CFII and MEI ratings
The two ratings that decide what a flight instructor can actually be paid to teach. Adding either one is governed by 14 CFR 61.191, and the paragraph is shorter than most people expect.
What are the CFII and MEI ratings?
Additional ratings placed on a flight instructor certificate you already hold. CFII is the instrument instructor rating, letting you give the instrument training 14 CFR 61.65(d) requires. MEI is the multiengine instructor rating, letting you teach in twins. Both are added under 14 CFR 61.191, which has exactly two paragraphs.
Paragraph (a) sends you back to 61.183 and asks you to meet the eligibility requirements that apply to the rating being sought. Paragraph (b) then takes one thing away. Anyone adding a rating to a flight instructor certificate is excused the knowledge test covering the 61.185(a)(1) areas. The fundamentals of instructing were examined once, and they are not examined again.
There is no paragraph (c). The section really is that short, and knowing it is short saves you from reading an inflated account of it somewhere else.
Why these two ratings matter more than the base certificate for anybody building hours: they widen the set of lessons you can be paid to give. An instructor who can only teach visual flying in single-engine airplanes is competing for the smallest pool of work on any field.
Should you add the CFII or the MEI first?
CFII first, in almost every case, and the reason is arithmetic rather than preference. Instrument students are more numerous than multiengine students at every training field, and instrument lessons are longer.
CFII — the instrument instructor rating
Lets you give the instrument training toward an instrument rating and the instrument work inside a commercial or multiengine course. It is the rating that most changes how much you fly per week.
- Added under14 CFR 61.191
- PrerequisiteThe 61.183 requirements for the rating sought
- Fundamentals test againNo, per 61.191(b)
- Practical testYes, on the relevant areas of operation
- Why firstThe largest pool of students
MEI — the multiengine instructor rating
Lets you teach toward a multiengine class rating. Fewer students, longer waits between them, and one extra legal gate that catches new instructors out.
- Added under14 CFR 61.191
- Also needsA multiengine class rating on your own certificate
- Extra gate5 hours PIC in make and model, per 61.195(f)
- Areas of operationFifteen, at 61.187(b)(2)
- Why secondFewer students, more scheduling friction
The gate people miss
14 CFR 61.195(f) is separate from everything in 61.191 and it applies after you hold the rating. It explains why a freshly minted MEI often cannot begin teaching in the twin parked in front of them.
- Requirement5 hours as PIC of that exact make and model
- Applies toTraining given toward a certificate or rating in a twin
- Counted perMake and model, not per class
- ConsequenceChanging employer can reset it
- Where it lives14 CFR 61.195(f)
What is different about teaching in a twin?
Two things, and one of them is visible in the regulation. The areas of operation for a multiengine instructor rating at 14 CFR 61.187(b)(2) run to fifteen items rather than fourteen, they add multiengine operations, and they carry slow flight and stalls where the single-engine list carries slow flight, stalls and spins.
You are teaching a failure, not a manoeuvre
Most instructing is teaching somebody to do something. Multiengine instructing is largely teaching somebody to respond correctly to something being done to them, repeatedly, until the response stops requiring thought. That is a different teaching problem and it needs a different lesson structure.
It is also a different risk problem. An instructor failing an engine on a student is deliberately putting an airplane into an asymmetric condition at the student's chosen airspeed, which is why V_SSE exists as a concept and why it belongs in the briefing rather than in the debrief.
The right seat changes what you can reach and what you can feel
Asymmetric flight is flown substantially with the feet, and the feedback that tells an instructor whether a student has the right foot on the right pedal is largely tactile. From the right seat, in an airplane you have five hours in, that feedback is unfamiliar.
This is exactly what 14 CFR 61.195(f) is protecting against. Five hours logged as pilot in command of that exact make and model, before you may teach toward a rating in that twin, is not a large number and it is a deliberate one.
The economics, stated honestly
A multiengine instructor rating widens what you can teach and does not by itself widen how much you teach, because the number of multiengine students at a typical field is small. Instructors who add the MEI expecting it to fill a diary are usually disappointed; instructors who add it expecting it to make them employable at schools that own a twin are usually not.
Our position: add the CFII first and add the MEI when there is a twin you would actually be teaching in. Adding a rating you cannot use is the most common avoidable expense in the whole instructor sequence.
What do the CFII and MEI ratings cost?
Neither is sold as a separately priced product on this site, and inventing a figure here would be worse than the gap. What is published is the prerequisite that most often stands in the way of the MEI: the multi-engine class rating, at $5,100.
Multi-Engine Add-On
Airplane multiengine land on your own certificate, which 61.191 requires before a multiengine instructor rating can be sought.
- ✓No hour floor under 61.63(c)(3)
- ✓Ten to fifteen hours typically
- ✓All engine-out and V_MC work
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Airline Career Track
Zero hours through to a commercial certificate with a flight instructor rating. The base instructor certificate sits inside it.
- ✓Private, instrument, commercial, multi, instructor
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced at a phase boundary
Instrument Rating
Required on your own certificate before instrument instructing, and required by 61.183(c)(2) for the base airplane instructor ratings anyway.
