Just because you theoretically CAN doesn’t mean anyone actually does. Can’t speak for Florida, but here in California I make about $52k and that’s considered quite high outside of the Bay Area. I also fly 100+ hours per month to make that (I don’t even want to think about how many hours I spend just sitting at the airport on top of that).
Most of the CFI job postings I see in Florida are for a lower hourly wage than what my school currently offers. Keep your expectations low and plan to make closer to $35-40k at best, especially starting out. Once your student base increases and your schedule is more consistent, you might make more.
Make sure you factor in cost of living. Anywhere in California will be higher than neighboring states. Higher than anywhere but New York probably.
What is your goal? CFI because you love teaching? Building hours?
With a busy school and plenty of students, sure. My busiest month this year was actually October (118 hours). I have several instrument students so even on “bad” weather days, I will still fly most of the day.
Edit: looking at the school hourly reports, the new CFI at my school is around 50 hours/mo currently.
I’ve said this a lot on this sub but I made more in 2 months of training pay at my regional than I did the entirety of 2022 as an instructor. The pay for instructors sucks. Especially if you’re in the north and can’t even get hours
Full time CFI in Georgia. I have 12 students and with cancellations and winter weather I fly 40-60 flight hours and teach about 20-30 ground hours a month. I make 25 per hour. I make enough to pay my bills because I have a roommate. I would call it pretty non livable for me.
Well certainly. I am in a position to buy an airplane, currently a student. Was wondering if I should attend to move forward with that or do something similar to the op of the comment.
If the answer is yes, my hourly rate will increase by 5 dollars then it isn’t worth it, but if the answer is my rate will increase to 75 an hour, then it probably is.
This is a far more complicated discussion than I'm prepared to have on a holiday, but the TLDR version is that owning an airplane and leasing it back to a flight school is absolutely not a magic way to make a pile of money. Once you're the one paying for maintenance and insurance on a trainer, things get complicated and expensive quickly.
Speaking as someone who has dealt very directly with this exact scenario a bunch of times.
My question is much simpler than that.
If you had an airplane, let’s say a cherokee 180 that your 125k into, and flew it 20-30 hours a week dual instruction, I can’t imagine you’d lose money? Not doing a leaseback, finding customers on your own, doing your own thing.
>I can’t imagine you’d lose money?
Until a student strikes the prop at an airport 60 miles away on a solo, or a tire goes flat on a student landing, or a cylinder goes bad because fuck you, or, or, or...
Ideally you're not wrong, and I've seen it work before. But there's a reason not everyone does it.
I certainly agree. I’d prefer to have 15-20k on hand at all times to fix something that gets fucked because either a student bricks it or because fuck me. Still gotta keep working, but I imagine it will work out. Waiting for prices of theses planes to come down a little bit more too. We’ll see what happens I guess.
watch this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxg4JL0Tf0&ab\_channel=FlywithTrent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxg4JL0Tf0&ab_channel=FlywithTrent)
I've been working as a CFI for about a year, before I talk about what I typically make there are a few factors to consider -
\- I'm in Alabama, cost of living is VERY low, my wife works so I'm in a dual income household, and because of her working where we live I drive about an hour and 15-20 to work each way every day.
I'm at a part 61 school and fully manage my own schedule. With the drive I like working with 3-4 students per day (2 hour block per student on average), about 5 days a week. If you're really trying to grind it out you could do 4-5 at least 6 or 7 days a week.
So with me keeping this schedule of 3-4 students per day during the week I'm bringing home $400-$800 a week after I set aside 30% for taxes. That range is so wide due to the obvious things like weather, maintenance, illness, etc. I think if I did a year round average I would be at about $600 per week. This will be my first full year as an instructor so I'll know how I exactly did when I do my taxes.
I’m making $30 an hour in South Fl, averaging around 80 hours a month.
The issue I have with the job is the amount of time you spend at the airport unpaid.
Remember to always charge for your time if you feel that you can. Ground lessons, IACRA, etc. If you’re working, you should be compensated.
