Pilot career choices?

Here are some facts:

Most flight schools charge $45 to $65 per hour for flight instructor time, but the instructors typically get paid somewhere between $15 and $25 per hour. Beginning instructors earn at the lower end of the scale while experienced instructors earn toward the higher end. A good average instructing job will yield about 60 to 80 flight hours per month. A slow one will yield under 50 hours. A really busy one can exceed 100 flight hours per month. Average instructor income ranges from under $20,000 per year to around $30,000. Top instructor pay rarely exceeds $40,000 or so except for chief instructors at the largest, busiest flight schools..

Many flight schools only pay their instructors for the time they spend in the air or in the classroom. If they're at the airport for 12 hours, but they only get 2 students that day for a total of 3 hours flight and ground instruction time, that's what they get paid for. At a slow flight school, or at slow times of the year you can quickly starve on that pay scheme. My first instructing job was at a medium-paced school that paid by the instruction hour, but they had too many instructors on staff and I averaged about 2 hours per day, five days a week. I only flew 30 to 40 hours per month, and maybe added another 20 in ground instruction. Adjusted for today's value of the dollar, I was barely earning $1,200 per month. I couldn't survive on that and had to gert a part-time night job. After 9 months I had to move on to greener pastures, but it was a start and put almost 300 hours in my logbook on top of the 270 I started with.

At a busy flight school, one can make a pretty decent wage, but instructor "burnout" then eventually becomes a problem because of the sheer number of hours one must be on duty to earn a decent living. At my next flight instructing job it took a couple months to build a clientele, but I was extremely busy after that. I worked 6 days per week (often 7) and flew lots of hours and taught lots of ground school classes. At any given time I was working with 20 to 30 students per week. I made liveable wages, which in today's economy was equivalent to around $40,000 annually, but after nearly three years of that I was totally burned out from putting in 60 to 70 hour work weeks. If I had stayed in that job and paced myself, I would have had a pretty decent career, but I wanted to move on to other things.

These days, some flight schools will pay a daily retainer rate plus flight and classroom time to help instructors during slow periods. The retainer is often no more than minimum wage however, but it is nice to know that some money will be coming in when business is slow. A few flight schools pay a regular salary, which is great as far as having a predictable income, but at a really busy school one can work a lot of hours without making any extra money.

The largest, busiest flight schools (such as CAE, ATP and FSI) actually pay their instructors pretty well as instructor pay goes, being in the neighborhood of $35,000 to $45,000 per year, with a regular 5 day work week, benefits and vacation time. One CAN make a career out of such as job. A chief instructor at one of the bigger and busier schools can exceed $50,000 per year. It can take many years to rise to that level, however. These schools generally only hire instructors who have previous experience and who hold all the instructor ratings CFI, CFII, MEI and the Advanced Instrument Ground Instructor certificate (AIGI), so there is consequently a greater investment in flight training.

So, if you put in your time, you live in the right area, and you work for the right flight school, you can do OK. It is also possible to freelance with your own airplane, but that can be a very hand-to-mouth lifestyle unless you have a second job, or you can build it into a regular flight school with multiple aircraft and employees. In any event, a good instructor that (a) loves to teach and (b) is dedicated enough to become really good at it and make a career of it can do OK without starving to death.

I'm out of room to discuss corporate flying and bush flying, both of which I have done.

Ok bud I think I can help you out. Flight instructor pay is not terrible especially if you do it private like at an airport not a flight school. Most instructors pay there is $30-$40 an hour air time and like $20 when on the ground. Are you married and have a wife with a stable job? That's something you need to think about before becoming a pilot. My moms brother flys cooperate jets for a fairly large company. He gets to fly nice planes and his pay is around $250,000. This is on the high side of the pay scale though. Now this is the part you really need to think through. Do you want a family? Do you want to see your family every night? Or do you even want a family? He doesn't have a family due to his career considering the fact that he's home about a week a month. He said he's lucky he doesn't want a family and feels sorry for the pilots who do. At an airline it's usually work 4 days 3 days off. Be prepaired to be gone 2 or 3 of those days. Sometimes all 4 though but you almost always make it bad for your break. You would have to work as an instructor and small jobs for awhile to get your hours up because these airlines usually want an ATP license witch requires 250 hours. You will also need a bachelors degree. It doesn't matter what in. You will also need some turbine time so when you get a commercial license look at a small regional airline. Now your starting pay will suck. It may be like 20,000. This is more like a way to get hours. Hope this helps!

My friend, you have a seriously warped view of the aviation industry. Perhaps you should back off a bit and take another look at what you're getting yourself into. No one makes a "living" by instructing pilots. At best, it's a part-time job and the only reason most people do it is to build hours towards that first real commercial pilot's job.

There ARE a few pilots who can earn a living by flying as a 'bush' pilot, but even then, you're not going to earn $50K a year until you have a whole bunch of hours under your belt.

If you're earning a decent living right now, then I suggest you keep your day job and just go flying on the weekends for the fun of it. Seems to me that being required to fly on someone else's schedule and to someone else's destinations just to put food on your table kind of makes it feel like work.

Here is what I suggest! Keep your job! But keep working on getting your Instrument and CFI. My instructor worked full time as a computer programmer and taught me after work. He charged $50 an hour but gave me plenty of free ground time. But since he was working for himself he got to keep every penny I gave him.

If you were to do something like that you could easily make a couple hundred bucks a week on top of your current job, and use that money to enjoy flying yourself. You will be one of the few pilots that will actually get to enjoy being a pilot, because with the extra money you will make you will be able to fly your friends and family on trips during the weekends! Rather than just flying for the man, and to broke to fly for yourself.

JetDoc, I'm not sure where you get your information but I have several friends at my local FBO that make a living doing nothing but instruction...

Why don't you shoot for part time instructor.