What are the requirements to become a flight instructor?

What do I need to become a CFI?

The list in 14 CFR 61.183:

1. Be 18 or older and able to read, speak, write, and understand English.
2. Hold a commercial pilot or airline transport pilot certificate with an airplane single-engine rating, and an instrument rating.
3. Pass a knowledge test on the fundamentals of instructing, after an instructor's endorsement, unless you are exempt.
4. Pass a knowledge test on the aeronautical knowledge areas for the rating.
5. Receive the spin training and its endorsement.
6. Log at least 15 hours as pilot in command in single-engine airplanes.
7. Pass the practical test, the checkride, after an instructor endorses you on its areas of operation.

What is the fundamentals of instructing test?

A knowledge test on how to teach. 61.185(a)(1) lists six topics: the learning process, elements of effective teaching, student evaluation and testing, course development, lesson planning, and classroom training techniques.

You skip it if you already hold a flight or ground instructor certificate, hold a state or local teacher's certificate for 7th grade or higher, or teach at an accredited college or university (61.183(e)).

What is on the second knowledge test?

The aeronautical knowledge areas for the recreational, private, and commercial certificates in the airplane category (61.185(a)(2) and 61.183(f)). It tests what you will teach, at the depth of an instructor.

How should I do the ground training?

61.185(a) has no home-study option. The ground training must be received from an authorized instructor and logged. A course still helps, which leaves three ways to prepare.

1. On your own, with a course

   A video course from Sporty's or King Schools covers the material at your own pace. On its own it does not replace the logged ground training this section requires.

2. One on one with me

   Ground instruction is $65/hr, for a session that is not a flight lesson. We go through every knowledge area together, and each session is logged.

3. A mix of both

   The option I recommend. The course carries the reading and the videos, and the sessions with me go to the topics that did not stick and to practice for the oral exam.

What is the spin endorsement?

Under 61.183(i), an instructor gives you flight training in stall awareness, spin entry, spins, and spin recovery, in an airplane certificated for spins, then endorses your logbook that you are competent and can teach them. On the checkride, the examiner may accept that endorsement in place of a demonstration.

That changes on a retest. If a test was failed for those items, the examiner must test them in an airplane certificated for spins (61.183(i)(2) and 61.49(b)). More on retests is in what happens after a failed checkride.

How does the CFI checkride work?

The examiner tests you as an instructor, on the fourteen areas of operation in 61.187(b)(1): fundamentals of instructing; technical subject areas; preflight preparation; a preflight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight; preflight procedures; airport and seaplane base operations; takeoffs, landings, and go-arounds; fundamentals of flight; performance maneuvers; ground reference maneuvers; slow flight, stalls, and spins; basic instrument maneuvers; emergency operations; and postflight procedures.

Two of those areas set it apart from your earlier checkrides: the fundamentals of instructing, and a preflight lesson you teach on a maneuver before you fly it. You need an instructor's endorsement that you are proficient on all fourteen (61.187(a)).

In 2025, examiners approved 10,378 of 14,077 original flight instructor practical tests, 73.72 percent (FAA, U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics 2025, Table 19). The table counts tests, so it is not a first-attempt figure.

Where do I start?

With your commercial certificate and instrument rating in hand, and a plan for the two knowledge tests. I train initial CFI candidates at $95/hr of instruction. The airplane, a Cessna 172 or Piper Archer, is paid to Countrywide Flyers at the club rate.