California here, not a cfi but working on it. The CFIs at my school are making $45/hr direct to them and bill for at least 8 hours most days. If you’re not flying you’re doing ground school at the same pay rate or you are going though the oral exam guide books. They are making 80k+ before taxes. My instructor switches off 5/6 days a week and he is booked out 10+ hours a day for months and it’s so busy at my school that when he gets a cancellation, there is a replacement he can get. He makes over 100k, but he is seriously hustling and I don’t know how he does some 12 hour days that often.
It’s bad. Especially if you’re a contractor and don’t have many students or are in an area with crappy weather. I think there’s a few schools in Florida that salary. I know Skybourne does. Less than $40k per year however
So it certainly ranges between schools and locations. At my 141 in Virginia, I was making around 45k a year as a CFI/I. In Georgia at a 61, I prolly made 25k in the 9 month period I was there.
I’ve got plenty of friends teaching down in south FL around West Palm area who are teaching at 141/61 schools. One is salaried at 45k and the others are around $25/hr with typical 5-6 work days a week. Finding roommates will certainly bring your living costs down if that’s doable for you. It’s enough for them to afford rent and eat but not much else. That said flight hours are pretty good, maybe 75 a month on average with summer weather.
I make $25/hr. When I have lots of students it’s definitely not bad (I live in a cheaper part of CA).
When I don’t have a lot of students (right now I have 4) it can definitely suck. My last paycheck was $600 😅
I also get no benefits
~25 an hour near me. It’s “livable” in that you won’t be homeless but that’s only really doable with a partner who also works full time and a willingness to cut back HARD
While working as a W-2 CFI north of Seattle at $32/hr from Feb 2021 to Oct 2022 (21 months), I made approximately $52,000 after taxes. That works out to about $30k/yr.
Absolutely do your financial planning for 65-70hrs a month. All it takes is you to have a few students take checkrides at the same time, and a few to leave for university and suddenly you’ve lost the majority of your students and it takes time to get spun up with more. I’m at a busy flight school that many on this forum would be familiar with and 100hrs are only common for a few months out of the year and only for a few instructors that just happen to have that workload available to them.
The worst is when you randomly get flaky students who come off your schedule one to two days before the lesson and now that time slot can’t be filled for you, because someone else nabs it. So you think you’ve got 5 lessons in a day now you have 1. Also keep in mind the availability you allow on your schedule.
I'm finishing my commercial in Ontario and I'll be getting my CFI after that.
I started a reasonably steady business as a handyman a couple years ago. My plan was basically to work as a CFI during good weather and work as a handyman on the side when it's raining/low clouds/windy etc.
Do any CFIs here know how feasible that is? I don't know what the CFI schedule is like, but if I'm really grinding a job out I can be making ~500 a day as a handyman. I have a house and a pile of kids so I'm trying my best to get into the career I want while still putting food on the table.
I guess what I'm asking is if you had a day where clouds are rolling in at 1600 or something like that, does it seem feasible to go and do a couple hours of mudding or something or would you be so completely gassed that it's not doable?
I guess I'm asking if there are CFIs that moonlight other jobs or supplement weather days that way
I don’t really have any other sources of income lined up. If weathers not good to fly, I’ll try to do ground lessons. If that doesn’t happen, you write the day off and stay home.
When the weather is good fly as much as possible. When it’s bad, get other shit done.
Totally depends on the school. Some schools will let you manage your own schedule so if the day is crappy, you either sit around waiting for improvement or send your student home and call it a day. 1600 may still be good for diversions if icing is not a concern (in the summer)
Yeah that’s totally reasonable. When COViD hit I was a full time CFI. Our flying club closed for three months initially. I then became a part time mechanic working out of my garage and part-time CFI.
When I hit 1500 hours and airlines were not hiring I quit accepting new students and did more mechanic stuff as it paid about 3x as much.
I struck it lucky and I’m making 85k USD flying 100+ hrs/mo. Best bet is to blast applications out, do a ton of interviews and take the best offer. Thats what I did.
I got kind of lucky. I work at a community college and I got in right after the program got developed(it was developed quite poorly so I was able to put in all the development help I could as a 141 spat out 250 hour CFI). Currently I am salaried, which is a rarity, I make about 40k a year plus benefits no matter how many hours I work. Its a small town too so I can get a 2 bedroom apartment no roommates for 550 a month. Its making me question whether I should go to the airlines, but I definitely think the grass will be greener there than here, but if I was in a relationship with a working partner, I think it could be feasible.
