Flight Instructor Revenue Calculator

Monthly Flight Income and Monthly Ground Income are calculated completely separately from Flight Hours per Week times Flight Instruction Rate, and Ground Hours per Week times Ground Instruction Rate, respectively, each then scaled by Working Weeks per Month -- so raising your ground rate never touches flight income, and vice versa, since they draw from entirely different hours and rates. Total Monthly Income and Annual Income simply add and scale those two streams, so Working Weeks per Month moves both proportionally to account for weather cancellations or slow booking periods. Effective Hourly Rate is more subtle: because Working Weeks per Month multiplies every income term equally and then divides back out when the rate is computed per hour worked, it cancels out completely and has no effect on Effective Hourly Rate at all -- only the mix of Flight Hours versus Ground Hours and their respective rates determines that blended figure.

Since the default Flight Instruction Rate ($65/hr) is higher than the default Ground Instruction Rate ($50/hr), working more flight hours relative to ground hours pulls Effective Hourly Rate up toward the flight rate, and the reverse pulls it down toward the ground rate -- it is a hours-weighted average of the two rates, not a simple average of the two numbers. The calculator assumes every scheduled hour is actually billed and paid, with no allowance for no-shows, weather cancellations that a flat Working Weeks reduction doesn't fully capture, or unpaid administrative and pre/post-flight briefing time that many CFIs spend without direct compensation.