Every step from your application to your first student.
Written down for instructors applying from abroad — the conversion, the permits, who pays for what, and where the decision points are.
Whether the flying and the knowledge are really there.
That is the whole of it. Hours in a logbook are a number; how you fly and how you teach are facts, and the only way to establish a fact is to go flying. Every step below exists to reach that point honestly.
We are a small school by choice — a handful of instructors, around fifty active students, and a preference for doing this properly rather than at volume. Much of our recent effort has gone into digitalising how the school runs rather than into growing numbers. That work is nearly done, we expect the numbers to rise, and we are taking instructors on ahead of that rather than scrambling afterwards.
You will not be charged for anything that is our decision to make. The interview costs you nothing, and the school pays for the check flight — charging a candidate to be assessed would make it look like we were selling flight time.
8 steps, in the order they happen.
Nobody here is asked to begin a licence conversion, book a flight or give notice before we have decided we want them. The decision comes first.
- 1
You apply
CV, licences and ratings, medical, and the last pages of your logbook. Tell us which role you are applying for — instructor and mechanic applications go down different tracks.
- 2
Interview with our Head of Training
Online if you are abroad. It is a conversation rather than an interrogation, though somewhere in it you will be asked to teach us one thing in three minutes. That single exercise tells us more than an hour of questions.
- 3
We confirm your placeThe decision point
If it is a yes on both sides, you receive the terms in writing and confirm that you accept them. Nothing before this point costs you anything, and nothing after it should come as a surprise.
- 4
You prepare the conversion from home
The conversion begins before you travel. The long pole is the verification letter from the authority that issued your licence — the FAA, EASA, DGCA, CASA or Transport Canada — which only you can request, and which routinely takes weeks. We tell you exactly what to ask for and follow it alongside you. Starting this early is the single biggest thing you can do to shorten the whole process.
- 5
You arrive, and convert your licence with us
The CAAP validation and conversion are completed here, at your own cost. Doing it with us is deliberate rather than administrative — it is how we see your handling first-hand instead of inferring it from a logbook.
- 6
Standardisation check flightThe real test
An hour to an hour and a half, flown from the right seat, and you run the whole thing — brief, airwork, debrief. This is the part that actually decides it. We are not checking whether you can fly the aeroplane; we are watching whether you can teach while you fly it. The school pays for the aircraft.
- 7
Training period, until you are released to fly
You fly to our standard, sit in on real lessons and debriefs, and learn how we run things. Throughout it you receive support at the level of the Philippine minimum wage. It ends at a definite point — the day you are released to fly with students — and it is capped at three months.
- 8
Work permit and employment contract
Once you are released to fly with students, we file your Special Work Permit with the Bureau of Immigration and issue your contract — a minimum of one year, extendable after the first. We handle the filing; you keep your passport moving through it. Where a longer stay is intended, the AEP and 9(g) visa follow, and we start those early because they take longer than people expect.
Why we ask that you do it with us.
Foreign instructors often ask whether the CAAP conversion can be done elsewhere, or skipped. It cannot, and the reason runs through this whole page: we want to see you fly before you teach for us. Doing the conversion here means we watch your handling, find what to build on, and bring you to our standard rather than assume you already meet it.
It is at your own cost, and we would rather say so plainly than bury it. In return, where aircraft availability allows, we can support an additional type rating — a qualification that stays with you for life, whatever you go on to fly.
Start the verification letter early. Whichever authority issued your licence, that letter is the step most people lose weeks to. It is requested by you, not by us, and it is the one part of this we cannot do on your behalf.
By the hour, once you are instructing.
- Flight instruction
- Paid per flight hour. This is where the income actually comes from, and in a busy fortnight it is several times the training allowance below — not a little more. It also moves with the season.
- Ground school
- Paid per ground-school hour, on top of flying.
- Training period
- Until you are released to fly with students, you receive support at the level of the Philippine minimum wage. It is support while you are brought to standard, not payment for a job, and we will not call it a salary. It is capped at three months.
The cap matters. If your release takes longer because of us — an aircraft in maintenance, an examiner's diary — that is ours to carry, not yours to be paid less for.
Exact rates are set out in writing when we make you an offer. We would rather give you a real figure for your situation than a headline that turns out not to apply — and if you are coming from the United States, Europe or Korea, you should weigh those figures honestly before you decide anything.
Ready to start?
Every instructor application gets a reply — including the ones where the answer is no. You will not be left wondering.