Find the Right Flight Instructor for Your New Airplane

Here are some tips to vetting CFIs, understanding insurance, and securing safe training.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Flight instructor and student inside small Piper aircraft [Credit: FLYING Archive]

Key Takeaways:

When seeking a flight instructor for your new aircraft, utilize resources such as aircraft type clubs for specialized knowledge, professional CFI organizations like NAFI/SAFE for qualified educators, and local flight schools.
Crucial considerations include verifying the instructor's experience (e.g., 25 hours in make/model with recency) to meet insurance requirements for both parties, and ensuring fair compensation for their expertise.
Effective flight training demands commitment to ground instruction and adherence to aviation rules; instructors should be wary of "anti-authority" attitudes, and learners must engage consistently for optimal development.

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Congratulations! You just bought an airplane—or a share of one—and now you need to find a flight instructor who can teach you how to fly it.

Luckily for you, pilot hiring at the airlines appears to have slowed down a bit, which means commercial pilots who became flight instructors to build their hours for jobs at airlines are staying flight instructors for a bit longer than they were even a year ago. This means they have more time to develop as teachers.