Hollywood Flight Training at Van Nuys Airport
Nineteen miles and one mountain pass from Hollywood and Vine, we teach people who work in production, and people who simply want to see this city from above it.
One pass north of Hollywood is a real airport
The Santa Monica Mountains are the reason Hollywood does not have an airport. There is one gap in that ridge at the Cahuenga Pass, the 101 goes through it past the Bowl, and on the far side the ground flattens into the valley floor where Van Nuys Airport sits. From Hollywood Boulevard that is nineteen miles of freeway with no surface streets involved. It is a shorter run than most people in Hollywood assume, and it ends at a field with a control tower, maintenance hangars and a proper fleet.
Hollywood work does not fit a fixed timetable, which is the recurring theme in conversations we have with people from Franklin Avenue, Beachwood Canyon and the blocks around Gower. A camera assistant on a Sunset Bronson show has a different week every week. A composer works nights. An agent's diary changes at four in the afternoon. Because we take bookings one lesson at a time from nine in the morning to nine at night, seven days, training here bends around a production calendar instead of fighting it.
There is a second Hollywood audience and we should be honest about it: people who do not want a licence at all. They want to take a partner up for sixty minutes on an anniversary, or put a friend in the left seat of a Cirrus for a birthday. That is a completely legitimate reason to come. An introductory flight for two starts at $299 for the hour, or $399 in the SR22 with its glass panel and leather seats, and nobody will push you toward a course afterwards.
If you do want the licence, the numbers are plain. A sport pilot certificate is $8,400 and is enough for day flying in light aircraft. The standard private pilot programme is $10,900 and is what most people mean when they say they want to learn to fly. An instrument rating afterwards is $11,700. Every figure is the whole course. We will sit down with you for free, without a deposit, and go through which one actually matches what you want.
What Hollywood clients book most
Six routes in, from a one-off hour over the basin to a certificate that takes most of a year.
Standard Private Pilot
The full FAA Private Pilot Certificate. Where most students start.
Learn morePremium Private Pilot
The widest margin of hours for students who want no surprises.
Learn moreInstrument Rating
The rating that makes a licence useful in Southern California weather.
Learn moreTry it first — a discovery flight from Van Nuys
You fly the aircraft from the left seat with an instructor beside you. The time is loggable and counts toward a certificate.
Luxury Cirrus For Two
The SR22 Turbo, glass cockpit. 90 min $549, 120 min $699.
Learn moreRedbird Simulator Session
FAA-approved full-motion MCX, on the field at Van Nuys.
Learn moreThe drive from Hollywood to 7900 Balboa Blvd
Get on the 101 wherever you normally do, Highland, Cahuenga, Vine or Sunset, and head north. You climb the Cahuenga Pass past the Bowl, drop past Universal City, and at the Ventura split you stay with the 101 as it swings west. From there it is Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Encino and Tarzana, then off at Balboa Boulevard and north to the airport. Roughly nineteen miles. Twenty-five minutes at ten in the morning, thirty-five to forty-five at six in the evening.
When the 101 is properly stopped, and in this city it sometimes is, the canyons are the alternative. Laurel Canyon Boulevard climbs over Mulholland and drops you onto Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, from where Victory or Sherman Way runs west to Balboa. It is not faster in normal traffic and the canyon is narrow, but it moves when the freeway does not. Coldwater Canyon does the same thing a little further west and comes out near Ventura and Beverly Glen.
We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, along the western edge of the field. Parking is free and it is a car park, not a valet stand, so leave the two dollars in your pocket. The complex houses a number of unrelated aviation businesses, so use the suite number rather than the street number alone. Give yourself a few extra minutes the first time and the front desk will walk you out to the aircraft.
Why the pass is worth crossing
It is the nearest real training field
Hollywood is boxed in by mountains to the north and the Class B shelves over the basin to the south. Van Nuys is the closest airport with a full-time tower, an eight-thousand-foot runway, on-field maintenance and a fleet deep enough that a cancelled aircraft does not cancel your lesson. Twenty-five minutes of freeway buys all of that.
