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.

Sixty minutes from Van Nuys Airport in which you are the pilot flying and a certificated instructor is legally pilot in command. It is the step that removes loss of control and loss of information at the same time. It is also not the right first step for everybody, and this page says exactly who it is wrong for.

Hands-On From The Left Seat
Your instructor takes off and lands. Almost everything in between is yours: turns, climbs, descents, holding a heading over Los Angeles. How much depends on you and the conditions on the day.
Your instructor flies the takeoff from Van Nuys and talks you through it while you listen to the tower in your headset.
You fly the airplane. Turns, climbs, descents and holding a heading over Los Angeles, for roughly 50–80% of the flight depending on you and the conditions. Your instructor has an identical set of controls and handles the radio.
Your instructor lands and narrates the approach. Have your own logbook? Your instructor will be happy to sign it. Want to fly less and look more? Say so at the briefing.
Tap Takeoff, You Fly or Landing to see who is flying.
The Route You Fly
About an hour from Van Nuys Airport: Universal Studios, the Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory and a full circle around Downtown LA, then west just north of SoFi Stadium and LAX to the coast, from Venice Beach up to Malibu. Your instructor takes off and lands. You fly 50–80% of it.

01Instructor Takeoff
Wheels Up From Van Nuys
Your instructor takes off from one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world and talks you through every step. Once you are clear of the field, the controls are yours.

02You’re Flying
The Backlot From Above
The studio lots turn out to be far bigger than they look on TV, with the soundstages lined up like a small town.

03You’re Flying
Nine Letters On Mount Lee
The most famous sign in the world, seen from where almost nobody gets to see it: level with the hilltop.

04You’re Flying
The Domes On The Ridge
The white domes of Griffith Observatory on the slope of Mount Hollywood, with the whole Los Angeles basin laid out beyond them.

05You’re Flying
A Full Circle Around Downtown
In on the south side, then a full counterclockwise circle around the towers: up the east side, over the top and back around. The San Gabriel Mountains stand behind the skyline.

06You’re Flying
The Roof You Know From TV
We pass just north of the stadium and never fly over it. Its huge translucent roof, home of the Rams and the Chargers, sits right off your left wing.

07You’re Flying
Airliners On Final, Off Your Left Wing
Jets lining up for one of the busiest airports on Earth, off your left wing. We stay north of LAX and never fly over it.

08You’re Flying
Right Turn Up The Coast
The boardwalk, the skate park and the sand, then a right turn up the coast with all of Santa Monica Bay opening up ahead of you.

09You’re Flying
The Pier And The Ferris Wheel
The pier, the Ferris wheel and the beach, straight out of a thousand films.

10You’re Flying
The Mountains Meet The Pacific
Up the coast past the Palisades to Malibu, where the Santa Monica Mountains drop straight into the ocean.

11You’re Flying
Over The Hills To Warner Center
North over the Santa Monica Mountains to Warner Center in Woodland Hills, then east across the San Fernando Valley with Van Nuys straight ahead.
12Instructor Landing
Your Instructor Lands, Then A Quick Debrief
Have your own pilot logbook? Bring it and your instructor will be happy to sign it. Enroll within 24 hours of landing and 100% of what you paid is credited toward your training.
Book Your Flight · From $229Typical route. Weather and air traffic control set the final path on the day.
A scenic tour puts you in the back and flies you around. A discovery flight puts you in the left seat and gives you the controls. On paper the difference is a seat allocation. In practice it is the difference between the condition that produces most fear of flying and the condition that removes it. If you want to know how far you would have to travel for one, the nearest discovery flight to you leaves from Van Nuys Airport.
You will fly straight and level, turns, climbs and descents, over the San Fernando Valley or out towards the Malibu coastline depending on the air that morning. Your instructor handles the takeoff and the landing and is legally pilot in command for the whole flight under Part 61, which means a professional is operating the aircraft and you are being taught, not tested.
The hour is logged as dual instruction in a pilot logbook, which surprises people who booked it purely to deal with a fear and had no intention of becoming a pilot. The full $229 is credited against any program if you enroll within 24 hours. Nobody will ask you to.

