Training the Trainers
We seem to come up against two fundamental concerns when training future flight instructors in Australia: aviation costs and lack of experienced trainers.
Becoming an instructor is a stepping stone to the airlines for many pilots.
It makes sense, right? That’s where the money is in aviation – and pilots become pilots because they want to fly planes, which is expensive if you’re not getting paid (or paid well) to do it.
And, here is our predicament.
By the time a CPL student has graduated, they’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where they are. Every pilot knows the blood, sweat and money that’s gone into the training. Not to mention commercial pilots who have spent up to $150,000 on their training – some maybe more. Now, to further their training and gain an instructor rating, they need to throw anywhere up to $25,000 at it. That doesn’t even include the costs of maintaining currency. So, it’s not very surprising that students and instructors gravitate to the airlines if they can.
General aviation desperately needs quality instructors to fuel the aviator lineage. However, to date, there’s no real incentive for them to stay in
