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Advice on Flight Instruction

Asked by: 2651 views , ,
Commercial Pilot, Instrument Rating, Student Pilot

Hi all, I just found the site a few days ago and have spent way too much time over the past days looking through here at tons of great information. I have seen a few things here and there that I think have already been helpful but I wanted to put my specific situation out there and see if anybody has any advice about my training.

A little background: I am currently ASEL  private pilot certified with 45 hours but looking to move into a career in aviation. I don't really want to fly airlines so not looking to go ATP or anything, I'm more interested in flying small planes, float planes, doing training, charter flights, and whatever else flying work I can find. 

Also, I am currently living in Europe and working as a teacher. This means that I am not able to fly all year round. I am hoping to go back to the US this summer for a lot of flying and then the next summer hopefully be ready to start instructing but I am trying to figure out the best path to get there. 

I want to get my IFR,  CPL in ASEL, AMEL, ASES, AMES,  and both CFI and CFII certifications. The order is not necessarily important to me I just want to figure out the "best" way to go about doing this and I would like to do this in a cost efficient way but also in a way that I can get quality flight experience and preferably some experience working with the planes so I can eventually get my A&P license. 

I would theoretically like to do as much of this as possible this summer so that next year I can finish up and then hopefully find a place to start instructing. Any advice on order, methods, or anything in general will be happily received.

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1 Answers



  1. Robert Jankowski on Mar 20, 2016

    Some people recommend going MEL at the private level and doing your instrument and initial commercial in the MEL, then doing the SEL add on, but it probably ends up costing more that way. I would suggest that you get your instrument, then Commercial ASEL followed by CFI (ASE) then CFI-I. Once you get in the door at a school, you may be able to work out a discount at the for the MEL add on then MEI training (which would likely be pretty easy at that point). ASES and AMES would probably be fairly unusable and most people I know who have them got them for the novelty (which is something that I will probably do).

    As for your A&P certificate training, work with the school and they may let you shadow the mechanics during your down time.

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