Hourly rate.

[Cat Driver]

It is a slow day for me, I am bored with working in my shop so was surfing this site.

I have a question.

What is the minimum hourly rate you will accept for free lance instructing on light single engine airplanes?

It has been some time since I did that kind of training and I have sort of lost track of what the charge should be.

For sure it I would not even consider less than $100.00 per flight hour.

Any thoughts on this?

[gustind]

Keeping in mind age and experience, 50 per hour.

[Lurch]

$70/hour, two hour minimum.

$300/day + expenses and $75/day per diem for all out of town training

Lurch

[Lurch]

I highly doubt you'll have any trouble charging $100/hour. I have discussed charging this to my students and haven't had much negative feed back.

[Class 1 Instructor]

I charge $50 to $75/hr, but I should probably charge more......

[Colonel Sanders]

I like $500/day, esp if it's unique or advanced stuff.

If you can find someone else to teach you to fly a
warbird, or a jet, or formation aerobatics at low altitude,
that's cheaper or closer than me, go for it.

The best costs more: www.pittspecials.com/articles.html

[trey kule]

I dont do any training that requires an instructor's rating, but I do some speciality training.

I charge by the lesson..When I figured it all out , it takes about three hours of my time which includes, my planning, pre flight briefing, 1.3 flight time, post flight briefing, and paperwork at the end. A flat $250 per lesson. I do allow four hours so it is not rushed and enjoy coffee if we finish early, and do a bit of hangar flying as sometimes that is where the best learning comes in to play..I also get pimped out by my company to do some training for other companies..the rate they are charging other companies is astronomical.
And two lessons a day max...I am old and my ability to tolerate the stress of almost certain death flying with a student pilot is limited. Instructors that are flying 5 or 6 hours a day are not doing their students any favors..(x country work excepted).Rushing through the lesson, flying on caffeine (been there, done that, and apologies once again to all the poor sods who had me for an instructor back then

The problem is , from the student's standpoint. Are they getting a better learning experience when they pay more, or are they vicitims of someone's success at self promotion? If someone keeps telling the world that they are the best, some people will believe them and pay a premium price. On the other hand, working out a deal behind the hangar with a local FTU insturctor may sound cheap, but get you very poor quality instruction..No instructor planning for the flight...Just jump in and fly...The fun part. Hop out, say great flight, and off to the next. As a free lancer you are taking on all the duties and responsabilities of an FTU.
It is a dilema for students.. I think before anyone should pay a premium price they should do a little research on their future instructor...Not just ask students if they liked them..Ask how much time they spent doing pre flight work..How was the paperwork. How many hours did it take you to complete the training..How much did it cost you...Questions where the answer cannot be couched by emotions as much as possible. Taking someone's word they are the best instructor is a mistake, as you wont find many instructors, I dont think, who will tell you they are just not all that good at it.

[Lurch]

A big +1 to Trey's post

If you go into Freelance instruction thinking you can have the same 2 hour back to back schedule as you did at the flight school you'll be out of business very quickly.

Lurch

[Cat Driver]

This is going in the right direction and could evolve into something worth while.

Trey brought up something very important and that is how does a student determine the quality of a teacher.

Maybe the time has come to start a franchise for free lance teachers.

To belong to the franchise one would have to qualify by meeting set standards.

There you go trey, you have been around long enough to know how to set up such a franchise and run it.

You will eventually return to Canada sooner or later and this might be right up your alley......

.....I would do it except I am getting to fu.kin old to start a new venture.
When you get it all set up I will apply as a teacher of such skills as off airport flying and such.

[trey kule]

I never really gave it much thought, and you are never to old to do it. When I hang up the spurs here, I dont want to be responsable for anyone other than myself and the student I am flying with. Quality contol, so to speak, might be an issue for any type of national organization. The off airport, aerobatic, float stuff is pretty limited in Canada so I dont think there is much need for any organization. Reputation is probably a better way. Besides, off airport flying now is getting more and more limited.. Places where we used to land on the main street of a village are now serviced by all weather , lighted airports. Those days were a hoot, but are gone now. The companies that still do this in Canada tend to have very good internal training departments. One day, not so many years ago the wind was particularily nasty at our destination, and I briefed the landing on the road which used to be the original runway.My FO went into major canipitions. The mere thought of attempting a landing onto 7000 feet of perfectly flat gravel road scared the heck out of him. Not that he wanted to try a 45kt 90 degree crosswind landing as an alternative..Time to go to the alternate. And in this modern envirorment if your 300 FO says they are uncomfotable , we must go to the alternate..
And yet they would put me in jail for slapping him in the head.

