Freelance instruction hookup website?

[Beefitarian]

There could be a problem with non-licensed. You will need to know them somehow, other wise how do you differenciate between Cat Driver and some scammer that types a good story to rip people off?

If just giving out your real name could stop scamming it wouldn't be so prevailant. Scammers are going to be well versed at providing "real names" to get people to send cheques. This could kill a site pretty quick, you might even end up in a liable position in the ever increasing "My lawyer's tougher than your lawyer" world we live in.

Sorry Cat don't get upset. There's just too many bad guys out there and they are not all TC employees.

[gaamin]

A few thoughts about registration on the website :
- no need to register to search / find an instructor
- need to register to be searchable (instructors... and why not students too?)
- moderation of all registration : each profile must be approved to be displayed

Approval process :
- send a copy of identification page + licence/rating page of the licence + last page of logbook, either digitally, regular mail, or show in person to one of the site's admin (so far the four of us are in CYPK, CYPG, CYOO)

What do you think?

Edit : as stated in some other posts, anyone who BS the website or is not good at what he does will be know very quickly through the comments. Adversely, a good instructor providing quality training will get himself a good reputation.

[Cat Driver]

For sure there will always be people who will try and scam the system by claiming they are what they are not.

However any pilot that is really above the average will be well known within at least his / her own region.

Asking enough questions regarding a pilots background and reputation usually sorts out the B.S.'ers from the good ones.

There is a golden opportunity for upgrade training out there that should keep a few free lancers quite busy.

It is to bad the Husky is so expensive to operate as it would be a good machine for doing some upgrade training on.

For starters how many flight instructors in the lower mainland could use some in depth training on a relatively squirelly tail wheel airplane so they are comfortable on something like a Citabria?

[looproll]

I'd be interested in putting my name in.

[Shiny Side Up]

I would suggest the following be required for an instructor to be listed:

Name
Telephone Number
Email Address
License #
Hourly Rate
Instructor Rating Held:
Instructor Since:
Types of aircraft flown w/ hours
Types of instruction w/ hours for each
Home Airport - No fee to show up to
Away Airports and there associated travel fees
TT
Hour Breakdown
Cover Letter to prospective student
Resume

And it might be a mistake to exclude people who are not licensed flight instructors.

Remember there is more profit in recommending pilots for lower insurance premiums than teaching basic PPL / CPL's.

That is assuming you can convince the underwriters you are acceptable...which is not a simple thing to accomplish.

One way to adress both of these issues is add "Type of training available" to each instructor's entry. Each instructor/trainer should have a short "bio" entry where they could add any commentary like what underwriters and stuff they are apporved by. Additionally the instructor's availability should be posted as well.

One might nix posting of rates on the website as well, if anything to keep the site out of the forewarned "race to the bottom". All rate negotiations could be nixed from the publicly viewable portion, any rate agreements being strictly between the instructor and student. This is also to keep the website out from being percieved as a middleman in said transaction where the money is involved.

[gaamin]

I share the idea of making it as simple as possible with you Shiny.

Filing the profile, there would be a few fields which are mandatory to fill or select via a drop-down menu, for example :

Name
Address (for proximity search purposes)
Email address
Phone number
Licence number (for verification purposes)
Class of instructor rating held
Class of aerobatic instructor rating held
Hours total time
Min-Max hourly rate

And then there would be a big open text field, with guidelines on what to put in there. This would include probably a small bio, the kind of experience the person had, the types flown, licences and ratings held, the hours of flight and ground instruction, and any details deemed useful.
Also in there would be the training offered, possibly with the expected hourly rate for each.
There would also be any applicable conditions/restriction, such as
- no ab initio except on tailwheel
- training only withing a XX KM radius around location XX
- X-hour minimum training sessions outside of location XX

The search engine would have both a bunch of dropdown menus and a plain text search, which should make things easy to use. In the end, the students finds himself with one list of not that many people, goes and read the page of each, and makes his choice.

Min-Max hourly rate should give a basic indication of what instructors expect for the variety of training they provide. There would be no negotiation possible ON the website which would serve only as a tool to connect the student and instructor.

[cdnpilot77]

I would also suggest to align with a company that offers a flight training syllabus online. This way registered members (not necessarily fee based registered members) can access that information through this website for a fee which can have a kickback to the site to help offset moderation costs.

[Cat Driver]

When doing insurance check rides one must understand that these flights are usually done for the insurance brokers.

