Becoming a Sport CFI

gdr1982 · Post by **gdr1982** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:09 am

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 · Post by **gdr1982** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 4:10 pm

Nevermind, I found my answer

pilotjohn · Post by **pilotjohn** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:05 pm

Can you share what the answer is?

gdr1982 · Post by **gdr1982** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 2:49 pm

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 · Post by **drseti** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 8:59 pm

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 · Post by **frfly172** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 1:59 pm

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 · Post by **drseti** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:52 pm

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 · Post by **Paul Hamilton** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:55 am

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.

Sport Pilot Talk

Becoming a Sport CFI

Becoming a Sport CFI

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