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4 Answers

Flight Instruction under part 61

Asked by: 3683 views FAA Regulations, Flight Instructor

This question is for flight instructors to answer.

I am going to do my CFI under part 61.   I know that taking the training under 61 means training to proficiency and it mainly depends on how will the student prepares and progress but I would like to hear from those CFIs who done it under 61, what are the realistic ground & flight times it usually takes to complete the CFI under part 61 in average .  I am asking this question because I think that FAA part 141 minimum hours for the CFI is just too much (40 of ground time and 25 hours).  The school I am training at charges $45/ ground hrs and has to be one-on-one instruction which will be very expensive for me.  

 

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4 Answers



  1. Kris Kortokrax on Aug 17, 2014

    The amount of time it will take will depend on you and how you have prepared yourself for the training. Have you taken any initiative and studied aerodynamics, regulations, weather, airspace, etc? Have you read the Flight Instructor’s Handbook and become familiar with the Fundamentals of Instruction?

    If you are on a limited budget, there are many resources available on http://www.faa.gov for free.

    If you have prepared yourself, the time required will be considerably less time than if you show up at a school with no preparation and expect them to spoon feed you every bit of knowledge.

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  2. Nibake on Aug 17, 2014

    It took me about a month of studying, and a 2-3 hour dual flight. The rest of the flight practice I did on my own or with friends.

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  3. Matthew Waugh on Aug 19, 2014

    You can do all the ground instruction on your own. The FAA publishes the list of source documents in the PTS – get them all (and there are a lot of them), read and understand them all and you will have no problem passing the oral.
    Realistically you ain’t going to get that done in 25 hours of classroom instruction – so either you have to do some work on your own or you’re going to trust that your ground instructor knows just the right stuff to teach you (and in some CFI mills they sure do know that) to pass the oral.
    Some prep time with an instructor to play stump the chump is worth it to make sure your study is getting you the education you need – but to me, 25 hours sounds like they are bleeding you a little.
    Flight time – I pick 10 hours – but only because it seems like a round number and lots of people use it for all kinds of ratings. The CFI checkride has been described as the Commercial checkride, from the right seat, while talking. So if you are fresh off a successful Commercial ride you ought to be able to get ready in a few hours. If your Commercial was a couple of years in the distant past, it might take a bit longer to remember the perfect chandelle or lazy eight.

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  4. Mitchell L Williams on Oct 14, 2014

    i agree with Matt Waugh. You can do most of the work by yourself: studying all the books, creating and studying lesson plans and flying from the right seat. Then use a CFI to be your student from hell and test your ability to teach and enhance safety.

    I did the checkride in a Debonair (that was what was available to rent). I practiced all the maneuvers in my C172, then flew the deb with a CFI about 10 hours and did the ride.

    My ride was with the local FSDO in 2002. They were short on inspectors and had a part-time time guy from the east coast to help the FSDO catch up. His car was totaled in a tornado on the previous week-end and we had checkride on the following Monday. Oral was about 4 hours plus. Ride went well. Following the ride the inspector informed me that I had failed because of Inadequate collision avoidance, plus two other minor items. I had performed clearing turns, and verbally and mechanically looked left, right and center before each maneuver. He said I also needed to look out the back window. This airplane did not have a back window. So I needed to look out each rear side window… ‘

    Since the pink slip did not include any complex airplane maneuvers, we scheduled the next available opportunity and flew an abbreviated retest, Basically just flew around the pattern once.

    We have sent maybe 4 candidates for CFI. Each we well prepared and our FSDO found reasons to fail each on the first ride, then passed them easy on the retake.

    One of my CFI candidate was referred to another FSDO in a nearby town, He did oral with one inspector in the morning, and flight with a second inspector in the afternoon and passed on first attempt. He flew his own airplane (lance) and was very familiar with it.

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