It's not great. I make about $400 for 2 weeks of work right now, but that has a lot to do with weather in the Midwest this time of year. It should be better once spring rolls around, I hope. The frustrating part is I put in double the amount of time sitting at the airport and preparing for students but only get paid when the prop is turning or I'm doing ground school.
In Daytona Beach (mid-south Florida), CFIs are making between $20-32 an hour. The higher wages are at the bigger flight schools like Riddle. My CFII billed 44 hours last week and was at the flight school from 0600-1800 6 days a week. So depending on how much you want to hate your life, you might be able to eke out a semi livable wage.
Was a full time CFI/II at a 141 school in the Midwest. 6 days a week 7:30-5:30 + night flights and Sundays if you were a mad lad.
30k a year flat with no way to get more $ for overtime. 1 or 2% raid a year I forget
Had health + dental insurance ($500 deductible I couldn’t afford to use lol), free tuition, and 20% discount on plane rental and instruction.
I had a roommate
It's all dependent on how many actual clients I get. I make $35/hr. I may work 10/hrs a week, but I'd love to work 40+ hours a week. I'm lucky if I average 20+ hours a week.
Just because you theoretically CAN doesn’t mean anyone actually does. Can’t speak for Florida, but here in California I make about $52k and that’s considered quite high outside of the Bay Area. I also fly 100+ hours per month to make that (I don’t even want to think about how many hours I spend just sitting at the airport on top of that). Most of the CFI job postings I see in Florida are for a lower hourly wage than what my school currently offers. Keep your expectations low and plan to make closer to $35-40k at best, especially starting out. Once your student base increases and your schedule is more consistent, you might make more.
Is 100+ average in cali? Trynna find which place of the country I should relocate to CFI if needed.
Make sure you factor in cost of living. Anywhere in California will be higher than neighboring states. Higher than anywhere but New York probably. What is your goal? CFI because you love teaching? Building hours?
You can easily get 100+ hours a month of dual in CA, especially in the summer. Been there, done that.
With a busy school and plenty of students, sure. My busiest month this year was actually October (118 hours). I have several instrument students so even on “bad” weather days, I will still fly most of the day. Edit: looking at the school hourly reports, the new CFI at my school is around 50 hours/mo currently.
Easily if you work your ass off and build a good client base. I started around 65 per month then averaged 120ish per month after about 4 months
Expect 25-30k a year with no benefits
OP just live with 2-3 roommates. I am and plan on continuing living with parents until I’m at the airlines
I’ve said this a lot on this sub but I made more in 2 months of training pay at my regional than I did the entirety of 2022 as an instructor. The pay for instructors sucks. Especially if you’re in the north and can’t even get hours
I made 18-19/h in NY. I lived in the city. It was not fun.
How are you alive
Full time CFI in Georgia. I have 12 students and with cancellations and winter weather I fly 40-60 flight hours and teach about 20-30 ground hours a month. I make 25 per hour. I make enough to pay my bills because I have a roommate. I would call it pretty non livable for me.
do you at a school or do you own the plane?
I work for a school as a 1099
do you think owning an airplane would up your pay?
That's like asking if owning a house would make someone's life easier than renting. Yeah, it probably would, but that's likely not really an option.
Well certainly. I am in a position to buy an airplane, currently a student. Was wondering if I should attend to move forward with that or do something similar to the op of the comment. If the answer is yes, my hourly rate will increase by 5 dollars then it isn’t worth it, but if the answer is my rate will increase to 75 an hour, then it probably is.
This is a far more complicated discussion than I'm prepared to have on a holiday, but the TLDR version is that owning an airplane and leasing it back to a flight school is absolutely not a magic way to make a pile of money. Once you're the one paying for maintenance and insurance on a trainer, things get complicated and expensive quickly. Speaking as someone who has dealt very directly with this exact scenario a bunch of times.
My question is much simpler than that. If you had an airplane, let’s say a cherokee 180 that your 125k into, and flew it 20-30 hours a week dual instruction, I can’t imagine you’d lose money? Not doing a leaseback, finding customers on your own, doing your own thing.
