aopa for cfi renewal?

[peevee]

anyone used the aopa online course? I've used american flyers for years and it's been fine, but if the aopa is less hassle I'll do that one instead.

[GeorgePerry]

peevee,

I oversee all of the AOPA Air Safety Institute programs and the eFIRC is one of them.  ASI's eFIRC cost a little more than some of the others but I believe there's real value to the course and we re-qualify about 10 times more CFI's than our nearest competitor.  

We offer both online and in person CFI renewal options.  No matter who you choose, if you go with the electronic renewal, the FAA mandates 16 hours of instruction.  ASI uses lots of video and interactive training.  Here's an example of our most recent video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8scVzLX9l8.  If you used other providers then you know their content tends to be very PDF heavy with lots and lots of reading.  Good info but makes for a long 16 hours.

Also, all of the money raised from the AOPA eFIRC goes right back into helping ASI produce additional safety content, not into someone's bank account.

Lastly, included in the price of the eFIRC course is paperless processing that we take care of for you.  Also our customer service staff are real people and real pilots.  So if you have questions, you get to speak with a human, not a machine or someone in India.

Give AOPA a try and tell me what you think.

 

George

[peevee]

So, just for background info I have used the AOPA FIRC back when jeppesen was involved because I worked there and it was free, and it wasn't a very good product. It's different now.

I've used the "lifetime" american flyers course for probably 5 renewals now, and it's been fine. It's free but $50 if I want them to do paperwork vs drive to the FSDO. In the past flyers had a specified amount of time you had to spend on each module, I believe that changed last time I did it, but that was 2 years ago. It's a pretty tedious process with them though.

 

I can't do an in person because they're always sat/sun and I work both.

Edited September 15, 2016 by peevee

[GeorgePerry]

AOPA's eFIRC does all the paperwork for you...It's included and all you  have to do is wait for your new CFI card to show up in the mail box.

[carusoam]

George,

You are my favorite technical sales guy of the year!  Answering all the questions, with the required detail, nothing more, and nothing less.  Right to the point.

Now I have to go work on my CFI rating.  

Nice work.

Best regards,

-a-

[GeorgePerry]

thx...its easy when it's true 

[peevee]

oh god. it's just like the FAA CBI's in format.

Edited October 12, 2016 by peevee

[kortopates]

I've done the AOPA one a number of times and always liked it. King schools started doing them as well on line and they also do all the paper work. Probably the most expensive option out there (I actually forget cost's) but I thought it was about the best one I had done in awhile with very good and useful info provided. 

[midlifeflyer]

Personally. amd prettiness aside, I haven't seen much difference in actual content among the various online CFI renewal options. I used Gleim for years because I liked their Gleim-standard referenced PDF files,but after a few of them realized I was getting only one or two things that were really new and a few questions indicated to me those new things were generally special emphasis things the FAA wanted so they were in most of the offerings anyway. 

I looked at a few other options but pretty didn't strike me as a good reason for expense. If I'm going to pay the money, it's going to be for one of the live programs. I did the AOPA ones a few times, made some friends, and enjoyed the give-and-take thoroughly. That's worth paying extra but for the online ones, not that much difference so so I eventually settled on the one-time-fee American Flyers a few years ago.

@peevee, what have you found to be a hassle?  I've renewed 2 or three times with them and it didn't seem that much a bother.

[peevee]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

@peevee, what have you found to be a hassle?  I've renewed 2 or three times with them and it didn't seem that much a bother.

it's just the standard CBI format. Load the screen, wait to click next, rinse, repeat. It just reminds me of work is all. It's not terrible. Well, I mean it is terrible, but it's not their fault. I think aopa does all the paperwork electronically for you as well, it's not a bad value, really.

Edited October 12, 2016 by peevee

[midlifeflyer]

16 hours ago, peevee said:

it's just the standard CBI format. Load the screen, wait to click next, rinse, repeat. It just reminds me of work is all. It's not terrible. Well, I mean it is terrible, but it's not their fault. I think aopa does all the paperwork electronically for you as well, it's not a bad value, really.

I think they all do wait, rinse, repeat except maybe Gleim. The FAA requires a certain number of hours for the FIRC and most of the online ones use a mechanism to prevent moving through it too fast. Gleim, at least the last time I took it was different - it would tell me if I were going too fast but never stopped me altogether. The solution for me was simple. Load the lesson, do something else and come back to it. It meant doing the FIRC over a few days, especially if the something else took my full attention  but it wasn't like I was in a rush.

[peevee]

17 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

I think they all do wait, rinse, repeat except maybe Gleim. The FAA requires a certain number of hours for the FIRC and most of the online ones use a mechanism to prevent moving through it too fast. Gleim, at least the last time I took it was different - it would tell me if I were going too fast but never stopped me altogether. The solution for me was simple. Load the lesson, do something else and come back to it. It meant doing the FIRC over a few days, especially if the something else took my full attention  but it wasn't like I was in a rush.

I think I got through the AOPA course in 6 hours, give or take, over two days.

[midlifeflyer]

59 minutes ago, peevee said:

I think I got through the AOPA course in 6 hours, give or take, over two days.

Then it sounds like the AOPA course works a lot like the Gleim. The FAA's requirement is 16 hours! Fortunately, there's no requirement it be completed in any specific time. In theory, you can start your next FIRC the day after your renewal date.

[peevee]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

Then it sounds like the AOPA course works a lot like the Gleim. The FAA's requirement is 16 hours! Fortunately, there's no requirement it be completed in any specific time. In theory, you can start your next FIRC the day after your renewal date.

Back in the day, the american flyers course had a timer and you had to spend X number of minutes on each section, like 100 or 80 or whatever. But if you logged in a bunch and opened multiple tabs, that time went a lot faster