CFII or Certified Flight Instructor Instrument allows one to teach instrument rating applicants; both on ground (aeronautical knowledge) and flight training. If your career goals are to be an airline or corporate aviation pilot, let’s face it, the more instrument time you have the better. And there are only 2 ways to get that actual instrument flight time – teach as a CFII or rent an airplane. Most will prefer teaching instrument rating students. One, it is a lot of fun, two, you learn a lot more yourself (compared to simply renting and flying around), and three, you are getting paid for it!
Also, getting your CFII add-on rating to your existing CFI certificate is another way to renew or reinstate your CFI certificate for another 24 months.
Course Structure
CFII course at CFI Academy is completed in 5 days. The ground training portion of this course is about 20 hours, and the flight training portion is about 8 hours long. The ground training portion includes teaching a good instrument scan, instrument navigation, traditional and modern GPS based equipment and various instrument approaches like ILS, VOR, NDB etc, instrument emergency procedures and unusual attitude entry and recovery procedures.
The Flight portion of this course will allow you to learn how to teach instrument students in an airplane. You will need to complete at least one instrument approach while under the hood yourself, so you will be getting a lot of instrument time during your training as well. Course completion leads to an instrument proficiency sign-off as well.
Typical Training Day
A typical training day for a CFII applicant includes about 4 hours of ground school and 2 hours of flight time, plus another 4 hours of self study and GPD simulator practice. You will be spending time watching some training videos as well.
Checkride
The checkride for the CFII rating is scheduled with a local examiner. Typically, during the oral portion of the checkride you will “teach” the examiner some instrument procedures, approaches and emergencies (with one lesson plan), and then for the flight portion you will “teach” the examiner the instrument procedures in an airplane. You will have to “teach” at least one instrument approach while being under the hood yourself.
Course Tuition Fee
The course tuition fee is $2200 and includes the following:
All the ground school training required for CFII add on (20+ hours)
10 hours of airplane rental (wet)
8 hours of flight instruction in the airplane
5 hours of GPS training in a simulator with an instructor
The course tuition fee does not include the following:
The FAA knowledge test fee (usually $100)
The books and related training materials like charts, approach plates etc
FAA examiner fee (usually about $400)
Room, boarding, food etc
Any additional aircraft rental of instructor fee in case of a retest ($110/hour for aircraft rental and $50/hour for instruction fee)
Course Duration
The course is completed in a 5 day period. If you already have your CFII knowledge exam pass, you will have a much more relaxed training schedule. Otherwise be prepared to put in about 10 hours a day for your training.