Training done directly for an underwriter is an entirely different matter, how many Canadian instructors have worked directly for an underwriter?

Clarification of the two issues is important and should be understood if you are thinking of doing this type of flying.

**********************************************************

I hope you guys get this website up and running...

[Big Pistons Forever]

When doing insurance check rides one must understand that these flights are usually done for the insurance brokers.

Training done directly for an underwriter is an entirely different matter, how many Canadian instructors have worked directly for an underwriter?

I suggest you explain the differences for the information of those instructors who have not experienced them.

[Cat Driver]

Underwriters are the people who set the risk level and control the pool of money so to speak, there are not many of them and to the best of my knowledge all of them are located in Lloyds of London's office in London England.

Getting into their office is almost as difficult as getting into Fort Knox.

Insurance brokers are the companies who sell insurance, they are many brokers around the world.

My connection with the underwriters started through having met one that was a sponsor for a French TV project I flew for.

If you can get an underwriter to back a lower premium than normal based on your training program you can then make money.

For instance if the normal hull insurance costs 10% and you can get it lowered you can see it soon becomes quite valuable.

The last insurance policy I got for a client was 4% of hull value, based on the training program the pilots completed to the standard required.

It is really quite strait forward and logical.

Not to mention profitable.

[Av_Av]

It is really quite strait forward and logical.

Not to mention profitable.

Straightforward, logical. profitable: all very good. But is it accessible?

How do you get to have a sitdown with an underwriter? I would imagine that the brokers aren't much use for this.

[Cat Driver]

How do you get to have a sitdown with an underwriter? I would imagine that the brokers aren't much use for this.

My connection with the underwriters started through having met one that was a sponsor for a French TV project I flew for.

It all started when I left Canada, one good job just rolled into another, I guess luck or fate or whatever has a lot to do with it.

The message I am trying to get across here is if I could do it then so can others, I am not sure if I will ever fly for money again but I don't mind helping others to get ahead if they want my help

[cgartly]

I wonder what the standard hull value % is.

For example, I have a C172 insured for a group of 4 of us, a 1500 hr pilot, a 120 hr pilot, a 160 hr pilot and a 200 hr pilot. We carry 2 mil liability smooth and 80,000 hull. We pay 3% of the hull including the liability for insurance.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I wonder what the standard hull value % is.

For example, I have a C172 insured for a group of 4 of us, a 1500 hr pilot, a 120 hr pilot, a 160 hr pilot and a 200 hr pilot. We carry 2 mil liability smooth and 80,000 hull. We pay 3% of the hull including the liability for insurance.

That sounds about right as the 120 hr pilot set the rate for everybody. That being said your broker should have shopped around. When I renewed the insurance for my Grumman AA1B this year the broker gave me three quotes and the range from least costly to most costly was almost 20 % for essentially the same coverage.

As for taking directly to the under writer, that is basically never going to happen for your average GA aircraft coverage as there is not enough money in it to get the attention of the underwriter, and IMO is unnecessary if you have a competent broker.

[Cat Driver]

As for taking directly to the under writer, that is basically never going to happen for your average GA aircraft coverage as there is not enough money in it to get the attention of the underwriter

Yes, the above is correct in fact I would hazard a guess most pilots and insurance brokers have little if any direct communication with an individual underwriter.

It is also true that there is not much of a market for getting lower rates for privately owned and operated light airplanes.

However how many commercial operators get hull loss coverage at 3% of hull value?

I sure know how to get myself into issues that are in the end of no value to either me or most of the members of this group, don't I?

[DanDare]

I'm a newbie who doesn't have a PPL yet, so forgive me for asking what may be a stupid question.....

If the freelance instructor isn't going to provide a plane, why would I pay say, $120 an hour to rent a plane from an FTU and then pay him $50 an hour, when I can rent a plane and an instructor from a FTU, for the same price ($170)?....Or am I missing something?...

[gaamin]

This isn't a stupid question. The answers are consequences of CARs 406.03
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/r ... htm#406_03

A freelance instructor can only train you
- either in an aircraft listed on an Operators Certificate held by the instructor (who then can't train you towards a licence or permit)
- either in an aircraft obtained from a person who is at arm's length from the instructor (who then can't train you towards a licence or permit)
- either in an aircraft own by the company of which you're the director (in this case too the instructor can't train you towards a licence or permit)
- either in an aircraft that belongs to you or a member of your family

In your case, renting from the FTU and hiring an instructor outside of the FTU is not even an option.

