Instructing
Being an instructor is usually the most common path followed by future airline pilots, and it is highly attractive to any future employer. Primarily because it shows that the pilot is able to take charge and manage a cockpit with professionalism. An instructor usually have great knowledge of regulations and basic aircraft's systems because he/she teaches them continuoulsy and based on the success of his/her students, in a very good and efficient manner. Needless to say that a good instructor has great people skills especially communication and also has a high level of integrity. Instructors must create a trusty relationship between them and their students as they will spend a lot of time together. The instructor will have to critize the work of the student and perhaps even sometime disaprove the demonstrated performance. This is easier to do when the student believe that his instructor has his best interest at heart. Just like students are being told that they should change instructor if they dont believe the match to be a good one and it is becoming detrimental to the learning process, an instructor has the same right. A great working environment makes for an efficient lesson. He/She knows how to explain on the ground and demonstrate in flight the maneuvers that a student is required to learn, and it must be done in a way that will challenge the candidate but not leave him/her lost or confused. Being an instructor is a 24 hours, 7 days a week job as ones schedule is based on the customers availability. As instructors are usually building their time to move forward in their careers, and only paid when giving lessons, they are often willing to work long days to achieve their goal but also to make ends meet as there is usually a lot of incertainty coming with their paycheck. At the beginning, instructors are even more limited as they have to build their student base. As time goes by, they may have an increasing number of students, especially if the actual ones are very satisfied with their instructor's teaching methodes. Also, the more experience the instructor is getting, the more possibilities can open up. The company they work for might be promoting them to teaching instrument students or perhaps commercial multi-engine certificate candidates. With a little time, in a very active aviation industry, a very good instructor can become extremely busy and quickly move on to the airlines. Some of them, who really enjoy the job, decide to be career instructors. A starting instructor can expect to start at about $20 for each hour spent instructing to around $40 with an extensive experience. Below, is an example of what type of schedule an instructor could expect to have with a few students on its roster. It can vary depending on where the instructor is working ( an FBO, a flight training center with defined work days, the number of students and their respective schedules, the availability of airplanes... ). In this example, the instructor would be paid for 35 hours during this work week, but would only have one day off and spend monday, tuesday and thursday about 36 hours at work combined for 26 paid hours.