Certified flight instructor
The rating that turns a commercial certificate into a job. It is also the point where you stop being taught and start being asked to explain, which is a harder change than most people expect.
What is a certified flight instructor?
A pilot certificated under subpart H of 14 CFR part 61 to give flight and ground training and to sign the endorsements the regulations require. The eligibility list is 14 CFR 61.183, and it runs from paragraph (a) to paragraph (k) without a single wasted line.
The instructor rating sits on top of a commercial certificate rather than replacing it. Paragraph (c) of 61.183 wants a commercial certificate in your hand, or else an ATP, carrying whichever category and class rating matches the instructor rating you are after — and, for the airplane single-engine, airplane multiengine, powered-lift and instrument versions, an instrument rating alongside it.
What makes this rating different from every other one is the direction of the work. Up to this point you have been demonstrating that you can fly. From here you are demonstrating that you can explain, in real time, to somebody who does not yet understand, while remaining legally pilot in command of an airplane being flown badly on purpose. That is a genuinely different skill and it is why the failure rate on this test is spoken about the way it is.
There is also a commercial reality, and this site would rather state it than dress it. Instructing is how most pilots accumulate what 14 CFR 61.159 asks for before an airline transport pilot certificate can be issued. It pays, and it does not pay well, and it is nonetheless the most efficient route there is from a commercial certificate to 1,500 hours.
What does 14 CFR 61.183 actually require?
Eleven paragraphs. Below is what each one does, with its letter, because the letters get misquoted more often than almost anything else in part 61 and a wrong letter is the fastest way to spot a page nobody checked.
Who you have to be, and what you have to hold
Paragraph (a) sets a minimum age of 18. Paragraph (b) covers English — reading it, speaking it, writing it, understanding it — and allows the Administrator to write operating limitations onto the certificate where a medical reason stands in the way.
Paragraph (c) carries the real prerequisite. You hold a commercial certificate or an ATP; it carries whichever category and class rating matches the instructor rating you want; and for the airplane and instrument versions an instrument rating sits alongside.
- (a) at least 18 years of age
- (b) read, speak, write and understand English
- (c) commercial or ATP, matching category and class, plus an instrument rating for the airplane and instrument versions
The two knowledge tests, and the endorsement between them
This is the part that surprises people. There are two written examinations, not one, and they cover different things.
Under paragraph (d) an authorized instructor endorses your logbook on the fundamentals of instructing. Paragraph (e) then sends you to a knowledge test covering the areas at 61.185(a)(1) — those same fundamentals: how people learn, how people teach, lesson planning, evaluation. Paragraph (f) sends you to a second one, this time over the aeronautical knowledge areas at 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3).
So the endorsement comes first, then the fundamentals test, then the aeronautical test. Getting that order wrong costs a trip to a testing centre.
- (d) a logbook endorsement on the fundamentals of instructing
- (e) the first knowledge test, over the 61.185(a)(1) areas
- (f) the second, over the areas at 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3)
The training, the spin endorsement, and the flying
Paragraph (g) wants flight training, plus an endorsement in your logbook, across the areas of operation that 61.187(b) sets out for the rating you are seeking. Paragraph (h) is the practical test itself.
Paragraph (i) is the one people leave too late. An airplane or glider instructor rating needs an endorsement saying you are competent, and instructionally proficient, across stall awareness, spin entries, spins and recoveries — written after training given in an aircraft that is certificated for spinning. Produce it and an examiner may take it in place of a demonstration, unless you are retesting because those exact areas were where you came unstuck.
Paragraph (j) asks for fifteen hours or more logged as pilot in command, in whichever category and class matches the rating you want. Paragraph (k) sweeps up compliance with the part's other applicable sections.
- (g) flight training plus an endorsement on the 61.187(b) areas of operation
- (h) the practical test
- (i) the spin awareness endorsement, on airplane and glider ratings
- (j) fifteen hours logged as pilot in command, matching category and class
- (k) comply with the other applicable sections
Do flight instructor certificates still expire?
No, not if yours was issued on or after 1 December 2024. This is the single most commonly out-of-date claim on flight school websites, and 14 CFR 61.19(d) settles it in two sentences.
