I should never start blogging at 3am, but I just couldn’t go back to bed after waking up, so I hit the keyboard and had at it. I updated the look of this site with a new design and started typing a few entries to help get me in the mood for sleep.
If you know me, you know that I really love aviation but with my job situation and the fact that I have my boys living with me permanently, its been hard to demonstrate that affection. I have put out several one page sites for Middlesex Valley Airport and Canandaigua Airport as my way of supporting general aviation. I love going to Middlesex and having breakfast as the taildraggers come and go from the grass field tarmac.
Anyway, I have been studing for my Instrument Rating. Its been a slow process. This rating is under-rated and if you decide to go this path, be sure to have cash to burn because you will need it to earn it AND have it mean something to you. This rating is excellent and will really make you an aviator or it will kill you if you do not stay current and fly in IMC. If you have an Instrument Rating but do not fly in IMC, you are only fooling yourself and could be setting yourself up for a fall. The currency requiremment is not enough (in my humble opinion) and will not give you enough experience to keep from having a bad day as we like to call them. Single Pilot IFR is serious stuff and it seems like there is plenty going on to distract you from flying the plane. With that said I have begun studying to become a Basic Ground Instructor. You still learn, you save money, might even make money, but more importantly you help others interested in the same things that you are interested in.
Ground Instructor is a certificate issued in the United States by the Federal Aviation Administration; the rules for certification, and for certificate-holders, are detailed in Subpart I of Part 61 of the Federal Aviation Regulations, which are part of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Ground Instructor certificate allows the holder to offer various kinds of ground instruction required of those seeking pilot certificates and ratings. Ground Instructor certificates are issued with ratings, and these determine the exact areas in which the holder may give instruction.
The Basic Ground Instructor(BGI) rating allows the holder to give the ground instruction required for a sport pilot, recreational pilot, or private pilot certificate, and associated ratings; the holder may also approve (by endorsement or “sign off”) a student to take the written knowledge test for these certificates. The holder of a Basic Ground Instructor rating is additionally allowed to give the ground instruction required for a sport pilot, recreational pilot, or private pilot flight review.
So I am now studying Gleims Fundamentals of Instructing and Flight/Ground Instructor in order to take the FAA Exams to earn the BGI rating. Ground Instructor certificates do not expire. To be eligible to give instruction, though, I must have either served as an instructor for at least three out of the preceding twelve months or have received from a ground or flight instructor an endorsement certifying that I am proficient in the subject matter which the certificate authorizes teaching. There’s always a catch. But what I am thinking of doing is using the Internet to help teach ground school to people who might not be local or some distance away where there is no ground school instruction. This way I can combine my Internet experience with aviation. Could it be a match made in heaven???
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