I will say one thing for
being a flight instructor in Las Vegas.
There is a lot of variety, and that makes the job very interesting.
I imagine it’s a different job
here than it would be in most places.
Most CFIs I know who fly out of normal cities (Las Vegas is NOT normal)
spend 90% of their time with private or instrument students, starting with them
at the beginning and staying with them until they have completed their
checkrides. On the other hand, being in
a tourist area like Las Vegas, I spend at least a third of my time with people
who come in from out of town on vacation or business and just want to go flying
in a new area. And that’s not all.
As an example, a guy called
me a couple of weeks ago who bought a 1947 Bonanza in Texas and needed to get
it back to his home in Wenatchee, Washington.
He was able to fly it as far as Las Vegas but couldn’t get all the way back
due to weather. He also needed 5 hours
of flight time with a CFI in order to qualify for insurance on his own
airplane. So the plan was for him to
come down to Las Vegas, punch holes in the sky with me for 5 hours, then fly it
back home on his own. Well, the day we
were supposed to go flying, the weather started to deteriorate in the Pacific
Northwest so instead of flying around in circles, he had me fly with him up to
Boise to get his 5 hours and beat the weather, then put me on a commercial
flight back to Las Vegas. Then he flew
the rest of the way back to Wenatchee.
When I woke up that morning, I had no idea I’d be in Idaho, Nevada, and
Utah all in the same day. Got home at
11:30 that night.
I also frequently have
pilots visiting from flatland areas who want to get some mountain experience,
so I take them up over the Spring Mountains just to the west of here and
instruct them in some techniques of mountain flying.
Some pilots just want to go
touring the area, so I sit in the right seat doing instruction/babysitting
while they fly the airplane through the Las Vegas Class B airspace and out to
places like Hoover Dam, Death Valley, or the Grand Canyon. For pilots, they generally prefer to fly to
those places themselves to hiring one of the many tour operators around here
and just sit in the back of an airplane.
It’s great for me – I work the radios in the complex airspace and get to
enjoy the great views, and it’s a nice break from practicing stalls and steep
turns all day with primary students.
Even though this job is hard
and is certainly not exactly what I want to be doing right now, it is rarely
boring. I am averaging 3 hours of
flying per day and some days up to 6 hours, which is as much as I was flying at
Ameriflight. The pay is actually
slightly better than it would have been my first year at Continental Express,
and the hours are pretty decent. I work
6 days a week, generally from 0900 – 1800.
I have 5 primary students
which keeps me pretty busy. No
instrument students because, well, most people here don’t bother because there
is no instrument weather. Ever. Speaking of weather, it is starting to warm
up here, having been in the 70s all week.
I definitely like that.
No job prospects on the
horizon but I am always keeping my ears open.
If anyone reading this knows of anything, let me know! Here is my resume.