CFI Checkride Prep

One salary site says the average CFI makes $94,620 a year. Another says $28.58 an hour. Here is why both are wrong, and how to work out what you would actually earn.

You searched for the CFII ACS and found a pile of documents that almost match: the CFI ACS, the instrument rating ACS, even an ACS for powered-lift instrument instructors. But no CFII ACS for airplanes or helicopters. That is not a research failure on your part. It does not exist. The instrument flight instructor checkride

Somewhere between the commercial checkride and the start of CFI training, somebody breaks the news: you need a binder full of lesson plans, one for every task you might be asked to teach. Then you price out the hours and your stomach drops. So it is worth asking the question most applicants only ask themselves.

Where lesson plans fit in the CFI ACS, what belongs in one, and how to build a set you can teach from on checkride day.

What is actually in the CFI ACS (FAA-S-ACS-25): the 14 Areas of Operation, the Tasks your examiner must select, how the element codes work, and how to study with it.