Freddie wrote me to ask:

Hi Paul. I have waited my entire life to finally get to this point where I am able to make flight teaching my one and only. My wife has taught high school for 25 years, and that helps a great deal so now I can devote my heart, soul and mind into becoming a CFI. I will not go any further up in the career ladder. My heart is set on the intimacy of teaching. So my question is, where would be a good start for me? Where would I be needed most? Ex: Hometown? Or when I finish will I be able to teach in one or multiple airports? Thank you.

Well first off, BRAVO!  That is awesome, and I am excited for you and the career choice that you have chosen.  I wish there were a lot more pilots and people like you who value general aviation flight instruction.

One of the interesting aspects about becoming a CFI is that once you are an instructor you automatically become a small business owner.  And as in any business, you now have products to sell.  The products are 1) Aviation and 2) Yourself.  As the owner of this business you also have complete control over the development of this business.  You can decide, How many clients do you want?  What flight training market do you want to develop? and Which sales region do you want to establish your business in?

As I travel around and talk to people, it seems the area hurting the most for good quality instructors is the smaller local hometown airports.  Instructors at these airports seem to be the ones most likely to be lost to either regional airlines, corporate outfits or larger flight schools at bigger airports.  A smaller airport also has a harder time providing enough demand to keep a instructor on the field “full time”, especially if the airport is located where flying weather is very seasonal. Because of these factors, these airports are the ones most hurt by pilot shortages and lower regional airline experience requirements.

My advice to you would be to grow your business at a local “hometown” flight school.  I mean, really take control of it from top to bottom.  Work hard to create new pilots and grow your business by word-of-mouth.  A good first step would be to create a PP ground school program, advertise it heavily locally (your investment) and bring in as many new student pilots to the airport.  A ground school is a cheap and easy way for people to try out aviation.  Try and get as many of your ground school students to flight train with you as well.  Once these students have passed the private pilot rides. Simply repeat and recycle this process again.  You’ll soon have more primary and secondary clients.  You’ll also have about as much flying and business than you can stand.

I know I’m simplifying things quite a bit but I’ve had some great success using this method.  It works really well enticing a lot of non-pilots out to the airport and keeping me busy for months until I was ready to start the next ground school.

I know I’ve mentioned this book before, but I really can’t say enough about, “The Savvy Flight Instructor” by Gregory Brown, if you want to learn how to approach flight instruction as a business endeavor.  So many pilots simply look at flight instruction as a career stepping stone and not as the business of selling and promoting aviation.

I wish you all the best in becomming a CFI.  If you have any questions about flight training or aviation, you know where to ask and as always…

Fly Safe!

Here’s the question Paul just sent me:

Special VFR at night requires, amongst other things, that the pilot be IFR-rated. But it strikes me that there is no requirement for the pilot to be IFR-current - is that true? Seems dangerous to me.

Well, Paul (great name by the way).  I agree with you that it would be VERY dangerous for any pilot who is not IFR current to operate under Special VFR at night.  Fortunatetly, I believe that the regulations do require that recent instrument flight experience be met as per 61.57.   Let’s look at the two requirements for Special VFR at night.

1) Pilot

According to 14 CFR 91.157 Special VFR operations at night (in airplanes) requires that “The person being granted the ATC clearance meets the applicable requirements for instrument flight under part 61 of this chapter.”

So let’s look at the instrument flight requirements under part 61 which, in summary says that in order to act as PIC of an aircraft on an instrument flight plan you must:

a) Hold an appropriate instrument rating on your pilot certificate and

b) Meet the recent instrument experience requirements of 61.57(c) (6 approaches, intercepting and tracking)

2) Airplane

The aircraft must be equipped for instrument flight as required by 91.205(d)

So…

Again, this is just my interpretation, but I do think that 91.157 is requiring that a pilot who receives an ATC clearance for Special VFR at night be fully IFR rated, equipped and current.  The reason being of course is that there is a greater chance at night of a Special VFR clearance turning into a full blown IFR flight plan.  If the FAA did not require the pilot to be instrument current, than they would have no provision for enforcement action when a pilot illegally operated on a IFR flight plan.

I hope this helps answer your question.  Thanks again for asking and always…

Fly Safe!

Here’s the question I received this morning from Jorge:

Hi could you please tell me if the alternator handles all of the electrical load?

It would have been easy to answer this question (yes) but I thought it would be fun to use a flash animation developed by MSAviation with some narration to demonstrate this point.  Here is your answer in full:

If you would like some more information about the flash animation used, or would like a copy of your own.  You can purchase aviation flash animations for pilots and flash animations for flight instructors using this link.  Aviation Flash Animations