Wednesday, April 6, 2011

DB Cooper - CFI?

Next week I start the CFI school at American Flyers.  I admit to being nervous - there will be a lot to learn, and most of the rest of my classmates will be right out of college.  Will I be able to re-learn how to study? Fortunately, I have never stopped learning, having changed careers several times and learning new networking technologies every few years.

AF does a 4 week "crash course" for wanna-be flight instructors.  Their price is extremely reasonable - $2995 for both the CFI-Airplane and CFI-Instruments certificates, which includes 10 hours of flying for each, as well as all the ground school and exams.  20 hours of complex/HP rental time alone would add up to that amount, so essentially the classroom and exams are free.

Why does AF do this?  They tell me that they need to keep a pipeline of instructors going, as their senior instructors are often building time until they can get an airline of corporate flying job.  So they see the CFI course as a way to do an extended interview of a class of potential instructors, and to hire the best, already trained in the AF way.

As I'm also starting to be transitioned into my own complex/HP V35A Bonanza, there is a lot of learning and flying for me over the next few weeks, hopefully with a fair amount of learning applicable to both.  By July, I'll be able to fly my own aircraft with passengers, and also be a certified FAA instructor for both airplanes and instruments.

Multi-engine next.........

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