- ✓40 instrument hours under 61.65(d)
- ✓The 250 nm IFR cross-country
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
An hour in the twin
Sixty minutes of dual instruction in the Seminole, and the quickest way to get acquainted with the airframe an MEI plan depends on.
- ✓You do the flying
- ✓Loggable dual instruction
- ✓Credited whole if you enrol inside a day
What has to exist before an MEI can be useful?
A twin, instructors already qualified in it, and enough multiengine students to make the rating worth holding. Two of those three are countable here.
A Piper Seminole owned by the operation
An MEI without access to a twin is a rating on a certificate rather than a job. The airplane here belongs to the school and is maintained on the regime that applies once an aircraft gives instruction for hire.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Hours as pilot in command in the make and model
14 CFR 61.195(f) wants them logged before an instructor may teach toward any certificate or rating in a twin. It is counted per make and model, so it can reset when you change employer or airframe.
14 CFR 61.195(f)Areas of operation on the multiengine instructor list
14 CFR 61.187(b)(2) sets out fifteen, adding multiengine operations and carrying slow flight and stalls where the single-engine list at (b)(1) carries slow flight, stalls and spins.
14 CFR 61.187(b)(2)Repeat fundamentals of instructing tests
14 CFR 61.191(b) exempts an applicant adding a rating to a flight instructor certificate from the knowledge test on the 61.185(a)(1) areas. Sat once, not sat again.
14 CFR 61.191(b)Instructing work promised to anyone trained here
None. No job is offered to anybody who trains here as a condition or an inducement, and a rating is not a hiring commitment.
Stated rather than impliedWhat these ratings do and do not give you
A CFII lets you give instrument training within the privileges of your certificates. An MEI lets you give training toward a multiengine class rating, subject to 14 CFR 61.195(f) and to holding the class rating yourself. Neither is an airline qualification, and neither alters what 14 CFR 61.159 asks for before an airline transport pilot certificate can be issued.
Training happens at Van Nuys Airport under part 61. This is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and there is no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring relationship with any carrier. Nothing on this page offers an interview, a job or a salary.
No pass rate and no graduate count are published on this site. The operation is new and the sample would be too small to mean anything, so the syllabus, the prices we publish, the gap where a price is not published, and the regulation behind each requirement go up instead.
What people ask about additional instructor ratings
Under 14 CFR 61.191, which runs to two paragraphs. Paragraph (a) requires you to meet the 61.183 eligibility requirements applying to the rating sought. Paragraph (b) excuses you from the knowledge test on the 61.185(a)(1) areas, meaning the fundamentals of instructing examination is not repeated.
No. 14 CFR 61.191(b) says plainly that anyone adding a rating to a flight instructor certificate is excused the knowledge test over the 61.185(a)(1) areas. It is sat once, for the first instructor rating.
Training toward a multiengine class rating, provided you hold the class rating yourself and provided 14 CFR 61.195(f) is satisfied — five hours logged as pilot in command of that exact make and model of twin, before you may give training toward any certificate or rating in it.
Because it counts by make and model rather than by class. An instructor with hundreds of hours in one twin who moves to a school flying a different twin starts that five-hour count again in the new airframe. It is a small requirement that reliably delays a start date.
CFII first, at most fields. Instrument students outnumber multiengine students everywhere, and instrument lessons run longer, so the instrument instructor rating changes how much you fly per week far more than the multiengine one does. Add the MEI when there is a twin you would actually be teaching in.
14 CFR 61.187(b)(2) lists fifteen areas against fourteen on the single-engine list at (b)(1). It adds multiengine operations, and it carries slow flight and stalls where the single-engine list carries slow flight, stalls and spins.
Yes. 61.191(a) sends you to the 61.183 requirements for the rating sought, and 61.183(c) wants your commercial or ATP certificate to carry whichever category and class rating matches the instructor rating. Adding airplane multiengine land to your own certificate is $5,100 here.
Yes. 61.191(a) carries you back to 61.183, and 61.183(h) is the practical test appropriate to the rating sought. What 61.191(b) removes is one written examination, not the flight test.
It applies to the rating sought. 61.183(j) asks for fifteen hours logged as pilot in command, in whichever category and class matches the instructor rating, so a pilot adding a multiengine instructor rating needs fifteen hours of pilot-in-command time in twins — which a twelve-hour class rating course does not by itself produce.
Neither carries a separately published price on this site today, which we would rather state than paper over. The prerequisite that most often blocks the MEI is published: the multi-engine class rating is $5,100, fixed at enrolment. Ask for a figure on the instructor ratings themselves and you will be given one rather than a range.
The flight instructor cluster
Getting familiar with the airframe is where an MEI plan starts
If the MEI is the plan, two things bind before anything else: a multiengine class rating on your own certificate, and then five hours as pilot in command of the make and model you intend to teach in. An hour of dual instruction in the Seminole is where getting to know the airframe starts. The time is loggable, and enrolling inside a day takes the fee off the program.
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 →