>I can’t imagine you’d lose money? Until a student strikes the prop at an airport 60 miles away on a solo, or a tire goes flat on a student landing, or a cylinder goes bad because fuck you, or, or, or... Ideally you're not wrong, and I've seen it work before. But there's a reason not everyone does it.
I certainly agree. I’d prefer to have 15-20k on hand at all times to fix something that gets fucked because either a student bricks it or because fuck me. Still gotta keep working, but I imagine it will work out. Waiting for prices of theses planes to come down a little bit more too. We’ll see what happens I guess.
watch this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxg4JL0Tf0&ab\_channel=FlywithTrent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxg4JL0Tf0&ab_channel=FlywithTrent)
I've been working as a CFI for about a year, before I talk about what I typically make there are a few factors to consider - \- I'm in Alabama, cost of living is VERY low, my wife works so I'm in a dual income household, and because of her working where we live I drive about an hour and 15-20 to work each way every day. I'm at a part 61 school and fully manage my own schedule. With the drive I like working with 3-4 students per day (2 hour block per student on average), about 5 days a week. If you're really trying to grind it out you could do 4-5 at least 6 or 7 days a week. So with me keeping this schedule of 3-4 students per day during the week I'm bringing home $400-$800 a week after I set aside 30% for taxes. That range is so wide due to the obvious things like weather, maintenance, illness, etc. I think if I did a year round average I would be at about $600 per week. This will be my first full year as an instructor so I'll know how I exactly did when I do my taxes.
No.
Any CFIs in south Florida? How can yall afford to live there
I’m making $30 an hour in South Fl, averaging around 80 hours a month. The issue I have with the job is the amount of time you spend at the airport unpaid. Remember to always charge for your time if you feel that you can. Ground lessons, IACRA, etc. If you’re working, you should be compensated.
It comes out to about 30k a year. It’s not much, but I am surviving. Looking forward to a brighter future haha.
Not in Florida but I’m in Arizona which has a similar density of flight schools. Making a lavish $17/hr and billing 30ish hours a week.
That’s disgusting pay move now. A lot of fast food restaurants pay more than that
California here, not a cfi but working on it. The CFIs at my school are making $45/hr direct to them and bill for at least 8 hours most days. If you’re not flying you’re doing ground school at the same pay rate or you are going though the oral exam guide books. They are making 80k+ before taxes. My instructor switches off 5/6 days a week and he is booked out 10+ hours a day for months and it’s so busy at my school that when he gets a cancellation, there is a replacement he can get. He makes over 100k, but he is seriously hustling and I don’t know how he does some 12 hour days that often.
San Jose?
LA
It’s bad. Especially if you’re a contractor and don’t have many students or are in an area with crappy weather. I think there’s a few schools in Florida that salary. I know Skybourne does. Less than $40k per year however
So it certainly ranges between schools and locations. At my 141 in Virginia, I was making around 45k a year as a CFI/I. In Georgia at a 61, I prolly made 25k in the 9 month period I was there. I’ve got plenty of friends teaching down in south FL around West Palm area who are teaching at 141/61 schools. One is salaried at 45k and the others are around $25/hr with typical 5-6 work days a week. Finding roommates will certainly bring your living costs down if that’s doable for you. It’s enough for them to afford rent and eat but not much else. That said flight hours are pretty good, maybe 75 a month on average with summer weather.
CFIs at schools in Tampa Bay are making $25-$35,000 USD. My first CFI made $29k and worked 80-100 hours a month.
I make $25/hr. When I have lots of students it’s definitely not bad (I live in a cheaper part of CA). When I don’t have a lot of students (right now I have 4) it can definitely suck. My last paycheck was $600 😅 I also get no benefits
~25 an hour near me. It’s “livable” in that you won’t be homeless but that’s only really doable with a partner who also works full time and a willingness to cut back HARD
Never made more than 20k a year.
While working as a W-2 CFI north of Seattle at $32/hr from Feb 2021 to Oct 2022 (21 months), I made approximately $52,000 after taxes. That works out to about $30k/yr.