Issued on or after 1 December 2024
The certificate is issued without an expiration date. What replaces the old renewal cycle is a recent-experience requirement you satisfy periodically in order to exercise the privileges.
- Governing paragraph14 CFR 61.19(d)(1)
- Expiration dateNone
- What you maintain insteadRecent experience
- Where that lives14 CFR 61.197
Issued before 1 December 2024
Those expire at the end of the twenty-fourth calendar month counted from whenever they were issued, renewed or last reinstated. 61.19(d)(2) is explicit about it, which is why both statements can be true at once.
- Governing paragraph14 CFR 61.19(d)(2)
- Expiration24 calendar months
- Counted fromIssue, renewal or reinstatement
- Common errorApplying this to every certificate
What recent experience means now
14 CFR 61.197 is headed recent experience rather than renewal. Inside the preceding 24 calendar months you satisfy one of several routes in order to keep exercising the privileges.
- Window24 calendar months
- Route onePass a practical test for a rating on the certificate
- Route twoAn approved flight instructor refresher course
- Route threeEndorse five or more applicants, with at least 80% passing first time
- OthersCheck pilot or company check airman roles, and military equivalents
What does flight instructor training cost here?
No standalone price for the instructor rating appears on this site. Saying so plainly beats printing a figure this school does not actually publish. The instructor certificate sits inside the $89,000 career track, and if you want it separately the answer is a conversation rather than a page.
Airline Career Track
Zero hours through private, instrument, commercial and multi-engine to a flight instructor certificate. One price for the whole route.
- ✓The instructor rating is inside this figure
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced at a phase boundary
- ✓Part 61 throughout
Commercial Pilot License
A commercial certificate or an ATP has to come first under 61.183(c), which makes this a prerequisite rather than an option.
- ✓250 hours behind it, per 14 CFR 61.129(a)
- ✓The certificate the instructor rating sits on
- ✓Instrument rating needed alongside it
Multi-Engine Add-On
Needed before a multiengine instructor rating, because 61.191 sends you back to the 61.183 requirements for the rating sought.
- ✓No hour floor under 61.63(c)(3)
- ✓Ten to fifteen hours typically
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Assessment flight
One hour of dual instruction if you are starting from the beginning rather than adding an instructor rating to an existing certificate.
- ✓Sixty minutes of dual instruction
- ✓Loggable time
- ✓Credited whole if you enrol inside a day
What can you check about instructor training here?
An instructor rating is taught from the right seat by people who do the job daily. The things that make that work are countable rather than aspirational.
Working instructors on the field
All of them hold a commercial certificate or an ATP, with a flight instructor certificate above that and a medical in date. On the flights they teach, each is legally the pilot in command. Learning to instruct alongside people who instruct full time is the point.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23Airframe types to teach in
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. A new instructor who has taught in more than one type is a more employable instructor, and a fleet of one type cannot produce that.
Owned and maintained in-houseHours of flight training an instructor may give in 24 hours
14 CFR 61.195(a) caps it at eight. Worth knowing before you plan a career around instructing, because it sets the ceiling on what a day can produce and therefore on what the job pays.
14 CFR 61.195(a)Training days a year measured at this field
From NOAA ASOS observations across the year ending 1 August 2026, counting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility for four qualifying daylight hours. What an instructor earns tracks flyable days more closely than it tracks anything else.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetJobs promised to the people we train
None. We do not promise employment to anyone we train, and a school that does is making a promise about a market rather than about itself.
Stated rather than impliedIs becoming a flight instructor worth it?
For most people building toward 1,500 hours, yes, and it is worth knowing why before you commit. Instructing is the only common job that pays you at all while your logbook fills toward 14 CFR 61.159, and it is also the job that will teach you more about flying than the previous four ratings combined.
The case for it is simple. You cannot reach an airline transport pilot certificate without hours, hours cost money to buy, and instructing inverts that: somebody else pays for the airplane and you are in it. Nothing else in general aviation does that at anything like the same scale.
The case against it is equally simple and gets said less. The pay is poor, particularly in the first year. The work is weather-dependent, so a bad month is a thin month. The legal ceiling at 14 CFR 61.195(a) is eight hours of flight training inside any twenty-four, and a busy instructor seldom gets near it. And the responsibility is real: on every training flight you are legally the pilot in command, which means an inexperienced person is manipulating the controls of an airplane that is your legal problem.
