Brentwood already organizes its week around the Sepulveda Pass, so the only real question is what waits four miles past the top of it.
Brentwood is a set of canyons with boulevards laid across the bottom of them. Mandeville, Sullivan and Kenter run up into the Santa Monica Mountains, San Vicente carries its coral trees down the middle, and everything north of Sunset eventually points at the cut in the ridge where the 405 goes over. You know that road better than you would like. What few people here have checked is that a working general aviation airport sits four miles beyond the top of it.
That airport is Van Nuys, and the arithmetic is friendlier than the freeway suggests. Fifteen miles from the Country Mart, twenty-five to thirty minutes at the hours a lesson is actually booked, and a car park outside the door rather than a structure. Our students from this side of the hill are largely people with unreliable diaries: clinicians at UCLA and Saint John's, lawyers and agents in Century City, producers, a fair number of retired founders. The common thread is a schedule that moves on Tuesday, not a shared career.
What they want from flying tends to be the same too. Not an airline job, but the ability to leave on a Friday and be in Santa Barbara in forty minutes, Mammoth in ninety, Palm Springs in under sixty minutes, without the drive to LAX and the two hours that follow it. That is a private pilot certificate at $10,900, and then, if you want the aircraft that makes those trips comfortable, a checkout in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo once the certificate is in your hand.
The certificate is forty hours by regulation and sixty to seventy in practice, which at two lessons a week lands between six and nine months. Ground school, the written exam, solo flights and a checkride sit inside that. We would rather show you the schedule honestly at a free consultation than quote a headline figure and let the extras arrive later. Bring your diary, because the diary decides whether this takes eight months or three years.
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, 370 lb combined. Questions: (818) 290-8249, 9 AM–9 PM, seven days.
The straightforward run is San Vicente or Sunset east to the 405 north. You climb through the Sepulveda Pass past the Getty ridge and the Skirball, cross the summit and drop onto the Valley floor at Ventura Boulevard. Stay north past Burbank and Victory, come off at Sherman Way, and run west about a mile and a half to Balboa Boulevard. Turn north and the airport fence opens on your right at the 7900 block, Suite 108A facing our lot.
Timing deserves honesty. Northbound between four and seven in the evening the pass can double the trip, and the Sunset on-ramp queue is a separate tax on top. Mornings work in your favor, because the weight of traffic is heading south into the Westside while you are going the other way. Twenty-five to thirty minutes is normal at nine in the morning or after seven at night, which is why most Brentwood students settle into those windows.
When the 405 is properly broken, Sepulveda Boulevard runs beside it the whole way over the ridge and lands you on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. From there continue north and turn west on Victory or Sherman Way to reach Balboa. It is slower on a good day and quicker on a bad one. Parking at our end is free, in our own lot, with no gate and nobody to tip. First visit, ring (818) 290-8249 from Balboa.
From May into July the marine layer sits over Barrington and San Vicente until late morning. Four miles inland and over the ridge, Van Nuys has frequently burned off by nine. If your lessons are booked on the coast, June and July quietly cost you a month of progress. That fact has moved more Westside students inland than any price comparison.
Van Nuys operates two parallel runways and a twenty-four-hour tower, so you are not waiting behind jet traffic for a slot or finding the field shut before an evening lesson. The radio work you learn beneath the Los Angeles Class B travels with you everywhere, and it is the part pilots trained at quiet fields never quite catch up on.
The ladder runs from the Cessna 162 up through the Piper Arrow II to the Cirrus SR22 Turbo, and a package covers the aircraft and the instructor together rather than billing them apart. You learn on one ramp and rent from the same ramp afterwards, so the certificate leads to the airplane you would actually take to Santa Barbara rather than to a search for one.
We instruct from nine in the morning until nine at night, every day of the week. Block booking lets you hold the same two slots for months, and an evening lesson after a clinic list or a late call is an ordinary booking rather than a favor. Consistency is the whole game, and it is a scheduling problem first.
