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I've been trying to find an answer to this for a while now, so far
unsuccessfully. I've seen the legal requirements for aircraft that are
being rented for instruction by a flight school, but what about a
private instructor, i.e. a CFI not affiliated with a flight school,
who owns a plane and wants to instruct in it?Does he need a flight school certificate, inspections, etc. to do so,
or are there more relaxed requirements? What about renting the plane
to students so that they may fly solo?
-- Joshua Levinson, August 4, 2009
Joshua: The FAA does not regulate Part 61 instruction. If a CFI owned an airplane that was having 100-hour inspections done by an A&P, he or she could legally rent it out and teach. The big question is insurance. Commercial insurance that would allow instruction and perhaps solo rental is 4-5X the price of "pleasure/business" policies. Unless someone is doing hundreds of hours per year of instruction and rental there is no way to recover the $10,000+ extra that commercial insurance costs. This is why you don't see many folks doing it, not because the FAA is discouraging the practice. If insurance companies sold insurance by the hour instead of by the year, it would be a different story.
-- Philip Greenspun, August 5, 2009