Burbank is one of the few places in Los Angeles where you can watch airline crews walk to work from a car park, which makes the career feel closer than it is.
Burbank is unusual in Los Angeles because the airline industry is visible from the street. Crews walk across the ramp at Hollywood Burbank in plain view, the aircraft taxi past a chain-link fence rather than behind a mile of terminal, and a good number of people in this city already work somewhere on that field. Ground handling, dispatch, line service, security, maintenance. The gap between watching and doing is not ambition. It is roughly two years, fifteen hundred hours and a defined sequence of certificates.
None of that sequence starts at Burbank itself. Airline traffic and light training aircraft mix badly and the fees are set for jets, so professional training in this part of the Valley happens at Van Nuys, eight miles west along Burbank Boulevard. What you get there is two parallel runways sized for light aircraft, a tower busy enough to sharpen your radio work permanently, and a fleet that runs from a two-seat trainer to a twin without you ever changing schools. LA Flight School itself is at Van Nuys Airport, Suite 108A, 7900 Balboa Boulevard. Burbank is where our students drive from, not where we are based.
The ladder itself is fixed by regulation and worth knowing before you spend anything. A private certificate first, forty hours minimum and usually sixty to seventy in practice. Then an instrument rating. Then a commercial certificate, which requires two hundred and fifty hours of total flight time. Then, for most people, an instructor rating, because teaching is how the hours between commercial and the airline minimum of fifteen hundred normally get flown, and it is paid work rather than rented time.
Our Airline Pilot Program covers that whole run, private through instructor ratings, for $89,000. Taken separately the stages are $10,900 for the standard private certificate, $11,700 for the instrument rating and $5,100 for the multi-engine add-on. Stratus Financial lends against the course and we run payment plans in house. It is a serious amount of money over several years and we would rather show you the stage-by-stage breakdown at a free consultation than sell it as a headline.
Our Courses
Ten programs flown out of Van Nuys Airport, with real pricing on every one. Start with an hour at the controls, or go straight through to airline-hireable qualifications — it is the same ladder either way.
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Start Here
The first hour at the controls, over Los Angeles, with an instructor beside you. It is the entry point to every course below — and the cheapest way to find out whether flying is actually for you.
From$229
Open 9 AM–9 PM, Seven Days · (818) 290-8249
CertificateMost Popular
The one most people mean by “learn to fly.” Fly with an instructor, fly alone, then carry passengers on your own certificate.
Fly With An Instructor Fly Solo Carry Passengers $10,900 Enroll Now
Youth Program
Ages 10–15. For young people who want to start before they can legally solo.
$4,200 View Course
Milestone
Enough training to take an aircraft around the pattern alone. The day everything changes.
$5,500 View Course
Certificate
A real certificate with fewer hours and narrower privileges. The shortest honest route to flying yourself.
$8,400 View Course
Bundle
Private Pilot with flight time, ground instruction and study materials bundled into one price.
$15,900 View CourseBundle
The same certificate as Private, with the most flight time before your checkride. Eighty logged hours, ground instruction and materials, all in one price.
80 Logged Hours Ground School Included Materials Included $22,500 View Course
Rating
The rating after Private. Turns a fair-weather pilot into a useful one who can file, launch and land in cloud.
$11,700 View Course
Rating
For pilots already certificated who are adding a twin. Trained in our own Piper Seminole.
$5,100 View Course
Our Fleet
Diamond DA20, Cessna 162, Piper Arrow II and our Piper Seminole twin — all on the field at Van Nuys.
View The FleetThe Full Route
Zero experience to airline-hireable qualifications, in one continuous program rather than nine separate ones. Financing is available, and every hour of it is flown out of Van Nuys.
$89,000Financing Available
Free In-Person Tour Before You Commit
Book It Or Gift It
Every discovery flight below can be booked for yourself in the next few minutes, or bought as a gift certificate that is emailed within minutes and never expires. Same flight, same price, either way.
Most Given
One person, one instructor, and no audience. Hands on the controls from the left seat, briefed before you go and debriefed after you land.
Hands-On Stick TimePre-Flight BriefingLoggable Flight Time
Flight Length
$229Book Or Gift
Same Price
Two Seats
The same flight with a passenger in the back seat, briefed and on the intercom. Couples book it; so do parents who would rather watch than hear about it.
One Passenger SeatPiper Warrior Or ArcherHeadsets For Both
Flight Length
$299Book Or Gift
Same Price
The Nice One
The nicest airplane we put a first-time flyer in. Glass cockpit, air conditioning, leather seats, and a parachute built into the airframe rather than strapped to the person.
Turbocharged Cirrus SR22Air ConditioningWhole-Airframe Parachute
Flight Length
$499Book Or Gift
Same Price
Twin Engine
Two engines, and the airplane instrument-rated pilots move into when they start thinking about a career. Flown from the left seat with a multi-engine instructor.