We publish no salary figure for instructing on this site because we could not source one that was both current and defensible, and a made-up number in a career decision is worse than a blank. Ask three working instructors at any airport and you will get a better answer than any web page can give you.
A position, since this page is supposed to take one. If your goal is an airline seat, get the instructor rating. If your goal is to fly for pleasure, it is an expensive way to buy something you do not need.
What we do not promise instructors
No job. This school does not guarantee employment, an interview or a rate of pay to anybody it trains, and there is no arrangement with any carrier that would let it. Where an instructing position exists here it is advertised and filled like any other job.
No pass rate and no graduate count are published on this site. The operation is new, the sample would be too small to carry meaning, and a figure invented to fill the gap would be worse than the gap. What is published instead is the syllabus, the regulation behind each requirement and the prices we actually charge.
Training happens at Van Nuys Airport under part 61. This is not an airline and is not owned by one, and there is no cadet program or pathway agreement here. Nothing on this page offers an interview, a job or a salary.
What people ask about the instructor rating
14 CFR 61.183 sets it out: age 18 under (a), English under (b), a commercial or ATP certificate with the right category and class plus an instrument rating under (c), a fundamentals of instructing endorsement under (d), two knowledge tests under (e) and (f), flight training and an endorsement under (g), the practical test under (h), a spin awareness endorsement under (i), and under (j) fifteen hours logged as pilot in command in matching category and class.
Two. 61.183(e) requires one on the fundamentals of instructing areas listed in 61.185(a)(1), and 61.183(f) requires a second on the aeronautical knowledge areas in 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3). The fundamentals endorsement under (d) comes before the first of them.
Not if it was issued on or after 1 December 2024. 14 CFR 61.19(d)(1) states that such a certificate is issued without an expiration date. One issued before that date runs out at the end of the twenty-fourth calendar month, counted from issue, renewal or reinstatement, under 61.19(d)(2). Both statements are current law and the difference is the issue date.
Maintain recent experience. 14 CFR 61.197 is now headed recent experience requirements rather than renewal, and it asks you, inside the preceding 24 calendar months, to satisfy one of several routes: pass a practical test for a rating on the certificate, complete an approved flight instructor refresher course, endorse five or more applicants with at least 80 percent passing on the first attempt, or serve in specified check pilot or military instructor roles.
There is no total-time figure in 61.183. What (j) specifies is fifteen hours logged as pilot in command, in whichever category and class of aircraft matches the rating being sought. The larger number in the background is the 250 hours behind the commercial certificate that 61.183(c) requires you to already hold.
Yes, for the airplane ratings. 61.183(c)(2) requires an instrument rating, or privileges appropriate to the rating sought, where the instructor certificate applied for carries an airplane single-engine rating, an airplane multiengine rating, a powered-lift rating or an instrument rating.
Under 61.183(i)(1) an authorized instructor endorses your logbook to say you are competent, and instructionally proficient, across stall awareness, spin entries, spins and recoveries, once you have been trained in those areas in an aircraft certificated for spinning. An examiner may accept that endorsement in place of a demonstration, unless the test is a retest arising from a deficiency in those same areas.
Eight, measured across any twenty-four consecutive hours, under 14 CFR 61.195(a). It is a legal ceiling rather than a target, and it is the single most useful number for anyone estimating what instructing can pay.
It is the most efficient one commonly available, because somebody else pays for the airplane while your logbook climbs toward the 1,500 hours that 14 CFR 61.159 sets out. It pays poorly, the work depends on weather, and the responsibility is genuine, since you are legally pilot in command of every training flight you give.
There is no standalone published price for it on this site. The instructor certificate sits inside the $89,000 career track, which runs from zero hours through private, instrument, commercial and multi-engine to the instructor rating. Holding a commercial certificate already and wanting only the instructor rating? Ask, and you will be given a figure rather than a range.
The flight instructor cluster
The instructor rating starts with a commercial certificate
If you are at the beginning rather than the end, an hour of dual instruction is the honest first step, and it is loggable toward everything above. If you already hold a commercial certificate, say so when you book and the conversation will start in the right place.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →