CFII And MEI Ratings
Two additions to an instructor certificate you already hold. One doubles the students available to you. The other opens the twin, and comes with a five-hour gate almost nobody budgets for.
What Are The CFII And MEI Ratings?
Both are additional ratings placed on a flight instructor certificate you already hold, and both are governed by 14 CFR 61.191, which has exactly two paragraphs. CFII is the trade name for an instructor certificate carrying an instrument-airplane rating. MEI is the trade name for one carrying an airplane multiengine class rating.
Paragraph (a) does the heavy lifting: an applicant for an additional instructor rating has to meet the eligibility requirements at 14 CFR 61.183 that apply to the rating being sought. That sends you straight back to the same eleven paragraphs, filtered for the new rating. Paragraph (b) then removes one item, and only one.
So an added rating is not a new certificate and not a shortcut. It is the 61.183 list, run again, with the fundamentals-of-instructing written struck off. Everything else — the knowledge test for the rating, the training and endorsements, the practical test, the fifteen hours in command — comes round a second time.
How Does An Additional Instructor Rating Work?
Hold The Underlying Pilot Rating First
61.183(c) still applies through 61.191(a). An MEI needs a commercial certificate, or an ATP, carrying airplane multiengine land privileges behind it; the multi-engine add-on here is $5,100. A CFII needs the instrument rating, which 61.183(c)(2) already demanded for your first airplane instructor rating.
Sit One Knowledge Test, Not Two
61.183(f) still wants a written covering the aeronautical knowledge for the rating being sought. 61.191(b) removes the 61.185(a)(1) fundamentals paper, so the second visit to the testing centre is half the size of the first.
Log The Fifteen Hours In Command
61.183(j) applies per category and class. For an MEI that means fifteen hours in command of a multiengine aeroplane, and add-on training will not produce them, because add-on training is dual received.
Train And Test On The Right Areas Of Operation
61.187(b)(2) sets fifteen areas of operation for airplane multiengine, one more than the single-engine list. The extra one is multiengine operations, and the slow flight and stalls area drops spins.
Then Watch 61.195(f) Before You Teach
Holding the rating and being allowed to use it in a particular aeroplane are different things. 61.195(f) wants five hours in command of that exact make and model first.
Why Is There No Second Fundamentals Test?
Because 14 CFR 61.191(b) excuses an applicant for an additional rating on a flight instructor certificate from the knowledge test covering the areas at 61.185(a)(1). Those areas are the fundamentals of instructing, and the reasoning is straightforward: you proved you understood how people learn when you earned the certificate. Learning theory does not change because the aeroplane grew a second engine.
It fits a wider pattern in the rule. 14 CFR 61.183(e) already excuses the fundamentals written from anybody holding a flight or ground instructor certificate, a state teaching certificate for the seventh grade or above, or a teaching post at an accredited college or university. Paragraph 61.191(b) is the same idea, stated for the add-on case.
Be clear about what is not excused, because this is where optimism creeps in. The knowledge test for the rating itself still applies, the practical test still applies, and the training and endorsements still apply. One paper comes off the list. Nothing else does.
What Do The CFII And MEI Ratings Cost Here?
Neither carries a standalone published price on this site. The honest reason is that the cost of an MEI is dominated by how many of the fifteen hours at 61.183(j) you already hold in a twin, and that varies by an order of magnitude between two candidates who look identical on paper.
Airline Career Track
Every certificate and rating in one sequence at one published total, instructor ratings included, with nothing repriced at a boundary.
- ✓Instructor ratings are inside this figure
- ✓One number, agreed before the first lesson
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
Multi-Engine Add-On
The Piper Seminole twin rating on your pilot certificate. This one does have a fixed number, and it is the prerequisite an MEI cannot skip.
- ✓No hour floor in 14 CFR 61.63(c)
- ✓Flown in the Piper Seminole
- ✓Produces dual received, not time in command
CFII Or MEI Alone
We leave this empty rather than fill it with a range. Somebody holding twelve hours in a twin and somebody holding zero are not buying the same course.
- ✓The 61.183(j) gap dominates the total
- ✓No ranges are published anywhere on this site
- ✓A consultation costs nothing
Which Prerequisites Are Sold At A Fixed Number?
The pilot certificates and ratings that have to sit underneath an added instructor rating. Each is fixed at enrolment and none of them moves later.
Instrument Rating
Underneath the CFII, and already required for your first airplane instructor rating by 61.183(c)(2), so most candidates arrive holding it.
- ✓50 hours cross-country in command behind it, per 61.65(d)
- ✓The rating a CFII spends every working day teaching
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours logged, for a reader who is at the start of all this rather than adding to an existing instructor certificate.
- ✓55 hours single-engine, 5 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓50 hours dual, 10 hours ground
- ✓Books and training materials included
Redbird MCX Session
Where a new instrument instructor rehearses talking through an approach without burning an hour of aircraft time to do it.
- ✓Full motion, fully enclosed, FAA-approved
- ✓Weather never cancels it
- ✓Weak for landings, and we say so
Which Requirement Catches New MEI Candidates?
14 CFR 61.183(j), reached through 61.191(a). It asks for fifteen hours in command of the aircraft category and class that matches the rating being sought. For a multiengine instructor rating, that means fifteen hours in command of a twin, and the multi-engine add-on that got you the class rating will not have produced them.
The reason is structural rather than unlucky. During add-on training the instructor is legally pilot in command, so your logbook fills with dual received. A candidate can finish a multi-engine rating at ten or twelve hours, hold a perfectly valid class rating, and still be fifteen hours away from being eligible for the instructor version of it.
Work out where those hours will come from before you need them. That is the single most useful sentence on this page, and it is why we will not quote an MEI course as one number: the fifteen-hour gap is the biggest variable and it is invisible until somebody opens the logbook.
Should You Add The CFII Or The MEI First?
CFII first in most cases, and the argument is arithmetic rather than taste. It is not the right answer for everyone, so both cases are set out with their downsides attached.
The CFII
An instructor certificate carrying an instrument-airplane rating, added under 61.191.
Best foran instructor who wants a full diary
- Prerequisite RatingInstrument, already required by 61.183(c)(2)
- Extra Pilot Rating To BuyNone, in most cases
- Hours Gate At 61.183(j)Usually already met
- Students AvailableThe larger pool
- Main DownsideLong lessons, and weather-dependent scheduling
The MEI
An instructor certificate carrying an airplane multiengine class rating, added under the same rule.
Best foran instructor with twin time already logged
- Prerequisite RatingMulti-engine add-on, $5,100
- Extra Pilot Rating To BuyYes, unless you hold it
- Hours Gate At 61.183(j)Fifteen hours in command of a twin
- Students AvailableThe smaller pool
- Main DownsideThe 61.195(f) five-hour gate on top
Side By Side
| Item | CFII | MEI |
|---|---|---|
| Added Under | 14 CFR 61.191 | 14 CFR 61.191 |
| Fundamentals Written Again | No, per 61.191(b) | No, per 61.191(b) |
| Rating Knowledge Test | Yes, per 61.183(f) | Yes, per 61.183(f) |
| Areas Of Operation | Per 61.187(b) for the rating | Fifteen, per 61.187(b)(2) |
| Time In Command Needed | Fifteen hours, single-engine | Fifteen hours, multiengine |
| Make And Model Gate | Not applicable | Five hours, per 61.195(f) |
What Is The Five-Hour Gate At 61.195(f)?
14 CFR 61.195(f) will not let a flight instructor teach toward any certificate or rating in a multiengine airplane, a helicopter or a powered-lift unless that instructor holds five flight hours or more in command of the exact make and model concerned. Not the class. The make and model.
New multiengine instructors meet this one late and it surprises them. You can pass the MEI practical test and still be legally unable to teach a multi-engine course in the aeroplane sitting outside, because your five hours in command of that particular type have not been flown yet. A school operating two different twins has to count them separately.
It is a sensible rule and we would not argue with it. An instructor who has never handled an engine failure in the type they are about to demonstrate one in is a bad idea, and five hours is a modest price for that. It is simply a rule that belongs on a planning list rather than in a surprise.
Six Differences Between A First Certificate And An Added Rating
Reading 14 CFR 61.191 alongside 61.183 gives a short list of what actually changes. Most of the list is the word no.
The Fundamentals Written
Not repeated. 61.191(b) removes the 61.185(a)(1) knowledge test for an added rating, and it is the only item the paragraph removes.
The Rating Written
Repeated. 61.183(f) still wants a knowledge test on the aeronautical knowledge areas for the rating being sought.
The Practical Test
Repeated. 61.183(h) applies again, examined against the areas of operation 61.187(b) sets for the new rating.
Fifteen Hours In Command
Repeated, and per class. For an MEI those hours have to be logged in a twin, which is the requirement people miss.
The Areas Of Operation
Changed. The multiengine list at 61.187(b)(2) runs to fifteen, adding multiengine operations and dropping spins from its slow flight and stalls area.
The Make And Model Gate
New. 61.195(f) has no equivalent for a single-engine instructor, and it applies after the checkride rather than before it.
What Changes When You Teach On Instruments?
The talking changes. On a visual lesson you can point at the runway; on an instrument lesson your student is under a hood or in cloud and your only tools are words and the panel. A CFII spends the lesson describing a scan pattern that the student cannot see you performing, which is a genuinely different teaching problem.
The tempo changes too. An instrument lesson is longer than a visual one and it fills more of a working day, which is the practical reason most instructors add this rating first. It also removes a scheduling constraint: an approach can be flown on a day when the pattern is unpleasant.
The honest downside is fatigue. Teaching instrument flying is concentrated work and it stacks up across a week in a way that circuits do not. 14 CFR 61.195(a) sets the legal ceiling at eight hours of flight training inside any 24 consecutive hour period, and a CFII gets closer to it than most instructors do.
What Does The MEI Practical Test Add?
One extra area of operation and a different relationship with the stall. 14 CFR 61.187(b)(2) lists fifteen areas of operation for an airplane multiengine instructor rating against the fourteen at 61.187(b)(1) for single-engine.
Multiengine Operations
The added area covers the work that only exists once there are two engines: asymmetric handling, engine-out procedure, the drills around identifying and securing a failed engine, and the performance realities of a light twin on one. Teaching it means demonstrating and narrating it while the aeroplane is genuinely asymmetric.
This is also where the examiner learns most about you. A candidate who can fly an engine-out approach silently has proved nothing on this test. The requirement is to fly it while explaining what the aeroplane is doing and why, to somebody who has never seen it before.
- Area XIII of FAA-S-ACS-25 is multiengine operations
- It does not apply on a single-engine instructor ride
- The Piper Seminole is the twin used here
Spins Leave The List
The single-engine areas of operation at 61.187(b)(1) include slow flight, stalls and spins. The multiengine list at 61.187(b)(2) covers slow flight and stalls without spins, which is the regulation acknowledging what every twin pilot already knows: an intentional spin in a light twin is not a training manoeuvre.
14 CFR 61.183(i), the spin endorsement and demonstration, is written for a flight instructor certificate carrying an airplane or a glider rating. It is not written per class, and no part of it asks anybody to spin a twin.
- 61.187(b)(1) includes spins; 61.187(b)(2) does not
- 61.183(i) attaches to the airplane or glider certificate
- Ask your examiner how they want the endorsement evidenced on an add-on
The Twin, The People And The Method
Nothing on this site is a testimonial. Each of the five items below can be checked against a public record or a published method by somebody who does not believe us.
Piper Seminole, Owned
One twin, owned rather than brokered in for the day, which is what makes the 61.195(f) five-hour make-and-model requirement tractable for our own instructors.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Flight Instructors
Eleven of them, each holding an instructor certificate, a current medical and either a commercial certificate or an ATP. On every flight, the instructor is the legally responsible pilot in command.
FAA Airmen RegistryAircraft Types, Owned In-House
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole, with glass and round-dial panels both on the field.
See the fleet pageFlyable Training Days, Measured
A year of NOAA ASOS observations at Van Nuys ending 1 August 2026, scored day by day: ceiling 3,000 feet or above, visibility five statute miles or above, four qualifying daytime hours needed.
NOAA ASOS, Van Nuys (KVNY)Hourly Figures On The Twin
The Seminole is sold as part of a $5,100 add-on and as part of the career track. There is no twin hourly rate on this site and no rental rate card either.
Stated deliberatelyFour Statements We Will Not Soften
Adding these ratings is usually part of a plan that ends at an airline, so this page carries the same four statements as every other page here that touches that plan.
This is a Part 61 training operation at Van Nuys Airport. No airline owns it, partners with it or has agreed to look at anybody who trains here, and there is no cadet scheme. There is no queue here to move you up.
Nothing here guarantees an interview, a job or a salary. A multiengine instructor rating reliably produces the legal right to be paid to teach in a twin. Whether that turns into employment is a hiring-market question, and the hiring market is not ours to promise.
There is no pass rate and no graduate count on this site. We opened this year. A figure with no sample behind it tells a reader nothing except that the school wanted a figure.
What we do publish: the syllabus, the price wherever one genuinely exists, the hours, and the paragraph behind every requirement quoted here, each read from the current regulation text before it was written down.