We build pilots. We are not a clinic, and this page is not medical advice.
A discovery flight is a real aircraft leaving a real runway, and once the wheels are up the exit is a landing rather than a door. That is exactly why it works for a lot of nervous flyers, and exactly why it is the wrong first step for somebody who has panic attacks.
If your fear includes a racing heart, tunnel vision, or a fear of losing control of yourself rather than of the aircraft, book the free consultation and tell us that on the phone. We will point you at a psychologist and at the $189 Redbird simulator session first, in that order, and we will still be here afterwards.
If the thought of a flight brings on a racing heart, shortness of breath, sweating or a sense of dread you cannot talk yourself out of, that is a clinical picture and a licensed psychologist is the right first call. Cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exposure therapy have the strongest evidence behind them for specific phobias.
Plenty of people arrive here after doing that work, with a therapist who has suggested real-world exposure as the next stage. Some bring their therapist’s notes. That is a good use of an hour in the Redbird or in the aircraft, and we will work to whatever plan you have been given.
Two things, both honest: exposure to the real thing with a professional pilot sitting beside you, and an explanation of what is happening while it happens. No claims beyond that. We do not diagnose, we do not publish a success rate, and we will tell you on the phone if we think you should talk to someone else first.
Nothing on this list is a surprise on the day. That is deliberate: surprise is the ingredient we are trying to remove.
Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Blvd. You meet your instructor on the ground, not on the ramp. If you have told us you are nervous this is where we spend the extra time, and there is no upper limit on it.
What makes an aircraft fly, what every control does, what we are going to do in what order, and what each noise will be before you hear it. You will also be told the two or three moments you are most likely to find unpleasant, in advance, which is the difference between a jolt and a shock.
You do the external inspection with the instructor: control surfaces, fuel, oil, tires. This is the part nervous flyers report as unexpectedly steadying, because you have now personally checked the aircraft you are about to sit in.
Loud, and all of it on the ground. The engine run-up before departure is a deliberate power check at the hold short line. You will hear the magnetos being tested and the propeller cycled. It sounds alarming and it is the opposite of alarming.
You keep your hands on the controls if you want to follow along, or in your lap if you do not. Van Nuys is a Class D field under the Los Angeles Class B shelf, so the radio is busy and you will hear the instructor talking to the tower throughout.
The instructor hands you the controls once we are clear of the pattern. Straight and level first, then gentle turns. Almost everybody discovers in the first two minutes that the aircraft is stable and wants to keep flying without help, which is not what most people expect.
It is normally a small bump handled while you are the one holding the controls. Something that would have been frightening in row 24 is a texture in the air you flew through. We will talk about it on the radio while it is happening.
The instructor lands. Then twenty minutes at the table going through what happened and answering whatever you did not want to ask in front of anyone. Your logbook entry gets signed. Nobody sells you anything at this table.
The reason a discovery flight does something a book cannot is not motivational. It is that a passenger cabin removes four specific things, and the left seat gives all four back simultaneously.
You can see. Windows on three sides, a horizon in front of you, and the ground you already know from the freeway. You can interpret the sounds, because you are causing them — you moved the throttle, so the noise change is yours. You can influence the outcome, because your hands are on the controls and the aircraft is responding to you. And the person responsible for your safety is sitting 18 inches away and answering questions rather than being an anonymous voice behind a locked door.
That is a testable claim rather than a slogan, and the test costs $229 and an hour. It is also worth saying what it does not do: it will not automatically make a full 737 cabin comfortable, because a 737 cabin restores three of those four conditions. What it tends to change is the meaning of the noises, which travels with you.
The mechanism, in full: why loss of control causes fear of flying

