How we teach is fundamental to our curriculum and philosophy at The Flight School, but it’s also a critical part of how you’ll learn. A great pilot remembers they’ll always be a student, and it’s for this reason that we expect students to be teachers from day one. Through student-led discussions and presentations in Private Pilot Ground School and by recommending freshly-minted Private Pilots immediately begin studying for Ground Instructor Exams, we make teaching a part of learning from the very beginning.
Many aspiring airline pilots become flight instructors to build time toward the ATP hour minimums, and flight instruction has become a right of passage for airline pilots everywhere.
We gladly hire our own students to help carry on the great tradition of offering a hand to those climbing the aviation career ladder with you, so many of our students will receive job offers upon graduating from our programs. Those who choose not to instruct may instead opt to build hours through our time-building programs.
Before you learn to teach in the sky, we’ll teach you to learn on the ground—by throwing you in the fire!
Though some practical experience is gained during Private Pilot Ground School, our Ground Instruction program involves studying for written exams first, then gaining experiencing teaching as an FAA-Certificated Advanced Ground Instructor.
After you finish taking our Instrument Ground School, you’ll start studying to teach it yourself! When prepared, you’ll take the Instrument Ground Instructor test and begin student-teaching the Instrument Ground School while studying for your instrument rating!
During advanced ground schools, you’ll teach your peers lessons on everything you, they and your students need to know about becoming a Private Pilot, earning an Instrument Rating, becoming a Commercial Pilot and eventually, becoming an instructor.
Once you’ve student-taught your way through your own ratings and passed your Commercial Pilot checkride, you’ll be well-prepared to advanced to flight instructor. With our Flight Instructor Flight Hours package, you’ll have plenty of time to learn about instruction techniques and more while acquainting yourself with the right seat of the aircraft.
You’ll also prepare for your flight instructor exams (the toughest so far) by creating your own lesson plans, continuing to teach ground schools and more!
Our team of Flight Instructors (which you may soon join) will lend their experience teaching, studying and testing to help you best prepare for your exams.
We strongly advise taking the written exams for flight instructor when you take the ground instructor exams, but becoming a flight instructor also involves an often-lengthy oral and practical exam. Adding on an instrument flight instructor rating also involves an additional checkride.
A flight instructor applicant must hold a valid commercial pilot certificate or airline transport pilot with appropriate category and class ratings appropriate ot the flight instructor rating sought.
Applicants must also:
The initial CFI practical exam requires endorsement from a qualified flight instructor who has been a flight instructor for at least 24 calendar months. Our flight instructors will only endorse you once we are certain you have what it takes to pass.
The Fundamentals of Instruction written exam isn’t always required of those who hold specific teacher’s certificates or who are employed as teachers at accredited colleges or universities.
Assuming you’ve already become a commercial pilot, becoming a Flight Instructor mostly costs effort on your part.
We do offer a Flight Instructor Flight Hours pre-pay package to help you become right-seat familiar and get used to teaching in the cockpit, but the required expenses are mostly associated with the testing fees required.
To become a fully-qualified ground and flight instructor with AGI, IGI, CFI & CFII certificates and ratings, you’ll need to take a total of nine exams. Five of these have fixed costs at $175 each, paid to PSI, the FAA’s selected testing provider. The other four exams are completed as two sets of oral and practical exams, comprising the CFI checkride and the CFII checkride. These tests can cost as much as $1,200 to $1,500 in addition to aircraft rental fees for the practical test.
Re-tests often require additional fees.
No, becoming a flight instructor is not a requirement to become a professional pilot.
However, becoming an instructor is a great way to boost your resume. Many airline pilots see instructing as a right of passage and understand that experience instructing makes you a much better pilot.
We recommend becoming a flight instructor, even if you don’t want to teach. In those cases where you’d rather accelerate your time building, we offer time-building packages with deep discounts for pre-paying for flight hours.
As everyone learns at a different pace, no students’ overall training costs are exactly the same. For students following our unique training plan, we recommend budgeting around $6,400 for both Ground Instructor exams and study materials ($1,045) and flight instructor training ($5,300). We do our best to help you accomplish your training for less with virtual accelerated training and pre-pay deals:
Remember to budget for the additional costs of training: driving to and from the airport can rack up fuel expenses, as can taking time off work!
The Flight School at Colorado Springs offers accelerated flight training for those with an adventurous spirit.
Our flight training programs literally take you places while you develop the skills necessary for even the most demanding of aviation careers.
Hate has no home here.
© Chauncey Crail 2023. All rights reserved.
