[RedAndWhiteBaron]

I know I’d be sacrificing a lot of future-earnings, being home every night and having the satisfaction of using my experience to help the new generation of pilots definitely seems intriguing. Aside from the paycheque and camaraderie of the crew, I’m not missing sitting hours in cruise on autopilot or that 36 hour layover in Regina or missing Christmas for the 5th year in a row. I've really been thinking of doing this for the past few years, and before I get the "golden handcuffs" from my 705 job, I'm trying to see if being a career instructor is financially feasible.

For what it's worth, I'll likely be starting CPL training this fall. You're exactly the kind of instructor I would be looking for.

[rookiepilot]

I know I’d be sacrificing a lot of future-earnings, being home every night and having the satisfaction of using my experience to help the new generation of pilots definitely seems intriguing. Aside from the paycheque and camaraderie of the crew, I’m not missing sitting hours in cruise on autopilot or that 36 hour layover in Regina or missing Christmas for the 5th year in a row. I've really been thinking of doing this for the past few years, and before I get the "golden handcuffs" from my 705 job, I'm trying to see if being a career instructor is financially feasible.

For what it's worth, I'll likely be starting CPL training this fall. You're exactly the kind of instructor I would be looking for.

I learned a lot from my CPL instructor who worked in a 704 outfit

[DHC-1 Jockey]

Thanks for all the great responses so far. Keep 'em coming! It's disheartening to see that the pay hasn't increased greatly over the past 10-15 years, and I guess I hoped it would have risen to more respectable levels given the quick progress from CPL right to the right seat of a turboprop or jet and skipping the traditional instructor path altogether.

I know there are better-paid instructors who are "faculty" at colleges (Sault, Confed, Seneca, etc) but I imagine those positions are few and far between and most instructors are just the standard hourly-rate type.

If the poor pay situation were rectified, I and I'm sure many other experienced pilots would love nothing more than to "return to our roots" and pass that knowledge on.

For what it's worth, I'll likely be starting CPL training this fall. You're exactly the kind of instructor I would be looking for.

Thanks for the kind words.

[Vico56]

Hi Jockey,

I am a flight instructor for KF Aerospace, we have a contract with the governement to train the RCAF students out of CYPG.

We fly the Grob120A, pretty nice little aircraft. When you start you are trained to be a TC aerobatic instructor and you undergo a training to be ''requalified'' to the specifics of military flight instruction.

Then you can start teaching phase 1 (basically from 0 hour to solo + some basic aerobatic). With some seniority (2-3 years at the moment), they train you to teach phase 2 (advanced aerobatic, low level navigation, IFR, and the treat, formation flying).

Pay is good for an instructor job, 63k$ when you are qualified phase1 instructor, climb to 91k$ phase 2 with 8 year seniority. On top of your instructor qualification, you can be a deputy-supervisor, supervisor, standards... etc and you earn more money.

You have a bonus for being bilingual (2.5k$) and performance bonus every 6 months (1.2/1.5k$).

Home every night, all your weekends off.

[DHC-1 Jockey]

I am a flight instructor for KF Aerospace, we have a contract with the governement to train the RCAF students out of CYPG.

Hi Vico56. I actually interviewed and was offered a job with Allied Wings back in 2008 and the very same day I was offered the right seat on a PC-12 to do charter work. I had to make a quick decision and chose the PC-12 and commercial route.

As far as instructing ab-initio students go, I imagine yours is probably one of the best outfits in the country... dedicated students who are pre-screened to be successful, varied types of flying and instruction as well as great pay and benefits.

I'm in SW Ontario, so unfortunately moving to YPG/YWG is out of the question lol.

[‘Bob’]

You’ll definitely need a sugar momma as a flight instructor. I only ever did it part time.

Ultimately I wound up moving up to 703/704 turboprop in a medium sized city during the shortage because it offered the best work life balance. Now that aviation has been decimated, almost all of our hires are ex-705, a few likely never to return.

[Bede]

I work contract for a 702/703/406 outfit while waiting for training (WEN-DH8) or recall (WJ-737). I'll probably defer as I'm enjoying flying more than I have in years. We pay all our new pilots (C206, C172, instructors) $42k for the first 6 months and $48k after that. Summer time pilots fly their bags off, winter time we find work for them so we're not laying off. It's a good gig for a brand new pilot.

On the side I do float ratings, extended type checkouts (for insurance requirements) and whatever else people want to learn that the FTU doesn't offer. I could make a living instructing freelance. I'm a class 1 instructor. I charge $90/hr.

[scdriver]

I'm about to upgrade to Class 3 which will put me at $30/hr ($5/hr higher than the Class 4 rate), which seems to be a pretty standard rate of pay for Class 3's at nearby schools (from what I've seen), plus or minus a couple dollars an hour. My pay is straight hourly, so given that I flew 400ish hours in the past year that puts me in the $10-12k range for annual salary.

Yikes. You don't get paid for ground time?

How the @#$! does a guy get by on $10k a year??? That’s insanity.

[ant_321]

I'm about to upgrade to Class 3 which will put me at $30/hr ($5/hr higher than the Class 4 rate), which seems to be a pretty standard rate of pay for Class 3's at nearby schools (from what I've seen), plus or minus a couple dollars an hour. My pay is straight hourly, so given that I flew 400ish hours in the past year that puts me in the $10-12k range for annual salary.

Yikes. You don't get paid for ground time?

How the @#$! does a guy get by on $10k a year??? That’s insanity.

I made $13k my first year instructing working 80-100+ hour weeks. I never ran out of money, I didn’t have time to spend it.