The commercial-flight list, because most people booking this are frightened of airliners rather than of trainers. Your instructor will do the small-aircraft version on the day.
| What you hear or feel | When | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|
| A rising whine, then a solid thunk under the floor | At the gate, before pushback | Hydraulic pumps coming up to pressure, then the door or jetbridge latching. Nothing has moved yet. |
| A rhythmic barking, like a large dog, every couple of seconds | On the ground and during taxi | On Airbus A320-family jets this is the Power Transfer Unit, a pump that borrows pressure from one hydraulic system to feed another when the second engine is not running. It is famous, it is normal, and it stops once both engines are turning. |
| Engines spool up, a firm push into the seat | Takeoff roll | Takeoff thrust. The push you feel is roughly a quarter of the force gravity is already applying to you sitting still. |
| A heavy clunk and the wind noise suddenly drops | 10 to 20 seconds after the wheels leave | The landing gear folding into the wheel wells and the doors closing over it. The aircraft gets quieter and faster at the same time, which is why the drop in noise feels like a loss of power. |
| The engine note falls away sharply and the nose lowers | Between 800 and 3,000 feet above the airport | A thrust cutback. FAA Advisory Circular 91-53A lets crews reduce power for noise abatement at no less than 800 feet above field elevation and hold the profile to 3,000 feet. This is the single most misread moment in airline flying: it feels exactly like an engine quitting, and it is a scheduled power reduction the crew makes on purpose. |
| A grinding, whirring noise, and the wing visibly gets thinner | Climbing through roughly 1,000 to 3,000 feet | Flaps and slats retracting on a speed schedule. Big wing for slow flight, small wing for fast flight. The wing is meant to change shape. |
| Small repeated jolts, like a car on a cattle grid | Any phase of flight | Air is not smooth. It has texture, layers and rising columns over hot ground, and the aircraft is riding over them. Nothing is breaking. |
| The wingtip flexing up and down several feet | Turbulence, and on every takeoff | The wing is a spring, deliberately. It is designed to bend so that gust loads are absorbed rather than resisted. A wing that did not move would be the problem. |
| Engines go quiet and the floor seems to fall away | Top of descent, 30 to 40 minutes before landing | Power back towards idle to start down. The sinking feeling is your inner ear reporting a change in vertical speed of a few hundred feet a minute, which it exaggerates badly. |
| A rumble and a shudder, and panels lift off the top of the wing | Descent, and again after touchdown | Speedbrakes and spoilers. They spoil the lift on purpose to let the aircraft come down or stay down. |
| A whine, then a firm mechanical thump under your feet | Five to ten minutes before landing | Landing gear extending and locking. The thump is the locks engaging, and the crew wants to hear it. |
| A loud roar immediately after the wheels touch | Landing rollout | Reverse thrust. Loudest noise of the whole flight, made while you are already on the ground doing 130 knots and slowing. |
Power reduction altitudes are from FAA Advisory Circular 91-53A, Noise Abatement Departure Profile. Everything else on this table is what the aircraft is doing mechanically at that moment.
A short list, because leaving it out would make everything else on this page less believable.
Start with a licensed psychologist. Cognitive behavioral therapy with graded exposure is the best-supported approach for specific phobias, and an aircraft at 2,500 feet is a poor place to discover you needed it. Book the free consultation and tell us; we will say the same thing on the phone.
We publish no success rate for this because we have run no study, and a number invented for a landing page would be worthless. What we can describe is exactly what happens in the hour, which is what this page does.
Please do not. Surprise is the exact ingredient that makes flying frightening, and a gift certificate sprung on a nervous person on the morning of the flight goes badly. Gift it with the date open and let them call us.
Van Nuys averages 355 flyable days a year against a 3,000 foot ceiling and 5 statute miles, so this is rare, and we would rather reschedule than fly a nervous first-timer in an unnecessarily bumpy afternoon. There is no charge for moving it.
Owned and maintained here, and inspected every 100 hours under FAR 91.409(b) because they are used for instruction for hire.






Single-engine training is flown in the Cessna, Piper and Diamond aircraft. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo carries a whole-airframe CAPS parachute, which is the aircraft most nervous first-timers ask about by name.
The Redbird MCX is full-motion, FAA-approved and fully enclosed, and it does not leave the building.
A $189 simulator session is a legitimate rehearsal for this flight: same instructor, same noises, same motion, with a stop button. Plenty of people do the simulator first and the aircraft two weeks later, and that is the sequence we recommend if you are unsure.
Under Part 61 the certificated flight instructor in the right seat is the pilot in command for the entire flight. Every instructor here holds a commercial or airline transport pilot certificate, a flight instructor certificate and a current medical. The aircraft is being operated by a professional whatever you are doing with your hands.
They can take the controls in under a second and will say so out loud when they do. If you want to stop, the answer is yes, immediately, with no argument about the money. On a local flight from Van Nuys you are never more than a few minutes from the runway you left.

