req: CFI job advice

"Other shops will dress you down if you bring the plane back 1/2 hour after
the time you booked it to be back."

1/2 hour late and they chew you out? LOL. Back in the late 60's when I was a
student at Zahn's (Amityville, NY), I would spend over 1 hour on a Sunday,
waiting for my 11AM "appointment" to show up. And you couldn't reserve a
particluar Cherokee 140, or J-3. You took what you got . : (

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Aug 30, 12:56 pm, "El Maximo" wrote:
"Gattman" wrote in message

...



Those were the exact sorts of tips I was looking for. Thanks!

One more note. Go ask a few of the CFIs how many hours they REALLY get
paid
for. Being the skeptic that I am, I wouldn't believe the owner who says
that
the CFIs fly 40 hours per week. That means the planes are in for 100
hour
inspections every 2 and a half week.

What is a pay-hour? An hour that you are there, or an hour that's
billed?

I have never heard of an FBO paying CFIs for the hours you are there.
You get paid a percentage of the hours that are billed directly as
your hours. If you bill the customer for 1 hour of ground you get paid
for 1 hour, if you call it 1/2 hour since you were talking about
Hooters part of the time, you get paid 1/2 hour. A lot of CFIs are
afraid to charge for the hours (especially ground ) that they work.
BTW: Some FBOs are easier to work with than others. FBOs that don't
tightly run the show often have situations where the previous CFI is
1/2 hour late returning the plane so you lose a 1/2 hour of pay. Other
shops will dress you down if you bring the plane back 1/2 hour after
the time you booked it to be back.

-Robert, CFII

On Aug 30, 2:49 pm, "tom418" wrote:
"Other shops will dress you down if you bring the plane back 1/2 hour after
the time you booked it to be back."

1/2 hour late and they chew you out? LOL. Back in the late 60's when I was a
student at Zahn's (Amityville, NY), I would spend over 1 hour on a Sunday,
waiting for my 11AM "appointment" to show up. And you couldn't reserve a
particluar Cherokee 140, or J-3. You took what you got . : (


Yea, but when you're a CFI who drove down to the airport to fly with
your student and you end up sitting around for 1/2 hour waiting for
the airplane, you develop little sympathy for those who return planes
late.

-Robert

BTW: Most FBOs require that you carry your own liability insurance.
That can be an additional expense and something you want to ask about.

On Aug 30, 12:56 pm, "El Maximo" wrote:
"Gattman" wrote in message

...



Those were the exact sorts of tips I was looking for. Thanks!

One more note. Go ask a few of the CFIs how many hours they REALLY get paid
for. Being the skeptic that I am, I wouldn't believe the owner who says that
the CFIs fly 40 hours per week. That means the planes are in for 100 hour
inspections every 2 and a half week.

What is a pay-hour? An hour that you are there, or an hour that's billed?

Bingo. I always hear CFI's brag about flying 120+ hours a month, but I
seriously doubt that. Where I work, the weather is VFR just about 350
days a year. There hasn't been a weather related cancellation since
about February. That said, I hardly ever see 80 hours a week, a bit
more if you count in ground school and simulator hours. I work just
about 7 days a week, and I barely have time to sit down and catch my
breath. Its not uncommon I start at 8AM and end at 8PM (or later) with
only 5 or 6 hours of actual billed hours.

For instance, yesterday I was going to do a night flight. When me and
my student got there, the plane wasn't fueled up, so I had to walk
over to the hanger, start up the fuel truck, drive over to the ramp
and put fuel in. As I'm doing that, the student preflights. We get it
started, taxi up to the ramp, and the left mag is running way rough.
So we taxi back. I go inside, get another plane and start the whole
process all over again, with the fuel truck and all. Then when we got
to our destination, we had to fuel up again, which is off the Hobbs as
well.

All said and done, the 4 hour flight ended up taking 6 hours to
complete. Thats fairly typical. I guess if you freelance, you can
charge the student for all that time, but if you're freelance, you're
going to have to deal with a lot more "back scene" stuff anyways...
Just something to think about.

buttman wrote:
That said, I hardly ever see 80 hours a week, a bit
more if you count in ground school and simulator hours.

That's pretty good for time building. I do have one question for you though.

Do your students know that you are known as "buttman" on USENET?

On Aug 30, 2:09 pm, "Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net
wrote:
buttman wrote:
That said, I hardly ever see 80 hours a week, a bit
more if you count in ground school and simulator hours.

That's pretty good for time building. I do have one question for you though.

Do your students know that you are known as "buttman" on USENET?

I don't think they would care.

And I meant 80 hours a month, not week. So far in the month of August,
I've logged 78.1 hours which is the most I've ever logged for one
month. In July I logged 50.1, but I ended up working more, due to all
the simulator time I had to do.

On Aug 30, 1:24 pm, buttman wrote:

All said and done, the 4 hour flight ended up taking 6 hours to
complete. Thats fairly typical.

Yes, totally! That is a very good description of a CFI's life. The
other problem is when a student schedules you and the airplane for 4pm
and then shows up at 4pm, then grabs the book, drives out the plane,
preflights, orders fuel, etc and 45 minutes later your clock starts.
Most pre-private students go into a rage if you try to charge them
while they preflight and you drink coffee in the office, but the truth
is, you can't do anything else with that time and they booked you.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ps.com...

The other problem is when a student schedules you and the airplane for 4pm
and then shows up at 4pm, then grabs the book, drives out the plane,
preflights, orders fuel, etc and 45 minutes later your clock starts.
Most pre-private students go into a rage if you try to charge them
while they preflight and you drink coffee in the office, but the truth
is, you can't do anything else with that time and they booked you.

Ohhh, man... I guess owe my CFI an apology. I always thought that was what
I was -supposed- to do. On the flipside, I've never had a problem
preflighting and hanging out while she finished up a previous lesson, so
hopefully she doesn't completely hate me.


-c

Robert M. Gary wrote:

Most pre-private students go into a rage if you try to charge them
while they preflight and you drink coffee in the office, but the truth
is, you can't do anything else with that time and they booked you.

My private instructor explained on day one that non-flying time would be
billed as "ground instruction" to fill the difference between the Hobbs
and day clock. Students are instructed that preflighting, fueling,
finding a pencil, draining the lizard, etc... are done before the lesson
is scheduled to start. In other words, you are paying for the block you
booked, it's up to you to use it.

Since all of this was laid out so clearly in writing, I've never heard
of anyone arguing about it. As a PP student, I was always ready to go
10 minutes or so before lesson start, except once. That one time, they
cut me some slack and didn't bill me for time I wasn't being instructed.


On the other hand, my instrument instructor was a free lancer (the same
guy as my PP, now self-employed) who I met at commuter parking lots via
car, or various airports for lessons. I'd drive and get ground
instruction for free. G Another time, I picked him up from an island
and flew him to his home base, so he could retrieve his plane and fly it
back to the island. I did the portions with him under the hood and in
some actual, flew IFR approaches, etc... for the cost of my gas.