Flight Instructor Training in 2026

To earn an airplane flight instructor certificate, the FAA requires you to be at least 18 years old, to read, speak, write, and understand English, and to hold a commercial pilot certificate (or ATP) with an instrument rating and the airplane class you'll teach in.

The FAA sets no separate total flight time minimum for the CFI. The 250 hours you may have heard about is the figure for most Part 61 commercial airplane applicants. For the CFI itself, the hour rule is at least 15 hours as pilot in command in the category and class you'll teach in, and most commercial pilots already have it.

On medicals, you need at least a third-class medical any time you act as pilot in command or as a required crewmember while instructing, so most instructors keep one current. Medical questions belong with an aviation medical examiner (AME). For the full checklist, see our flight instructor requirements FAQs.

Every airplane CFI applicant needs a spin training endorsement. That means flight training in stall awareness, spin entry, spins, and spin recovery, in an airplane certificated for spins. It's a required step, so talk to us early and we'll plan where it fits in your schedule.

Next, you move to the right seat. You've flown every maneuver from the left. Now you fly them from the other side while you explain what you're doing, watch a "student" make mistakes, and fix them in real time. Plan on about 15 hours of right-seat flying with us, plus ground work refining your lesson plans and teaching technique.

We tell our candidates the CFI is often the most challenging, yet rewarding, certificate many pilots earn. The flying is familiar. Talking someone else through a steep turn while you stay ahead of the airplane is the new skill.

You hold one flight instructor certificate, and CFII and MEI are ratings added to it. An instructor can only give flight training in a class of airplane listed on both the pilot and instructor certificates, so each rating opens a new group of students.

The CFII lets you give the instrument training an instrument rating needs, plus the instrument training commercial applicants need. It adds one knowledge test, and you don't retake the FOI. The CFII checkride still runs on a Practical Test Standards document. Your CFII training with us includes extra simulator time so you learn to teach in the sim as well as the airplane.

The MEI needs a multi-engine rating on your commercial certificate and at least 15 hours as pilot in command in multi-engine airplanes. Adding it to an airplane CFI usually takes no new knowledge test. To teach toward a rating in a twin, an MEI also needs at least 5 hours as pilot in command in that make and model. Our multi-engine rating runs seven days in our Piper Twin Comanche, and that package starts at $4,950. Most pilots go CFI, CFII, then MEI, though the FAA doesn't require that order. Our CFI vs CFII vs MEI guide helps you choose.

Already a commercial pilot? You can come to us for standalone CFI, CFII, and MEI training. Starting closer to zero? Our Career Track runs from private pilot through instrument, commercial, CFI, CFII, the multi-engine rating, and MEI as one planned program.

The FAA requirements are the same either way: same tests, same checkride standard. What changes is the gap between stages. On the Career Track, flying full time can take the whole path in about a year. At 3 to 4 days a week, plan on 12 to 15 months; at 2 to 3 days, 15 to 18 months. Weather, checkride scheduling, and your own readiness move those numbers.

Not sure which fits? Our comparison of a standalone CFI training program vs the Career Track lays out who each route suits.

Both of our founders, Jeremy Davis and Levi Self, hold CFI, CFII, and MEI ratings, and most of our instructors are CFIIs. You'll learn to teach alongside working instructors at KLXT, in the same Piper fleet our students fly.

That fleet is hangared and maintained in-house, with Levi, an A&P mechanic, overseeing the work. Fewer cancelled lessons means fewer gaps between flights, which matters when you're building right-seat skills. We train under Part 61 with no fixed cohort calendar, and we're open seven days a week.

One school can take you from CFI to CFII to MEI, with our own Twin Comanche for multi-engine work. You keep one training record and one team that knows how you fly, start to finish.