Piper Seminole TwinMulti-Engine DepartureCareer-Track Instructor
Flight Length
$499Book Or Gift
Same Price
Gift It issues a real gift certificate, emailed within minutes, which never expires and credits in full toward training. Flights are limited to 180 lb per person, 360 lb combined. Questions: (818) 290-8249, 9 AM–9 PM, seven days.
The straightforward version is Burbank Boulevard. Pick it up in the Media District, run west through North Hollywood and Van Nuys, past Whitsett, Coldwater, Woodman, Van Nuys Boulevard and Sepulveda, and turn north when you reach Balboa. Two miles up, past Victory, Vanowen and Sherman Way, the airport boundary opens on your right and 7900 Balboa Boulevard is on the corner of our lot. Twenty to twenty-five minutes, no freeway, no interchange to gamble on.
If you are starting from the north end of Burbank near the airport itself, Sherman Way is the better line: west from Hollywood Way through Sun Valley and North Hollywood, then a short hop north on Balboa. The freeway option, the 134 to the 170 to the 101, only makes sense outside peak hours and rarely saves more than a few minutes even then. Nobody who trains here regularly uses the 5 in either direction.
Parking is free, in our own lot immediately outside Suite 108A, with no gate and no ticket machine. That matters more for a professional student than a weekend one, because you will be here several times a week for two years and small frictions compound into missed lessons. Book a three-hour block and leave the car for the duration without anyone minding. On a first visit, call (818) 290-8249 from Balboa and someone will come out and bring you through.
A commercial certificate needs two hundred and fifty hours and an airline job needs fifteen hundred. Our Airline Pilot Program bundles that whole run into one $89,000 program, aircraft, instructor, ground school and simulator together, and the individual ratings are sold the same way, as packages rather than blocks of flying time. Anyone selling you a career without showing the stage-by-stage breakdown underneath it is not being straight.
The Piper Arrow II gives you the retractable-gear time the commercial certificate requires and the Piper Seminole gives you the twin. Both sit alongside the trainers with the same maintenance behind them. You never lose weeks arranging an aircraft at another field or re-establishing yourself with instructors who have never seen you fly.
Van Nuys runs high volumes of light traffic on two parallel runways beneath the Los Angeles Class B, with Burbank's Class C a few miles east. Clearances, transitions and sequencing become routine long before an examiner is listening. Radio hesitancy is the single most visible weakness in pilots who trained somewhere quiet, and it takes years to shed.
We instruct from nine in the morning until nine at night, every day of the week. Most people funding a professional course are still working while they fly it, often on shift or production hours. An eight o'clock lesson on a Wednesday is an ordinary booking here, and being able to fly three times a week is the difference between finishing and stalling.
Early hours are flown in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Piper Warrior and the Diamond DA20. These are the aircraft that carry you through the private certificate and most of the time-building that follows, and a package covers the aircraft and the instructor together, so the cost of a stage is known before you begin it. We hold enough of each that an aircraft going into a scheduled inspection cannot stall a syllabus which depends on you flying several times a week, every week.
The advanced end is a Piper Arrow II for complex time, a Cirrus SR22 Turbo with a full glass panel and airframe parachute, and the twin-engine Piper Seminole for the Multi-Engine Rating, which is a $5,100 package. Beside them sits the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator, $189 for a sixty-minute session, which is where instrument procedures ought to be drilled: engine failures on demand, weather that changes when the instructor decides, and approaches reset in seconds instead of flown again from ten miles out.
Four things you will use to fix your position on the eastern edge of the Valley.
Two runways meeting at an angle with airline aircraft on the ramp between them, a few miles east of where you will be flying circuits. Watching a sequence from above teaches more about spacing than any briefing does.
A hard gray line running along the southern edge of Burbank toward Griffith Park, dead straight for miles then suddenly bending. It is one of the most reliable visual references in the eastern Valley, wet or dry.
Long parallel steel tracks and the junction where the lines split north and east, just south of the airport. From two thousand feet the geometry is unmistakable and it sits directly under the arrival path.
Green fairways folded into Wildwood Canyon above the north end of town, pressed right against the brown hillside. It marks the point where the Verdugo slope begins and the flat city stops.
Because it is built for airline and business jet traffic, not light training aircraft, and the costs reflect that. Van Nuys is eight miles west, has two parallel runways sized for what you will be flying, and is where the fleet, the simulator and the maintenance live. You will still learn the Burbank airspace.
Two to three years is realistic if you fly several times a week and do not stop. The certificates take twelve to eighteen months; the rest is building toward the fifteen-hundred-hour airline minimum, which most people do by instructing. Anyone promising it much faster is describing a best case.
Private, instrument, commercial, multi-engine and flight instructor ratings as one continuous program, from no experience to airline-ready. It is paid in stages tied to progress rather than up front. Stratus Financial provides financing and we run in-house payment plans. We will walk you through the whole breakdown at a free consultation before you commit to anything.
Twenty to twenty-five minutes for about eight miles, straight west on Burbank Boulevard or Sherman Way and then a short run north on Balboa. No freeway is needed. Most career students book fixed blocks two or three times a week, and a predictable surface-street journey is what makes that hold.
