How To Become A Certified Flight Instructor
Posted by BAS | Aircraft Salvage Experts on Apr 10th 2023
Flying can be flat-out expensive, whether you are a hobbyist or on the path to becoming a professional pilot. The costs of flying, and learning to fly, have hindered career advancement and shattered dreams worldwide. However, there is a creative way of minimizing pilot training costs. Becoming a Certified Flight Instructor can allow flying enthusiasts to earn an income as they accrue flight hours, which are often crucial in this profession. Achieving the CFI certificate is pretty simple. However, the applicant must meet specific qualifications like holding a CPL and passing the FAA’s exams.
Why Should I Become a Certified Flight Instructor?
There are numerous reasons why pilots would want to become a Certified Flight Instructor. Some pilots will take the path to CFI because they love flying and want to share their enthusiasm with others. Some pilots are looking for a professional aviation career, and teaching others to fly is an obvious choice. However, some pilots will take the CFI route to gain flight hours and build experience.
Accumulating flight hours is an expensive process that requires deep pockets to complete within a short period. The painful truth is that most airlines need a certain amount of flight time before recruitment. Becoming a CFI can shorten the time frame for accumulating enough flight hours and offset the expense of gaining those hours.
Another reason is that the Certified Flight Instructor title significantly boosts your resume when applying for a job. The certificate shows that the individual is well conversant with teaching skills that the airline may require for their internal type rating training and ground refresher classes.
How Long Does It Take To Become a Certified Flight Instructor?
Becoming a CFI has no specified duration. An applicant must be 18 years old and hold a valid Commercial Pilot License (CPL). To acquire the CPL license, one must accrue at least 250 flight hours and have a class 1 medical certificate. Other requirements may apply depending on where you live and fly.
Types of CFIs
There are three types of flight instructors. Each has different qualification requirements and is of various complexities.
Certified Flight Instructor (CFI)
This is the basic title for a flight instructor for a single-engine aircraft like a Cessna 172 Skyhawk.
Certified Flight Instructor - Instrument
Refers to a flight instructor qualified to teach instrument flying.
Multi-Engine Instructor (MEI)
A flight instructor qualified to teach multi-engine aircraft.
4 Steps To Becoming A Top-Notch Certified Flight Instructor
1. Qualify
Double-checking if you meet the minimum thresholds required for the application to be considered necessary. You should be at least 18 years old and have a CPL license in your books.
2. Be current on medicals
Your medical certificate must be current and up to standard to qualify for any of the three instructor ratings. If you already have your CPL license, your medicals are probably in order if your health has stayed the same since your last examination.
For CPL holders, you must have a class 1 medical certificate. The certificate is valid for six months if the holder is 60 years of age and above. A holder who is less than 60 years will have the license medicals valid for 12 months from the date of issue.
3. Pass the FAA and FOI Examinations
To get certified as a flight instructor, one has to complete the FAA Certified Flight Instructor Knowledge examination alongside the Fundamentals of Instruction (FOI) exams. The FAA CFI knowledge exam covers general knowledge of flying. The FOI exams cover instructor topics and focus on the knowledge delivery process.
4. Practice makes perfect
Practice is vital in all fields. For you to have top-notch professionalism in any arena, it is crucial to continuously sharpen your skills by doing a complex task over and over until you are well conversant with the craft. Practicing is equally vital in aviation. Flight instructors need to have top-tier skills in instilling knowledge in their students. They form the fundamentals of flight that remain crucial for the rest of a pilot’s career
As an instructor, focus on how students make mistakes and address them as early as possible. Then, repeatedly recreate scenarios allowing your students to brainstorm until they overcome the challenge you observed.
Bottom Line
Piloting is one of the most remarkable and rewarding professions on earth. The career is known to be a high-paying profession and involves traveling a lot, which is often what most people want. However, the domain is costly to gain experience and finally get a job at an airline. Becoming a flight instructor can be a solution if you need more funds to further your pilot training. Or, you can practice the profession, earn some income, and build your experience and skills until you can fly commercially for an airline.