glider instructors in the US

Hello Zoltan,

You might also look into pipeline patrol.Â* These folks fly low level
along gas and oil pipelines looking for evidence of leaks.Â* That might
be a lot of fun in the beginning but it might get old in a hurry.

Good luck in your endeavors!

Dan

On 9/13/2020 7:39 AM, Zoltán Lengyel wrote:
If you want to earn a living (as opposed to part-time employment) as a flight instructor in the US you will have to do most of your instructing in power planes. You can do that year-around. There a few commercial glider operations that operate nearly year-around like Seminole Lake, but your options would be much better if you did both power and glider. If you are a glider-only instructor (CFIG) I would stay in Europe.

Tom
Dear Lynn, Charlie, and Tom - a big thankyou for your informative and kind answers, they're all helpful! If everything goes as planned, soon (this fall) I'll have my "CFIG" (which is FI (S) in Europe/EASA ) extended to TMG (touring motorglider) instructor which I also fly, and then the next step will be a PPL refresher training (something like 6-8-10 hours - I used to fly the 210PS Zlin Z-142, but lately only on gliders and motorgliders). A motorglider is basically a more simple piston plane, in which you can cut the engine and continue with soaring - and in case of an engine failure you have about twice as much time and distance to find a suitable field for emergency landing.

The idea would be to find a place (basically anywhere in the US) where I could start working as a glider and motorglider instructor (and be paid for that), and then make a Sea Rating (maybe in Florida? I already know Clearwaterseaplanes from there; but there might be other places, too), and then additional ratings (IFR, multiengine, AG etc, backcountry /"bush" flying; covering the training costs with my work) - and I'd be absolutely fine sleeping in a motorhome or caravan at the airfield.

In fact I already contacted SSA.org, to find out WHERE they might need glider/motorglider instructors, but, although they absolutely kindly and helpfully responded, too, they said they didn't have information about this, so I should try this mailing list. Which - tadaaaa - already seems to have taken me a half step forward . This whole idea/plan is not for next week anyway, so to speak (and we'll see how this pandemic situation goes), but for next spring/summer or so I could already imagine doing it. (OR, if there's a more urgent need somewhere, we can certainly talk about it sooner.) It's also important to mention that under Part 61 I'm close to being eligible for a CPL, but I'm not really interested in ATPL and big airliners, I'd like to stick with doing instructions, mosquito/cropdusting, and firefighting would be also a "very cool" challenge later on.

So, apart from continuing our conversation in this mailing list here (later on maybe other nice folks will also see this conversation and join in), do you have any hints as to how I could find those places where they'd pay a glider/motorglider instructor ? (It could be also/partly "in kind", like providing accomodation and my further flight trainings.)

Thank you once again, and if you need to know anything about european things, you're absolutely welcome to ask (I'll do my best to answer), either publicly here, or in private (as you prefer).

Best regards ,
Zoltan (a.k.a. "Rocker")







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Dan, 5J