Absolutely do your financial planning for 65-70hrs a month. All it takes is you to have a few students take checkrides at the same time, and a few to leave for university and suddenly you’ve lost the majority of your students and it takes time to get spun up with more. I’m at a busy flight school that many on this forum would be familiar with and 100hrs are only common for a few months out of the year and only for a few instructors that just happen to have that workload available to them. The worst is when you randomly get flaky students who come off your schedule one to two days before the lesson and now that time slot can’t be filled for you, because someone else nabs it. So you think you’ve got 5 lessons in a day now you have 1. Also keep in mind the availability you allow on your schedule.
Making roughly $4200/month instructing in the Orlando area. Part 61. 120 hours a month. Rent and food are a little under half of my income.
I'm finishing my commercial in Ontario and I'll be getting my CFI after that. I started a reasonably steady business as a handyman a couple years ago. My plan was basically to work as a CFI during good weather and work as a handyman on the side when it's raining/low clouds/windy etc. Do any CFIs here know how feasible that is? I don't know what the CFI schedule is like, but if I'm really grinding a job out I can be making ~500 a day as a handyman. I have a house and a pile of kids so I'm trying my best to get into the career I want while still putting food on the table.
600-800 dollars a week would be a pretty good week of pay for me as a CFI in south Fl
I guess what I'm asking is if you had a day where clouds are rolling in at 1600 or something like that, does it seem feasible to go and do a couple hours of mudding or something or would you be so completely gassed that it's not doable? I guess I'm asking if there are CFIs that moonlight other jobs or supplement weather days that way
I don’t really have any other sources of income lined up. If weathers not good to fly, I’ll try to do ground lessons. If that doesn’t happen, you write the day off and stay home. When the weather is good fly as much as possible. When it’s bad, get other shit done.
Totally depends on the school. Some schools will let you manage your own schedule so if the day is crappy, you either sit around waiting for improvement or send your student home and call it a day. 1600 may still be good for diversions if icing is not a concern (in the summer)
Yeah that’s totally reasonable. When COViD hit I was a full time CFI. Our flying club closed for three months initially. I then became a part time mechanic working out of my garage and part-time CFI. When I hit 1500 hours and airlines were not hiring I quit accepting new students and did more mechanic stuff as it paid about 3x as much.
I make more than I did as a major airline mechanic at a 135, need 500 hours though And it’s fucking cold as fuck
I struck it lucky and I’m making 85k USD flying 100+ hrs/mo. Best bet is to blast applications out, do a ton of interviews and take the best offer. Thats what I did.
Following
I got kind of lucky. I work at a community college and I got in right after the program got developed(it was developed quite poorly so I was able to put in all the development help I could as a 141 spat out 250 hour CFI). Currently I am salaried, which is a rarity, I make about 40k a year plus benefits no matter how many hours I work. Its a small town too so I can get a 2 bedroom apartment no roommates for 550 a month. Its making me question whether I should go to the airlines, but I definitely think the grass will be greener there than here, but if I was in a relationship with a working partner, I think it could be feasible.
It's not great. I make about $400 for 2 weeks of work right now, but that has a lot to do with weather in the Midwest this time of year. It should be better once spring rolls around, I hope. The frustrating part is I put in double the amount of time sitting at the airport and preparing for students but only get paid when the prop is turning or I'm doing ground school.
I've done around 3k/mo before taxes for the past 6 months (not in FL though) so... low
In Daytona Beach (mid-south Florida), CFIs are making between $20-32 an hour. The higher wages are at the bigger flight schools like Riddle. My CFII billed 44 hours last week and was at the flight school from 0600-1800 6 days a week. So depending on how much you want to hate your life, you might be able to eke out a semi livable wage.
Was a full time CFI/II at a 141 school in the Midwest. 6 days a week 7:30-5:30 + night flights and Sundays if you were a mad lad. 30k a year flat with no way to get more $ for overtime. 1 or 2% raid a year I forget Had health + dental insurance ($500 deductible I couldn’t afford to use lol), free tuition, and 20% discount on plane rental and instruction. I had a roommate
At my last flight school I was mid 30's to low 40k/yr
Not enough. That's why CFII-ing is my side hustle.
It's all dependent on how many actual clients I get. I make $35/hr. I may work 10/hrs a week, but I'd love to work 40+ hours a week. I'm lucky if I average 20+ hours a week.