Most people do, at least through the early stages. We instruct from nine in the morning to nine at night, seven days a week, so evening and weekend blocks are ordinary bookings. Progress is set by how often you fly, so three shorter sessions a week beats one long day at the weekend.
No. The FAA route to a commercial certificate is defined by hours, knowledge tests and checkrides, not by education. What a degree can change is the total time some employers require, so it is worth discussing your own situation rather than assuming. Plenty of our career students came from unrelated work.
A first-class medical is the standard for airline flying, and it is worth obtaining before you spend serious money rather than after. We can point you to aviation medical examiners nearby. A third-class is enough to begin, but knowing early that you will hold a first-class removes the biggest risk in the plan.
Free parking in our own lot outside Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, no gate and no charge. On a first visit you meet an instructor, look at the aircraft and the simulator, and go through timelines, medicals and money with nothing to pay. Call (818) 290-8249 for a slot this week.
Drive Burbank Boulevard west, turn north on Balboa, and sit down with an instructor who has flown this exact sequence himself. Call (818) 290-8249 for a free consultation, or book a discovery flight from $229 and start the logbook the same day.
The three private pilot packages, what each one includes, the financing options and a realistic timeline built around how often you can actually fly. Sent to you in one email. Nobody will pressure you.
Loved On Google
Every review below is real and shown verbatim, in the reviewer’s own words — written by the people who learned to fly here, not by us.
SAFETY FIRST
Very safety and detail oriented. Pre-flight briefing explained everything there was. To my knowledge, this flight school is exceptional in their ability.
DISCOVERY FLIGHT
I recently had the chance to take my first-ever discovery flight, and it was nothing short of amazing! From the moment I stepped into the cockpit, the...
SUNSET CIRRUS
It was a great flight! I did a sunset flight and Alex let us fly an awesome. Website was easy to book, and the plane itself was really fun to fly...
FLYING LESSON
We had a great flying lesson with Ralph and came away with a much better understanding of both the aircraft and the principles of flight. Ralph is a...
KIDS LUXURY FLIGHT
I got 2 luxury discovery flights for my kids. I wanted them to have the experience of flying. Our instructor Alex was amazing he made sure they feel...
HONEYMOON SURPRISE
Last minute booking to surprise my wife on our honeymoon. She had no experience with flying and was scared of flying, but Alex was very easygoing and knew...
FULL-MOTION SIM
Amazing flight school in van nuys airport. I have been a student here for the past few months and i could not be happier. I started doing a lot of...
DISCOVERY FOR TWO
I booked a Discovery Flight for Two for my girlfriend's birthday and it was the perfect gift for her. She couldn't have been more excited to get to...
SIMULATORS
Very professional and great airplanes. I love the flight simulators. The pricing is very fair compared to any other flight school
TEEN FIRST LESSON
We gifted our teenage son his first flying lesson. He was so excited! Alex greeted us and gave a reassuring brief that made us all feel comfortable and at...
FIRST-TIME FLYER
Flying is my husband's hobby and I was incredibly anxious and apprehensive about the discovery flight. However, I felt completely safe and at ease once we...
SAFETY FIRST
Very safety and detail oriented. Pre-flight briefing explained everything there was. To my knowledge, this flight school is exceptional in their ability.
DISCOVERY FLIGHT
I recently had the chance to take my first-ever discovery flight, and it was nothing short of amazing! From the moment I stepped into the cockpit, the...
SUNSET CIRRUS
It was a great flight! I did a sunset flight and Alex let us fly an awesome. Website was easy to book, and the plane itself was really fun to fly...
FLYING LESSON
We had a great flying lesson with Ralph and came away with a much better understanding of both the aircraft and the principles of flight. Ralph is a...
KIDS LUXURY FLIGHT
I got 2 luxury discovery flights for my kids. I wanted them to have the experience of flying. Our instructor Alex was amazing he made sure they feel...
HONEYMOON SURPRISE
Last minute booking to surprise my wife on our honeymoon. She had no experience with flying and was scared of flying, but Alex was very easygoing and knew...
FULL-MOTION SIM
Amazing flight school in van nuys airport. I have been a student here for the past few months and i could not be happier. I started doing a lot of...
DISCOVERY FOR TWO
I booked a Discovery Flight for Two for my girlfriend's birthday and it was the perfect gift for her. She couldn't have been more excited to get to...
SIMULATORS
Very professional and great airplanes. I love the flight simulators. The pricing is very fair compared to any other flight school
TEEN FIRST LESSON
We gifted our teenage son his first flying lesson. He was so excited! Alex greeted us and gave a reassuring brief that made us all feel comfortable and at...
FIRST-TIME FLYER
Flying is my husband's hobby and I was incredibly anxious and apprehensive about the discovery flight. However, I felt completely safe and at ease once we...
Reviews shown verbatim, exactly as each reviewer published them.
Aviation News
Notes from the flight line at Van Nuys — weather, regulation changes, checkride questions and the cost of training, written up as they come.
Open 7 days · 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Los Angeles Flight School
