Instructors a dying breed?

By contrast there were 5449 flying instructors in June 2002.

Helicopter instructors for June 2008 are recorded as 159 Grade 1 instructors and 107 Grade 2 instructors.

In early 2008 a government study noted that there needed to be an increase in the number of instructors and it was said that ‘Australia needs to increase its instructor numbers by 15 per cent over the next five years in order to avoid a serious pilot shortage’. The reasons for the drop in the number of flying instructors are many and varied. A number have retired while others have gone to airlines in the last of the big intakes and have let their instructor tickets lapse. Budding new instructors have been put off by the cost of going to instructor school, said to cost $10-14K. On top of that a student has to fund the cost of the test with a CASA representative or an ATO. One out-of-town grade three instructor advised his test had cost him $840 plus the cost of the aircraft hire. Not costings that encourage potential new instructors.

Until 2008 there was a massive demand for pilots, not just in Australia, but around the world. Since that time the world economy has markedly changed, and changed for the worse. With that change there has been a sudden decrease in the demand for pilots. The Australian mining boom has slowed down with a resultant decrease in the need for fly-in fly-out pilots. With money tighter all round airline traffic has slowed as the pressure from business and holiday travellers has softened. Flight training in Australia has slackened off in some areas as overseas airlines review their pilot intake needs for the next few years. It will probably take another six months or so to really gauge the effect the slowdown will have on the flight training industry.

This, however, is a good time to learn to fly commercially. History tells us that the economy will improve with time and with that improvement will come an increase in money in circulation. In turn there will be a return demand for pilots and those pilots who are then coming onto the market will be well placed to enjoy the fruits of their investment over the lean years.

“The figures show that as at the middle of 2008 there had been an effective 29 per cent fall in the number of fixed wing flying instructors.”

How long will the improvement in the Australian and indeed the world economy take to turn around? How long is a length of string? One can reasonably expect several lean years before a change is noted, time to get that commercial licence and the experience needed to ride the next wave of pilot intakes.

The recent Victorian and NSW bush fire tolls, simply horrific in terms of the massive loss of human life and property destroyed, will have a side effect. Government and the private sector at large will be injecting millions and millions of dollars into the system to rebuild lives, economies and whole towns and with that will come an early localised resurgence from the current recession. That spending of money will locally see a bump in the recession plateau and that in turn will be good for the whole country.

That resurgence will in turn fuel a demand for air travel. Air travel means pilots and that will mean an increase in the demand for flight instructors to train new pilots. That then brings us to the number of instructors available to train pilots. If the numbers continue to drop, and there is no reason to suppose they will do anything but drop, there will be a real problem in having enough flight instructors, experienced flight instructors at that, to cater for the next wave of new budding commercial pilots. Not withstanding the effect of increased numbers of RA pilots, the MPL licence, there will still be a need for good quality flight instructors to train pilots and train them to be safe reliable and employable commercial pilots.

Should there be a continued decrease in the number of available flight instructors, experienced instructors, the expected resurgence in the demand for training pilots will be hard to meet. That in turn will affect current and proposed flight schools be they large or small.

Contact Dave by email at: [email protected]