Personally, I like doing ab initio training. I get a big charge out of watching someone learn how to fly and share their enjoyment of the world of aviation before the innocence meets the reality. Which means I will probably bite the bullet and renew my instructor's rating when the time comes, and hopefully find an FTU who will let me hang around .

There is also the problem with flying in student owned aircraft.. sometimesthey are not quite up to snuff, and many pilots simply do not understand the importance of some things. For example an U/s turn co ordinator or an altimeter or VOR that is just a "bit" out of tolerances..They want to spend any money on moving maps and $400 sun visors.

The bottom line here is that any student planning on hiring a free lance insturctor needs to be able to properly assess their potential instructor and make a decision on whether they are getting value.
Cheap doesnt necessarily mean lower cost in the long run, and expensive does not guarantee quality.
But lets face it..The same goes with FTU prices..How many FTUs discount the instructor costs when you are being trained by a class 4. Or pay for the pre solo, pre x country flight that need to be done as the class 4 can not sign the student off. Quality is very hard to discern.
You do not always get what you pay for, and there probably is some really good deals out there.

I am just glad to see instructors not willing to work for almost nothing..Maybe there is hope.

[Class 1 Instructor]

The bottom line here is that any student planning on hiring a free lance instructor needs to be able to properly assess their potential instructor and make a decision on whether they are getting value.
Cheap doesn't necessarily mean lower cost in the long run, and expensive does not guarantee quality.

The above is a pretty fair distillation of the issue. Anyone who wants to get flight instruction freelance, or at an FTU for that matter, need to do their homework. As someone who does a fair amount of freelance instruction I encourage prospective students talk to my previous students and other pilots at my home airport. I am not interested in touting my wonderfulness on Avcanada or similar anonymous fora, but have I think, a good reputation in my neck of the woods, which is the only opinion that matters.

Anybody who does much instruction will soon have a rep, good or bad at his/her local airport and a bit of asking around will soon elicit opinions on how good, or not, they are.....

[JohnnyHotRocks]

$15-$20....need to build some time!!

[trey kule]

$15-$20....need to build some time!!

I dont care what your fellow pilots say about you, I dont think you will have to pay your students that much to have them agree to fly with you..

[digits_]

I might be out of place here, but I really have to ask...

Why would students choose for a freelance instructor that charges 2 or 4 times the amount charged in a flying school ? Experience is worth something, of course, but I presume that flying schools also have at least some experienced instructors working for them, no ? In Europe, part time or freelance instructing is also very common, but there, the hourly wage the instructor charges is usually slightly less than that of a flying school, but of course, he doesn't have to pay commission to a school for that. So what justifies the big difference in the above posts ?

Also, is it really that important that an instructor with 10k of aerobatics or fighter jet experience is sitting in the right seat when a beginning pilot, who can't even fly straight and level , takes his first lesson ?

I understand you can charge "whatever you want" if you have a specific skill set or experience on some special plane, an by all means, do so if you can, good for those people, hopefully I can be one of them those days. But in that case, is the price setting not more determined by the market situation instead of being related to ones skill ?

Just wondering! I really appreciate all the interesting (and for some 'sensitive') information from the experienced instructors.

[Beefitarian]

I'm with digits here. I would need a sample lesson @ the regional standard $60/hour. Once I realise how much better I am at flying after that baby I might be ready to cough up the $100/hour.

The fact I'm a terrible student does not matter. The onus is on you to convince me of the value.

[Lurch]

On the PPL level maybe it wouldn't make a difference, I haven't done a PPL now for 5 years.

What freelance instructors bring over Flight school instructors is a flexible schedule and you're not on a assembly line of students on a 2 hour slot. But mostly experience outside of the circuit and practise area.

You go and buy a plane who would you hire to check you out, a flight school instructor who has never flown the plane before or a freelance instructor who has hundreds of hours on type?

You want to get your IFR, do you hire the instructor that has never flown in a cloud or the guy who has 1000s of hours flying IFR?

With experience comes a price if you want it you are going to have to pay for it.

When I started freelancing my rates were below that of the flight schools but over the years I keep increasing my rates and students continue to pay so I must be doing something they find is worth the added price.

Lurch

[Lurch]

Just came across another thread and it shows what I mean by "Paying for experience"

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... =3&t=86391

Most of the posters are instructors, read the replies by the posters in this thread and then then the other thread. Now tell me who you'd pay $100/hour for and who you wouldn't. After reading the one users posts I wouldn't pay $10/hour for training from them.

