Career Flight Instructors Are Hard to Find But Worth the Search

Age and experience does not matter, only that the CFI has the heart and soul of a teacher.

Meg Godlewski

Friday, March 28, 2025 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Ryan Ewing

Greg Brown is the author of 'The Savvy Flight Instructor,' a book that has been helping aspiring CFIs for decades. [Courtesy: Richard Jackson]

Key Takeaways:

For many, flight instruction is a dedicated career and passion, not just a temporary means to accumulate flight hours for other aviation jobs.
Experienced "career CFIs" are crucial for elevating the quality of flight instruction, mentoring newer instructors, and ensuring students develop essential decision-making and risk assessment skills through scenario-based training.
These dedicated instructors, exemplified by figures like Greg Brown, Rod Machado, and John and Martha King, prioritize teaching excellence, continuous professional development, and producing well-rounded, competent pilots.

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I received a call from a recruiter for a regional airline who had stumbled across my CFI résumé someplace. As I have well over 1,500 hours, he wanted to know if I would like to fly for it. “No, thank you,” I replied. There was an awkward pause. He seemed puzzled, repeating the question slower as if I had not heard him the first time. He asked why I was working as a flight instructor if I wasn’t trying to build hours for the airlines.

While it is true that most people become CFIs as a means to quickly build their hours for other jobs, there are some of us for whom flight instruction is a passion and vocation—and not a steppingstone. The age of the person and even their experience level does not matter. What does matter is that the CFI has the heart and soul of a teacher.