Over 120 reviews, all on Google. The thing that comes up most from first-timers is the briefing, not the view over the Hollywood Hills.
The line that comes up most in our Google reviews is about the briefing table, not the flight. People who arrive nervous mention being told what was about to happen before it happened.
Eleven instructors and a fleet we own means an hour on the ground before an hour in the air is a scheduling decision, not a favor.
You book at $229 or $189 and that is what it costs. Reviewers mention the absence of surprises about as often as they mention the view.
All 120+ reviews are on Google. We do not aggregate ratings from anywhere else, and we do not publish a figure we cannot point at.
In that order on purpose. The consultation is free and nothing gets booked at the end of it unless you ask.
Sit down with an instructor at Van Nuys and ask everything, including the questions you think sound stupid. Nothing is booked at the end of it unless you want it booked. If we think a psychologist should see you before an aircraft does, we will say so here.
A full-motion, FAA-approved, fully enclosed simulator on the ground. Turbulence, engine sounds, weather and motion, with a stop button and a door you can open. The safest possible first exposure, and it is never canceled for weather.
A real aircraft, a real hour, and you fly it. Your instructor is legally pilot in command and can take the controls at any moment. The time is logged as dual instruction, and the full price is credited against any program if you enroll within 24 hours.
Bring the person who talked you into this. One of you flies, the other sits behind and watches. The 90 and 120-minute versions are $399 and $499.
The shortest legal route to flying yourself: day VFR, one passenger, no Class B airspace without an endorsement. A real certificate with real limits, and a smaller commitment than a private pilot license.
The 40-hour package that meets the FAR 61.109 minimum. Most people who start this because they were frightened of flying never intended to get a license, and then did.
The Comprehensive Private Pilot program is $15,900 for 60 logged hours and the Premium program is $22,500 in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo. Instrument Rating $11,700, Multi-Engine add-on $5,100, Solo Certificate $5,500, Teens aged 10 to 15 $4,200. Financing starts at $2,500 down through Stratus Financial or our in-house plans. Enrolled students fly single-engine aircraft at $179 an hour wet inside their package. Aircraft are available to qualified pilots who have checked out with us — call for availability.
Thirty minutes with an instructor, no cost, nothing booked. Tell us honestly what happens to you on an aircraft and we will tell you honestly whether the simulator, the discovery flight, or a psychologist should come first.
Prefer to write it down first? Use the contact form, or read what a discovery flight actually involves before you decide anything.
Yes, and a lot of people book them for exactly that reason, but tell us when you book because it changes how the flight is run. A Discovery Flight For One is $229 for 60 minutes from Van Nuys, you fly the aircraft and a certificated instructor is legally pilot in command. If your fear includes panic attacks, see a psychologist first and treat the flight as a later step.
No. You are the pilot flying for most of the hour by default, but you can hand the controls back at any moment or never take them at all, and the instructor is pilot in command throughout under Part 61. Most nervous flyers find the opposite problem: they do not want to give the controls back.
You say so and we return to Van Nuys, with no argument about the money. The instructor can take the controls in under a second, and on a local flight you are only a few minutes from the runway you departed from. Knowing that exit exists is part of why these flights usually go better than people expect.
Sixty minutes airborne on the $229 option, and about two hours at the airport in total. That covers a 20 to 30 minute briefing, the walkaround, engine start and taxi, the flight itself, and roughly twenty minutes of debrief afterwards. Ninety and 120-minute versions are $299 and $399.
They are different operations and comparing them with one number would be misleading. What is true is that the aircraft is maintained under FAR 91.409(b) with 100-hour inspections because it is used for instruction for hire, and that a certificated professional is pilot in command throughout. The meaningful difference for a nervous flyer is not statistical, it is that you can see out and you have the controls.
We do not publish a success rate for this, because we have run no study and a number invented for a landing page would be worthless. What a discovery flight reliably does is remove loss of control and loss of information for one hour and give you an explanation for every noise you hear. What that is worth to you is individual, and we would rather say so than promise an outcome.
Yes. A companion can wait in the office and join the briefing and the debrief, which many nervous flyers find helps. If you want them in the aircraft, the Discovery Flight For Two is $299 for 60 minutes and one of you flies while the other sits behind.
Early morning. Thermal turbulence is generated by the sun heating the ground, so it builds through the day and collapses overnight, which makes a 7am departure from Van Nuys routinely smooth. Van Nuys averages 355 flyable days a year against a 3,000 foot ceiling and 5 statute miles of visibility.
Neither. A discovery flight requires no license, no medical certificate and no experience, because you are flying under the supervision of a certificated instructor who is pilot in command. A medical certificate only becomes relevant later, before a first solo.
Yes. The hour is logged as dual instruction with a certificated flight instructor and is the first entry in a pilot logbook. If you go on to enroll in a program within 24 hours, the full $229 is credited against it, and the FAR 61.109 minimum for a private pilot certificate is 40 hours.
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
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