Lurch

[Colonel Sanders]

$100/hour

That's cheap, depending upon the circumstances.

Let's say you own an expensive taildragger. 5 hours
of dual at $200/hr is only $1000 - that won't even cover
your first insurance premium, yet with the right instructor,
it will avoid any very expensive hull claims.

Cheap at twice the price.

A friend of mine wrecked a P-51. Repair was over a
million bucks and took years. And you think $100 an
hour is expensive?! Try paying for an accident like a
simple groundloop, where the prop, engine, wing and
landing gear are pooched. You might even twist the
fuselage.

A million bucks for a repair, and you guys are sweating
$100

[photofly]

yet with the right instructor,
it will avoid any very expensive hull claims.

That arithmetic only works if you're absolutely that sure paying the extra $100 would have prevented the $1m repair bill. Otherwise the choice is between total costs of $1,000,000 and $1,000,100. In which case the former is a better bargain. How do you obtain that a priori certainty, and how do you sell it to a student?



I'm interested in this idea of a franchise. I'd like to know how feedback from students is going to figure into the calculations. Do any of the more cocksure instructors solicit formal feedback? It's all the rage these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-degree_feedback

[Cat Driver]

That's cheap, depending upon the circumstances.

You and I both know that colonel but I did not want to ruin my thread with sticker shock.

When I retired I tried to make sure I flew two hours and twenty minutes a day so I could make $1000.00 a day Canadian.

My rate was 250 Euro per flight hour plus all expenses.

Seeing as I post using my true identity I would hardly make an untrue statement here.

[Colonel Sanders]

You don't need to fly a P-51 to find real value in
expert instruction. Before the Retail Season, I
was ferrying about a Maule M7-235C. It was listed
at Cdn$125,000 or thereabouts.

A landing accident with that Maule (typical) would
trash the prop, engine, probably the landing gear,
and if you really screw the pooch, drag a wing.

That might cost around $100,000 to fix, and you
would probably lose the use of the aircraft for a
year, which needs to be accounted for! The insurance
company would NOT hand you a cheque for the
full hull value, because they can repair it more
economically.

So after not having an airplane for a year, you
get one back with damage history that might or
might not land straight.

Five hours at $200 per hour - a lousy thousand
bucks - for expert flight instruction that stops you
from doing that, is cheap at twice the price.

This really isn't that hard to comprehend.

If you want to save a few bucks and get a class 4
instructor from the FTU that can't fly tailwheel to
check you out, by all means do so! Please film it
for youtube, though.

how do you sell it to a student?

I'm not trying to sell anything. Every day I spend
flight instructing instead of writing software is less
money in my pocket.

[Cat Driver]

Ahhh Colonel there will be a group here who will only consider your post to be self serving...mainly because they are not qualified to do that type of training

[photofly]

Five hours at $200 per hour - a lousy thousand
bucks - for expert flight instruction that stops you
from doing that, is cheap at twice the price.

I agree. Here's a guy who advertises a statistic that, if correct, indicates training with him gives you a statistically better chance of avoiding an accident.

More than 1600 pilots attended this course and have a 100% NO ACCIDENT rate.

Can you tell me for sure that the accident rate amongst pilots who have five hours instruction at $200 per hour is reduced? Colonel, to be sure, it's absolutely not a personal question aimed at you specifically. And there isn't anything on your website that makes such a claim. I'm just saying that if someone - anyone - claims that their instruction reduces the accident rate relative to someone else's (presumably cheaper) instruction, shouldn't they be able to show it?

I'm not trying to sell anything. Every day I spend
flight instructing instead of writing software is less
money in my pocket.

I realise that. The question isn't aimed at you personally.

[Cat Driver]

I'm just saying that if someone - anyone - claims that their instruction reduces the accident rate compared to someone else's (presumably cheaper) instruction, they should be able to show it.

For years I did training for lower rates from the insurance underwriters in London.

In every case those who passed the training course were insured at the lowest rate that the underwriters offered.

To the best of my knowledge none of my clients ever had an accident or insurance claim.

Is that claim good enough for you photofly?

[photofly]

For years I did training for lower rates from the insurance underwriters in London.

In every case those who passed the training course were insured at the lowest rate that the underwriters offered.

It's a start. But to form a fair judgement of your training vs. others, one would have to know whether and how other training courses had been assessed by the same underwriters.

To the best of my knowledge none of my clients ever had an accident or insurance claim.

Is that claim good enough for you photofly?

That bit, not so much. Not unless you've actively canvassed all of your former clients and had a reply from all of them.