The job involves being at the school almost 7 days a week with a wide variety of students from various backgrounds. Some are full-time international students who fly once to twice a day while others are part time high school students or people with full time jobs who may fly once every week or two and then disappear for a month before returning.

A typical path for an instructor would include 1-2 years as a VFR instructor providing training for private and commercial licences before moving on to IFR training and also multi-engine training. By then end of this cycle the instructor typically has enough experience to qualify for an ATPL licence and would be attractive to charter companies as a first officer on a turboprop such as a Beech 1900 or King Air. Some commuter airlines will get their new hires almost exclusively from instructors at the nearby training airport so do maintain a professional reputation as you instruct.

Instructing can vary greatly between schools: some are part of college programs where the students are full-time and are extremely devoted to their flying as this is school for them; others cater more to students learning for recreational purposes and generally include more part time private licence students.

One major advantage to instructing is being able to stay in a major city while building up your experience flying vs. having to move to a remote community in deep dark Africa. However, instructing does not provide a very significant salary at first so meeting the urban cost of living can be a challenge during quieter times at the school.

An interesting aspect of instructing is the number of people you meet. I can list off the top of my head at least 15 countries that my students have come from. They all have very interesting stories about aviation in their home countries and often have useful information for future jobs once you have decided to move on to a new aspect of flying. As well as through seminars, flight tests and IFR training you will get the opportunity to meet professional pilots who are at the school to upgrade their skills. They often provide valuable information on future job hunting and can give you insight into flying in the commercial environment.

The single most important skill as an instructor is having a great deal of patience and realising that the student is being confronted with a number of new experiences at once. It would be impossible to expect them to pick everything up at once. Further patience is also needed if teaching at a school that includes international students in their program as English ends up being a topic to overcome as well as the flying.

As an instructor you will not be doing a great deal of flying. You are primarily there to help your students flying. That being said you do provide enough demonstrations, etc that your flying definitely stays sharp. If you do become an instructor don't be afraid to fly a demonstration even if the student is well into their commercial. A single visual demonstration often does more good than half an hour of verbal critiquing. Additionally, you will not get much experience in cross country flight. Until then your flying will mainly be in the general flying area and the circuit at Lanseria airport.

Instructing is definitely not a job to choose simply because you want to build hours. Your students (and boss) will pick up on this very quickly and you will not be very popular at the school. This does not mean you have to devote your life to instructing but you have to want to be doing your job. When you first start and especially during the winter mornings and summer afternoons the hours can be slow coming and there is a lot of non-flying work involved as well. That being said, instructing provides you with a great opportunity to learn more about flying. I have learnt more as an instructor than I during any other phase in my flight training and career thus far. There's no better way to learn from other peoples mistakes and I've had a lot to learn from as I've instructed.

To become a flight instructor you first need to choose a flight school that you feel you would be comfortable teaching in as the vast majority of instructors start teaching where they did their initial rating. The rating itself takes between 3 months to a year depending on whether it is full time or part time. The bulk of the rating is classroom work and teaching ground briefings but there is 20 hours of flight time which can be viewed as PPL part two as you will go back to the basics and work through every exercise again. There is a written examination that is not too different from previous exams you may have encountered. While doing your rating make sure you get yourself involved in the social environment at the school. Hang out at the school and don't just be a face who walks in for your bookings and then quietly leaves. I would say this is the single greatest determining factor in which candidates have received jobs at my school upon completing their ratings. Instructing is a very social job and if you come across as timid on the ground there will be doubts as to your ability to interact in a useful manner with your students.

If you do decide to pursue instructing, good luck! Remember to have fun: there are lots of ways to create variety in your lessons and your students will appreciate this as well.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR'S RATING

The aim of the Grade III Flight Instructor (A) rating course is to train a candidate to the level of proficiency required for the issue of a Grade III flight instructor rating.

Contents and requirements of the training course

The applicant must complete a training course with an aviation training organisation approved by the Commissioner in terms of Part 141. However, the theoretical knowledge course and the practical training course may be completed at different aviation training organisations.

Ground evaluation : The ground evaluation shall comprise the following:

• A 'class teaching' evaluation test conducted by a Designated Flight Examiner and the instructor responsible for the training of the candidate.
• The DFE conducting such test shall be specifically nominated for FIC by the Commissioner.
• The candidate shall present a full briefing on a subject that was given in advance to him or her by the Designated Flight Examiner.
• The candidate shall be assessed on their basic instrument training aspects.

Candidates for the Flight Instructor Rating are required to have the following:

1.     A valid Commercial Pilot Licence or Airline Transport Pilot Licence

2.     Have had not less than 20 hours of flight instruction under the supervision of aGr. I or II flight instructor. (Patter)

3.     Have passed the theoretical knowledge examinations

4.     Have undergone the required skills test as prescribed in Document SA-CATSFCL

5.     The applicant must complete a training course with an aviation trainingorganisation approved by the Commissioner in terms of Part 141.

The examinations for the above-mentioned rating consist of two questionnaires:

i) applied meteorology and Navigationii) Principle of Flight and Legislation

The duration of each examination is three hours.

The set of study notes comprises the following 5 books:

Principles of FlightPrinciples of Flight InstructionApplied NavigationApplied MeteorologyAir Law for InstructorsPlus a Typical Examination Questions book

The instructors rating will be divided into two sections:

Firstly the ground briefings where we will teach you to teach in the classroom environment. You will be required to brief an instructor on each of the flight exercises in the PPL syllabus. Once you are comfortable and competent with these exercises you will then start the flying part.

In the flying part you will fly with an instructor, in our Cessna 172's, you sitting in the right hand seat and 'teaching' an instructor. Again you will go through each and every flight exercise several times until you are comfortable and proficient. This takes most people approximately 20 hours.

After this you need to go for a mock test with our CFI  who will sign your letter of recommendation once she is satisfied with your level of training and then you test with one of several Designated Examiners we have available.