[Ozinater]

I'm about to upgrade to Class 3 which will put me at $30/hr ($5/hr higher than the Class 4 rate), which seems to be a pretty standard rate of pay for Class 3's at nearby schools (from what I've seen), plus or minus a couple dollars an hour. My pay is straight hourly, so given that I flew 400ish hours in the past year that puts me in the $10-12k range for annual salary.

Yikes. You don't get paid for ground time?

We do yeah. That was just a guestimate based on flight hours, with the ground time probably somewhere around $12-14k but I don't have the exact figure.

As I mentioned I'm pretty lean on overhead costs so it worked out fine. Seems like most people's first year of instructing can be pretty dismal pay-wise. Given that everything has been closed for the past 14 months there aren't a lot of things I've been spending money on anyhow.

[notwhoyouthinkIam]

Toronto and GTA, class 4 was $21-27 per hour 2-3 years ago

[scdriver]

Yikes. You don't get paid for ground time?

How the @#$! does a guy get by on $10k a year??? That’s insanity.

I made $13k my first year instructing working 80-100+ hour weeks. I never ran out of money, I didn’t have time to spend it.

That shouldn’t even be legal, I’m not even sure it is. Even in today’s market I think you’ve gotta be certifiable to work for that kinda money. But also what year was that? I’d challenge you to find literally any place in the country where $13k will get you rent, food, and other fixed expenses now. Sure if you live with your parents and they pay for all your shit you won’t run out of money. But for anybody else...
When people say instructing isn’t a real flying job I think that’s a little ignorant/harsh, but if you’re working for 1/3 of what the burger flippers at dons are making?! Yeah sorry, that’s not a real job. What a joke. The fact that flight schools are willing to let guys and gals work for that wage is disgusting

[Bede]

Shifty YVR flying school: we're happy to offer you a job as an instructor. The pay is $17/hr.
Me: how do people live on that wage in Vancouver?
Flying school: most of our pilots still live with their parents.
Me: thanks for the offer....

*actual conversation

[7ECA]

Shifty YVR flying school

If only that weren't actually so vague, because there's quite a few FTUs that merit that description operating in the Lower Mainland these days.

[scdriver]

Shifty YVR flying school: we're happy to offer you a job as an instructor. The pay is $17/hr.
Me: how do people live on that wage in Vancouver?
Flying school: most of our pilots still live with their parents.
Me: thanks for the offer....

*actual conversation

Yeah that’s bullshit. I could understand if it was $17/hr duty time, that would be low but still could scrape together enough for rent and food and what not. Just getting paid for flying time with an extra buck here and there for ground time is bullshit. Especially when a lot of these schools charge you up the ass for the ground time with instructors.

[Squaretail]

Shifty YVR flying school: we're happy to offer you a job as an instructor. The pay is $17/hr.
Me: how do people live on that wage in Vancouver?
Flying school: most of our pilots still live with their parents.
Me: thanks for the offer....

*actual conversation

That reminds me of the last time I renewed my class 1. When the local school owner found out, he asked if I would be interested in helping with their latest crop of instructor students. I asked how much he paid, and it got uncomfortable, he would have to get back to me. I think he was looking for a volunteer, like I was going to do a shift in soup kitchen or something.

As for instructing as a career, I don’t think I could go back to doing it on any sort of full time basis. The small bit of side work I do in the off season, and with new company hires is more than enough. Even doing it on the side has gotten bad, there is a part of my brain that thinks it’s going to be fun or derive some satisfaction from it or for the greater good of general aviation, but I generally end up regretting getting myself into it. Flight training has changed a lot since when I started doing it. The students and instructors have a different attitude towards it. I can’t put my finger on what it is.

But I think it has to just do with the passage of time. I saw a plane the other day that made me happy, then sad. Happy that it was still around, because when I think about it, lots of them aren’t anymore. But then I thought that the last time I flew that plane it was to teach one of my first students his license on it. But he was in his sixties then, must be eighties now with two decades intervening. Sad because it occurred to me he probably, like many others, wasn’t around anymore either.

[Bede]

Regency.

That was quite a few years ago but even back then I was making $25/hr as a class 2.

[ant_321]

How the @#$! does a guy get by on $10k a year??? That’s insanity.

I made $13k my first year instructing working 80-100+ hour weeks. I never ran out of money, I didn’t have time to spend it.

That shouldn’t even be legal, I’m not even sure it is. Even in today’s market I think you’ve gotta be certifiable to work for that kinda money. But also what year was that? I’d challenge you to find literally any place in the country where $13k will get you rent, food, and other fixed expenses now. Sure if you live with your parents and they pay for all your shit you won’t run out of money. But for anybody else...
When people say instructing isn’t a real flying job I think that’s a little ignorant/harsh, but if you’re working for 1/3 of what the burger flippers at dons are making?! Yeah sorry, that’s not a real job. What a joke. The fact that flight schools are willing to let guys and gals work for that wage is disgusting

2011 on the east coast. Many hours hanging out hoping for a sucker hole to pop open. I had a shitty two bedroom basement apartment with 2 roommates and a $800 car that sat in the driveway most of the time because I couldn’t afford to put gas in it.

[scdriver]

Regency.

That was quite a few years ago but even back then I was making $25/hr as a class 2.

$25/hr flight time or duty time?

[GoodGuy]

I saw a plane the other day that made me happy, then sad. Happy that it was still around, because when I think about it, lots of them aren’t anymore.

What kind of plane was it?

[Bede]

Regency.

That was quite a few years ago but even back then I was making $25/hr as a class 2.

$25/hr flight time or duty time?

Flight time & ground briefing. 1999-2000 in northern BC.