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Choosing the CFI Route

While flight instructing is not for everyone, there are major advantages while on the journey to becoming a professional pilot.

While flight instructing is not for everyone, there are major advantages while on the journey to becoming a professional pilot. [File Photo: Adobe Stock]
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Key Takeaways:

  • The article challenges the common perception that flight instructing (CFI) is a last-resort option for pilots to build flight hours, arguing it's often a better and more accessible path than realized.
  • Key advantages of the CFI route include its widespread availability across the country, immediate hiring opportunities for new pilots, and portability, enabling quick accumulation of flight time.
  • The author highlights the rewarding nature of teaching and refutes common criticisms, emphasizing the relative ease of instruction and the engaging variety found in working with different students.
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In my previous installment of V1 Rotate, I noted some of the reasons that a fledgling professional pilot might choose not to flight instruct, and listed a number of alternate means of time-building. Most of those alternative jobs, however, have their own downsides in terms of pay, safety, being VFR-only, only being available in certain areas, or being tough to break into. 

I noted that the well-connected candidate with geographic flexibility is likely to have the most choice in how they get to 1,000 hours and beyond. The unspoken implication, which I most certainly did not intend, is that awkward homebodies might have to resign themselves to flight instructing after all.

Sam Weigel

Sam Weigel has been an airplane nut since an early age, and when he's not flying the Boeing 737 for work, he enjoys going low and slow in vintage taildraggers. He and his wife live west of Seattle, where they are building an aviation homestead on a private 2,400-foot grass airstrip.

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