Early lessons happen in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Piper Warrior or the Diamond DA20. They are light, straightforward aircraft with current radios and GPS, chosen because they make a student's errors small and correctable rather than expensive. Having several of them matters more than it sounds: an aircraft going into a scheduled inspection should never be the reason you miss a week of flying, particularly when your own calendar already threatens two of the four lessons in a typical month.
Beyond the trainers sit the aircraft that make a certificate worth having. The Piper Arrow II brings retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is the cross-country machine, with a glass panel, air conditioning and a parachute built into the airframe. The twin-engine Piper Seminole is where a multi-engine rating is flown, and that rating is a $5,100 package. Indoors, the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator is $189 for a sixty-minute session and absorbs a good share of instrument training. All of it sits on our own ramp at Van Nuys Airport, in Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, not at Santa Monica or Burbank.
Four things you will pick out crossing the mountains southbound.
A single file of high-rises standing along Wilshire between Barrington and the country club, with nothing tall on either side. From the air they read as a wall dividing Brentwood from Westwood.
Thousands of white headstones in exact rows on the slope beside the 405, the most geometric piece of ground on the Westside. It is visible long before the freeway resolves into lanes.
One long road running four miles up into the mountains with houses hanging on both walls and no through route at the top. From above, the fire risk everyone here discusses is plainly obvious.
A green rectangle of fairways pressed between Wilshire and San Vicente, ringed by street grid on every side. With the coral tree median it is the fastest way to fix your position over the neighborhood.
Twenty-five to thirty minutes for fifteen miles at sensible hours, north on the 405 through the pass and then Sherman Way west to Balboa. Between four and seven in the evening allow closer to fifty. Mornings run against the commute, which is why nine o'clock lessons are popular here. Sepulveda Boulevard is the fallback when the freeway stops.
Because of what is on the field rather than where the field is. We are based at Van Nuys Airport, never at Santa Monica; Santa Monica is simply the field nearest your house. Van Nuys gives you two full-length parallel runways, a tower staffed around the clock, a fleet from a two-seat trainer to a twin, and a simulator in the same building. Add the coastal cloud that holds mornings down near the water and the extra fifteen minutes stops looking expensive.
Free, in our own lot immediately outside Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard. No structure, no valet, no ticket machine and no attendant deciding where you go. You can leave the car for a three-hour block without anyone minding. The complex is shared with other aviation businesses, so use the suite number rather than the street address alone.
The standard course is $10,900, the comprehensive version $15,900 and the premium package $22,500. The difference is the instruction and aircraft time included, not the certificate you finish with. Financing runs through Stratus Financial and we carry payment plans in house. We will go through the breakdown at a free consultation.
Most people here do, and it works when lessons are booked as blocks rather than fitted in when a week looks quiet. We fly from nine in the morning to nine at night, seven days a week. Two lessons a week finishes a private certificate in six to nine months; one a fortnight can take years, because too much of each lesson goes on revision.
Santa Barbara is about forty minutes, Palm Springs a little under sixty, Mammoth around ninety, Catalina roughly thirty. Those are the trips Brentwood students describe wanting when they first call. Each one leaves from our ramp at Van Nuys, and you can rent what you trained on, the Cirrus SR22 Turbo included, once you have completed a checkout.
It is busy rather than difficult, and learning it properly is an advantage. You will work under the Los Angeles Class B shelves with Santa Monica's airspace to the south, which means real clearances and real radio discipline early on. Students who train here find quieter airports elsewhere very simple by comparison.
Nothing. You meet an instructor, walk out to the aircraft, look at the simulator and go through timelines, medicals and money with no obligation. Most people leave with a realistic idea of the calendar rather than a brochure. If you would rather start in the air, a discovery flight is $229 and counts toward the certificate.
Drive the pass once for something other than work, park outside the door, and let an instructor walk you round a training aircraft at Balboa. Call (818) 290-8249 for a free consultation, or book the $229 discovery flight and start a logbook the same afternoon.
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