Now, in the case of someone who doesn't own an aircraft but already has a license or permit, the idea is to help that person get quality instruction from an experienced person. There are good instructors at FTUs, but perhaps not able to provide the specific instruction a person desires. Such a person is usually happy to pay a certain price to get what they want, and for them convenience comes after quality.
In order to train on the aircraft from an FTU, the easiest would be to have the instructor be listed as one working for the FTU, even if occasionally, and perhaps the student would have to pay more than $50/hr for that.
If not :
- can an aircraft belonging to the FTU be listed on the instructor's Operators Certificate?
- can the FTU be considered "at arm's length" from the instructor?
I think in both cases the answer would be NO, but I haven't had to deal with such a case, so I'll have to dig the CARs some more to give a definite answer.

[DanDare]

Thanks! I understand now that the thread is referring to freelance instructors providing a service for pilots who'd like to gain knowledge/experience in more advanced aviation procedures.

According to the existing regulations quoted above, TC seem to be trying to cover all the bases, in order to prevent an entrepreunerial instructor who owns his own plane from training other people in it. So I'd imagine if someone did manage to find a loophole in the CAR's or elsewhere, which actually allowed this, TC would immediately revise the regulations to prevent it, or prevent the "training" received from counting towards any endorsement or upgrade? No?

[Cat Driver]

406.03 (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), no person shall operate a flight training service in Canada using an aeroplane or helicopter in Canada unless the person holds a flight training unit operator certificate that authorizes the person to operate the service and complies with the conditions and operations specifications set out in the certificate.
(amended 2003/06/01; previous version)

(2) A person who does not hold a flight training unit operator certificate may operate a flight training service if

(a) the person holds a private operator certificate or an air operator certificate, the aircraft used for training is specified in the private operator certificate or air operator certificate, and the training is other than toward obtaining a pilot permit - recreational, a private pilot licence, a commercial pilot licence or a flight instructor rating; or
(b) the trainee is

(i) the owner, or a member of the family of the owner, of the aircraft used for training,
(ii) a director of a corporation that owns the aircraft used for training, and the training is other than toward obtaining a pilot permit - recreational or a private pilot licence, or

(iii) using an aircraft that has been obtained from a person who is at arm’s length from the flight instructor, and the training is other than toward obtaining a pilot permit - recreational or a private pilot licence.
(amended 2003/06/01;

[DanDare]

So the only loophole is that the trainee has to own the plane, or be related to the person who does. I guess we'll now see a bunch of very ambitious young pilots desperately seeking a wife whose family owns a suitable plane? ....

[gaamin]

Note that the restrictions are different as to what training can be done :
2_a : no RPP, no PPL, no CPL, no FIR
2_b_1 : no restriction
2_b_2 and 2_b_3 : no RPP, no PPL

If you buy your own little aircraft, do your training at a fast pace, then resell the aircraft if you want to, it might very well be less expensive than going at an FTU, depending on your maintenance costs. Some spouses are high-maintenance too.

[DanDare]

"...Some spouses are high-maintenance too."

Yes indeed. And from what I understand, there's an EXTREMELY limited possibility of recovering any of your initial investment, when the ex-spouse has moved on. In fact, I believe that in many cases you continue to pay maintenance for many years although pleasure trips are entirely eliminated.

[Jerz]

The freelancing is all great , as long as nobody files a complain with TC. If that happens, they have no choice, but to investigate. Then they will make your life very unpleasant.
Having your name on a web site like that will be viewed as advertising an illegal FTU.

[Cat Driver]

Having your name on a web site like that will be viewed as advertising an illegal FTU.

Only if you are training not in accordance with the CAR's.

The freelancing is all great , as long as nobody files a complain with TC. If that happens, they have no choice, but to investigate. Then they will make your life very unpleasant.

If they make your life unpleasant and you are within the rules you can charge them with harassment and believe me they back off real fast.

[Shiny Side Up]

The freelancing is all great , as long as nobody files a complain with TC. If that happens, they have no choice, but to investigate. Then they will make your life very unpleasant.

They can make your life unpleasant if someone complains about you whether you're freelancing or not. Either way, I would encourage all instructors, freelance or otherwise, to try and follow hedley's one aviation safety guideline as best as they can.

Having your name on a web site like that will be viewed as advertising an illegal FTU.

Not any more than this website is an illegal FTU because there are instructors posting their availability for work in the "hire me" section.