Is 50 Hrs Decent for the First Month Instructing?

[ready2fly]

I tallied my flight hours for my first month instructing (which actually will "end" November 5th) and I have just under 50 hours for my first month of "full-time" instructing.

Is that pretty standard? Low? High?

What did ya'll do your first month?

[Stone Cold]

We need more information to answer those questions...have you been living at the airport? Have you taken any days off? How busy is your school? Do you feel like you've been flying a ton?

I started as a part-time instructor and my busiest month was 40 hours (50 billable)...that's taking some vacation time from the full time job and living at the airport all my time off.

To answer your question, yes, it's about right for your first month, depending on the size of the school. This month is my first month full-time flight instructing at a new school and I have logged 12 hours in 6 days of "working", so I am off to a good start.

The main points are: are you happy where you are? Are you getting paid more than $10/hour (not gonna pay all the bills but you knew that going in and planned, right? )? Are you getting to your next goal in life? If you answer all three yes, then you're doing great!

Just my opinions, take for what they're worth.

[averyrm]

I'll let you know in a month!

[Josh]

Seems about right, if you are at the airport most days for the month.

I've been in the 50-60/month for the last 6 months or whatever. Doesn't seem to change much now, even though we had a couple of freak days with rain (usually don't get any sort of non-fair weather here until Jan/Feb) in my area. We are not really all that busy, and I certainly could do more. 90% of my time is prescheduled, the rest is stuff that I may pick up from being around the airport already.

[ready2fly]

[ QUOTE ]
We need more information to answer those questions...have you been living at the airport? Have you taken any days off? How busy is your school? Do you feel like you've been flying a ton?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes - I've pretty much been "living" at the airport. I've taken three days off in the past month. Our school has 9 planes, employees three full-time instructors, 5 part-time and all schedules stay fairly full.

I don't feel like I've been flying a "ton" though. I do spend (sometimes) two or more days in a row sitting here watching other pilots fly.

[ QUOTE ]
The main points are: are you happy where you are?

[/ QUOTE ]
Absolutely. After 12 years being stuck in an office - this is paradise!

[ QUOTE ]
Are you getting paid more than $10/hour (not gonna pay all the bills but you knew that going in and planned, right? )?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup. Substantially more than that.

[ QUOTE ]
Are you getting to your next goal in life?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup.

[ QUOTE ]
If you answer all three yes, then you're doing great!

Just my opinions, take for what they're worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

And thanks for the reply! Greatly appreciate it.

However, I'm not worried or concerned. Just kind of getting an idea of what others experienced.

Thanks again for the reply.

R2F

[Stone Cold]

Sorry about that, RTF, not trying to sound like I was lecturing you or anything. Glad to hear all is going good for you.

tx

[CapnJim]

50 hours for the first month sounds great to me!

Keep up the hard work, and congratulations!!

See you at the majors

[E_Dawg]

My first month as a cfi I think I did about 5 hours! No joke... last month I still only did around 50... though I definately did not live at the airport.

[EatSleepFly]

During my first nine months of full-time instructing, I did live at the airport (seriously, over 55 hours in the office a week) and I averaged only 50-60 hours a month.

[CaptChris]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll let you know in a month!

[/ QUOTE ].

Ryan,
Did you end up getting a job? If so, where? You enjoying it?
Oh well man, hope you had good luck---looks like I'll have my 1st CFI job at 16G after the holidays! Did Brad offer you anything after your ride?

Hope everythings going well man!

Chris

[ready2fly]

Thanks everyone! It's picking up slowly. I now have one IR student and one PPL student and several other folks that I simply "fly with" (students of other instructors).

I can foresee not being able to take on any more students in a few months. I hope.

[Baronman]

50 hours for your first month is AWESOME!

I think my first month I got somewhere around 10-20hrs. I had to endure many student cancelations, as well as aircraft being unavailable. In fact, this went on for about 3 months.

During winter in the northeast 50hrs/month would be very respectable considering the weather.

Good job

[ready2fly]

THANKS!

Update: Things have picked up considerably. I flew just over 21 hours this past WEEK and my schedule for this week is filling up fast!

Gotta admit - I wasn't sure if I'd dig instructing too much, but I absolutely LOVE it!!! The saying "I learn something new every day" is TRUE! It's amazing how much you learn!

[pilot602]

You suck!

Actually, I started Sept. 1 and so far I've logged a total of 78 hours but a good portion of that (31.9) is in the Apache. So I'm averaging about 18.4 payed hours per month. Which my goal was to replace the 20 hours or so a month I used to fly in the apache so I hit that mark ... now I just need to increase the payed time.

But 50 hours is pretty dammned good! Keep up whatever it is your doing.

[ready2fly]

Thanks bro! Looks like it's about to pick up. I inherited three students from one of our instructors who is moving on to Xjet and then picked up another guy who owns a Skymaster, but isn't multi rated, so I'm going to get that done for him.

Got a VERY part-time gig as the switch-bitch in the right seat of a King Air 100 that does on-demand charter. Since it's not two-pilot certified and I'm not 135 qualified, I can't log PIC for anything but the dead-legs.... and that's IF I get to do any of the flying.... but HEY - they're gonna pay me and it's good experience, so I'm doing it.

Also got a guy who is about to buy a Baron and wants me to be his pilot when he "is in the back working". So, that'll rock!

I'll keep ya'll posted.