The Multi-Engine Instructor Rating (MEI)

A flight instructor certificate with an airplane multiengine rating, which allows you to give flight training toward certificates and ratings in twins. If you already hold a flight instructor certificate it is an additional rating under 14 CFR 61.191, and 61.191(b) excuses you from repeating the fundamentals-of-instructing knowledge test.

14 CFR 61.183(j) requires at least 15 hours as pilot in command in the category and class appropriate to the rating sought — for an MEI, 15 hours of pilot-in-command time in a multiengine airplane. The multi-engine add-on itself will not supply those hours, because during training the instructor is pilot in command.

A commercial or airline transport pilot certificate with an airplane multiengine land rating, an instrument rating, and normally an existing flight instructor certificate. Those come from 14 CFR 61.183(c) and, for the additional-rating route, 61.191(a).

No, if you already hold a flight instructor certificate. 14 CFR 61.191(b) states that an applicant for an additional flight instructor rating is not required to pass the knowledge test on the areas listed in 61.185(a)(1). You do take the flight instructor knowledge test appropriate to the rating sought.

The spin training endorsement in 14 CFR 61.183(i) is written for a flight instructor certificate with an airplane or glider rating, and it is satisfied by the endorsement from your initial airplane instructor certificate. Light twins such as the Seminole are not certificated for spins, so the training is not done in one.

Not immediately. 14 CFR 61.195(f) prohibits a flight instructor from giving training required for a certificate or rating in a multiengine airplane unless the instructor has at least five hours of pilot-in-command time in that specific make and model. Moving from a Seminole to a Baron means five hours in the Baron first.

Yes. You fly and teach simultaneously from the right seat, which is a seat most candidates have never flown a twin from. Expect the first hours of training to go on landings and on getting comfortable with the throttle quadrant in the other hand.

We quote it individually after seeing your logbook, because the cost is dominated by how many of the 15 hours required by 14 CFR 61.183(j) you already hold. The multi-engine add-on that comes first is $5,100 and is a fixed number.

If you intend to instruct professionally and want to be employable at a school that owns a twin, it is a genuinely differentiating rating because comparatively few instructors hold it. If you do not intend to instruct, it does nothing for you. We make no claims about employment outcomes.

Private, instrument, commercial single-engine, flight instructor, multi-engine add-on, then the pilot-in-command time, then the MEI. Putting the commercial certificate in a single and adding the multi-engine class under 14 CFR 61.63(c) avoids the multiengine hour requirements of 14 CFR 61.129(b).

Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), in our Piper Seminole, with the air work northwest of the field over the Simi Hills. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, Van Nuys, CA 91406, open 9am to 9pm, seven days. Call (818) 290-8249.

We will tell you honestly where they can come from and we will not pretend there is a shortcut. Twin time is expensive time, and the sensible plan is usually to hold the rating, keep it current and take the hours as they become available rather than buying all 15 in a block.