Which Added Rating Actually Fills A Logbook?
The CFII, in most markets, and it is not close. Instrument students outnumber multiengine students at every training field, instrument lessons run longer than circuits, and instrument work is less dependent on a pleasant afternoon. An instructor certificate carrying an instrument rating turns more diary into more logbook.
The MEI fills a logbook differently. Twin hours are the ones a first employer looks hardest at, and multiengine time accumulates slowly precisely because there are fewer students competing for it. One MEI in a school full of single-engine instructors is rarely short of work, but the ceiling on how much work exists is lower.
Both sit under the same limit. 14 CFR 61.195(a) will not let any instructor conduct more than eight hours of flight training inside any 24 consecutive hour period, which is the hard boundary on how fast this route moves somebody toward the 1,500 hours an unrestricted airline transport pilot certificate needs under 14 CFR 61.159.
CFII And MEI Questions
Both add-on instructor ratings are taught at Airline Pilot Flight School in the school's own aircraft, in whichever order suits the hours you already hold.
A flight instructor certificate that carries an instrument-airplane rating, which lets you give the instrument training an instrument rating requires and the instrument work inside other courses. Added under 14 CFR 61.191, whose paragraph (a) sends you back to whichever 61.183 items apply to the rating being sought.
An instructor certificate that carries an airplane multiengine class rating. Added under 14 CFR 61.191 like any other instructor rating, and the item candidates most often miss is 14 CFR 61.183(j): fifteen hours in command of a twin, which add-on training does not produce because add-on training is dual received.
No. Under 14 CFR 61.191(b), somebody applying for an additional rating on an instructor certificate is excused the knowledge test covering the 61.185(a)(1) areas, which are the fundamentals of instructing. That is the only item paragraph (b) removes; the rating written and the practical test both still apply.
Fifteen hours in command of a multiengine aeroplane, under 14 CFR 61.183(j) reached through 61.191(a). Those hours are separate from the multi-engine class rating itself, which has no minimum hour requirement in 14 CFR 61.63(c), and separate again from the five hours 14 CFR 61.195(f) requires in a specific make and model before you may teach in it.
14 CFR 61.195(f) will not let a flight instructor teach toward any certificate or rating in a multiengine airplane, a helicopter or a powered-lift unless that instructor holds five flight hours or more in command of the exact make and model. It is measured per make and model rather than per class, and it applies after the checkride rather than before it.
Usually the CFII. Instrument students outnumber multiengine students at most training fields and instrument lessons are longer, so the rating fills more of a week. The MEI is the better first choice for an instructor who already holds fifteen hours in command of a twin and wants multiengine time on their own record.
Paragraph (i) of 14 CFR 61.183 attaches to a flight instructor certificate carrying an airplane or a glider rating rather than to a class, and no part of it asks anybody to spin a twin. The multiengine areas of operation at 14 CFR 61.187(b)(2) cover slow flight and stalls without spins, unlike the single-engine list at 61.187(b)(1). Ask your examiner how they want the endorsement evidenced on an add-on.
Fifteen, listed at 14 CFR 61.187(b)(2), against fourteen for airplane single-engine at 61.187(b)(1). The extra area is multiengine operations, which appears as Area XIII in FAA-S-ACS-25, the Flight Instructor for Airplane Category airman certification standards.
No standalone published figure exists, because the total turns on how many of the fifteen hours 14 CFR 61.183(j) wants you already carry in a twin. The multi-engine add-on that has to come first is $5,100 and that number is fixed. The instructor ratings themselves sit inside the $89,000 airline career track.
Within the category and class on the certificate, and subject to the other limits in 14 CFR 61.195. The make-and-model constraint at 61.195(f) applies to multiengine airplanes, helicopters and powered-lift rather than to single-engine aeroplanes, so a CFII adding instrument instruction in a twin needs those five hours in that make and model as well.
The Twin Rating Comes First, And It Has A Number
An MEI cannot exist without the multiengine class rating underneath it, and that one is priced in public. Start there, then count the fifteen hours at 61.183(j) with us before you commit to anything else.
Keep Reading
The Flight Instructor Cluster
Certified Flight Instructor, The Full GuideFlight Instructor Requirements In 61.183CFI Checkride And The Fundamentals Of InstructingFlight Instructor Training CostThe Twin And The Panel
Multi-Engine Rating At Van NuysMulti-Engine Checkride And VMCInstrument Rating TrainingFly 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 →