Long Days

Any "real" pilot loves to just hang around the airport, talk to other pilots, be around airplanes, and just have a good time at the airport. As a flight instructor it is your job to be at the airport when you are needed. This is your job, this is what you get payed for.

Before we go any further let me explain how we charge students for our time. Usually the majority of what you pay your instructor is going to be for time actually spent in the aircraft. This is also the time that you can log. At UND we use a hobbs meter(timer) that starts ticking when you turn the master switch on. We also charge for what we call Pre/Post time. This is the time that before and after your flight when the instructor is actually teaching you.

Some instructors will charge for every minute they are at the airport in their Pre/Post time. Me on the other hand I really only count the time that I'm actually discussing flying or teaching with the student. So after the first few flights does this include the interior and exterior preflight that the student is conducting? Not unless I'm teaching something new or important.

What does this all mean to anyone who is interested in being a flight instructor? Your going to spend a lot more time at the airport than your actually getting payed for. Lets look at an example of a recent flight I had with a student.

The flight was a 10:00 AM flight so we met at the airport around 9. Here is the time breakdown for our flight...

9-9:15 student gets weather briefing and does performance
9:15 - 9:30 student and I will discuss the flight and talk about what we are going to do
9:30 - 10:00 student does preflight checks as I help out and make sure everything is OK.
10:00 - 11:30 Flight time
11:30 - 11:45 Student does the post flight check and turns in the aircraft book
11:45 - 12:00 Student and I discuss the flight. What went well and what we need to work on

Now that you have the break down let me tell you what I charged the student for. 1.5 hours of flight time and .5 Pre/Post(I usually only charge .3 for Pre/Post but for argument sake I'll use .5 here). I got payed for 2.0 hours of instruction.

That's pretty good right? Well not really, I've been at the airport since 9 and it is now after noon, 3 hours. So I've lost an hour of payed time. Not a huge deal if you only do one flight a day but now lets assume I do 3 or 4 flights a day.

If I do 4 flights a day that turns out to me getting payed for roughly 8 hours a day, almost an average work day. But lets think back, I lost 1 hour during for that one flight so multiply that by 4 and now I've lost 4 hours. I've been at the airport for roughly 12 hours and only got payed for 8.

Granted if you enjoy being a flight instructor you don't mind being at the airport. Just be prepared for long long days!