Sport Pilot Talk

gdr1982 · Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 3 Location: Dayton, OH

I am currently very interested in sport instructing and wanted some details about the whole instruction situation. I hold a private ticket with more than enough hours to be qualified for sport CFI and I wondered what hurdles I need to jump through to be on my way to instructing in a plane of my own.

Thanks.

gdr1982 · Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 3 Location: Dayton, OH

Nevermind, I found my answer

pilotjohn · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 27 Location: New Jersey

Can you share what the answer is?

gdr1982 · Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 3 Location: Dayton, OH

Well, insurance is probably going to be the toughest, and by toughest I mean $$$, and next toughest being acquiring students to cover the premiums. I assume if I had enough time to get out to fly-ins and other aviation get-togethers and hand out flyers and such, then there is a chance that you could get somewhere. Now being from Dayton, you'd think that there'd be all kinds of people wanting to get off the ground given reputation that it has of an aviation city, but with the economy choking, not sure what might happen. By talking to those who have done it in the past, they say that getting insurance wouldn't be too difficult, just be ready to pay, thus requiring the airplane to fly at least 10 hours a month to break even as far as the insurance goes. Thats insurance with my personal instructing experience which is none.

drseti · Joined: 28 Nov 2009 Posts: 1377 Location: Lock Haven PA

gdr1982 wrote: Well, insurance is probably going to be the toughest, and by toughest I mean $$$

That's certainly the case. I'm in the process of setting up a new LSA flight school at Lock Haven PA (see the AvSport of Lock Haven website, http://AvSport.org). The quote I received for 1M smooth liability, $100k hull, is $7550/yr! That's with 37 years of teaching experience, >3500 hours PIC, comml/ifr/cfi/cfii. I hesitate to guess what the charges would be for a low-time instructor.

Having done a spreadsheet forecasting fixed and variable costs, reasonable revenues, and depreciation reserve, I find that I need to instruct 240 hours a year to make this venture work. That's not out of the question; 6 hours a week for 40 good VFR flying weeks a year will do it. Still, there's always the unexpected... Remember the axiom about how to make a million dollars in aviation: start with two million!

Safe skies,
Paul

frfly172 · Joined: 08 Jan 2009 Posts: 67 Location: Quincy Mass

just passed the FOI and SIA fpr light sport cfi now a little flying an d should be ready to flight test.Thanks for the info on this site.

drseti · Joined: 28 Nov 2009 Posts: 1377 Location: Lock Haven PA

drseti wrote: The quote I received for 1M smooth liability, $100k hull, is $7550/yr!

Just to bring everybody up to date: I ended up insuring through the EAA's agent, and got a substantially better rate. Commercial policy for rental and instruction, liability 1M single limit / 100k per passenger, hull coverage $85k with 1k deductible - ran me $5103/yr. Still expensive, but tolerable.

Paul Hamilton · Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 351 Location: Reno/Tahoe Nevada

Note that there is a specific topic in the "Ask the Examiner" area "how to become a sport pilot instructor" that covers all the basics of getting your sport pilot CFI certificate.