Aircraft you would actually want to fly
Plenty of schools have one type in three colours. We run everything from a two-seat Cessna 162 to a Cirrus SR22 Turbo and a Piper Seminole twin, and your package covers the aircraft and the instructor together. If you start on the trainer and want to move to the glass panel later, you can, without changing schools or starting again with new instructors.
Booking that survives a schedule change
We are open nine to nine every day of the week, and lessons are booked individually rather than as a fixed weekly slot you lose if a shoot runs long. That matters more in Hollywood than almost anywhere. Evening lessons, early Sunday lessons and a fortnight off between projects are all normal here.
Instructors who have been doing this a while
Our FAA-certified instructors carry fifteen years or more of experience each. That shows up in the small things: knowing when to take the controls and when to let you make a mess of an approach and learn from it. It is also why the school holds a 5.0 rating on Google across 53 reviews.
Aircraft on the Balboa ramp
You will learn in one of three trainers. The Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Piper Warrior, and the Diamond DA20 with its glider-like wing and enormous bubble canopy. For a first flight out of Van Nuys the DA20 is hard to beat, because the view from it eastbound down the Santa Monica Mountains toward Cahuenga and the sign on Mount Lee is essentially unobstructed. Instructors will happily explain the differences and let you try more than one before you settle.
After the basics the fleet keeps going. The Piper Arrow II has retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller, which is what commercial training requires. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is the glass-cockpit cross-country aeroplane with a parachute built into the airframe. The Piper Seminole is our twin, used for the multi-engine rating at $5,100. And the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator handles procedures, emergencies and instrument approaches on the ground, at $189 for a sixty-minute session.
What Hollywood looks like from 2,500 feet
Turn southeast out of Van Nuys and the whole neighbourhood arranges itself in about four minutes.
Lake Hollywood Reservoir
A dark green teardrop of water held back by the Mulholland Dam, tucked in the hills directly behind the sign on Mount Lee. It is invisible from most of the city and startlingly obvious from the air, which is why so many first-timers point at it.
The Hollywood Bowl
The shell sits in Bolton Canyon just west of the 101, a pale half-shape with terraced parking spiralling up the hillside behind it. On a summer evening flight you can see the crowd filling the benches before you can see anything else in Hollywood.
Griffith Observatory
Three copper domes on the south face of Mount Hollywood, gone green with age and set against the brown ridge behind them. It is the marker most instructors use when they are pointing out where Hollywood stops and Los Feliz begins.
Paramount and Hollywood Forever
The last major studio lot still inside Hollywood, a dense block of soundstages and standing sets off Melrose. Immediately north of it sit the lawns and mausoleums of Hollywood Forever, an unmistakable green rectangle against the grid.
Common questions
On most flights that head southeast from Van Nuys, yes, along with Mount Lee, the reservoir behind it and Griffith Park. We cannot promise a route, because air traffic control and other traffic decide where we go on the day. Tell your instructor it matters to you and they will build the flight around it where the airspace allows.
Twenty-five minutes off-peak and around forty at the worst of the evening. It is one freeway the whole way with no surface-street navigation, which makes it more predictable than the distance suggests. Most Hollywood students book mid-morning or after seven in the evening and rarely deal with real traffic.
Yes, and it is a large share of what we do. Sixty minutes for two people is $299, ninety minutes $399, two hours $499. In the Cirrus SR22 those become $399, $549 and $699. Call (818) 290-8249 and we will arrange it; the recipient books their own date, so it does not have to be pinned to a particular day.
In our free car park at 7900 Balboa Blvd. There is no charge, no meter and no time limit. Come to Suite 108A rather than looking for us on the ramp, because the building is shared with several unrelated aviation companies and the suite number is what gets you to the right desk.
None. No medical certificate, no licence, no prior training, and no need to know anything about aeroplanes when you walk in. The instructor handles the radio and the difficult parts. You fly the aircraft in level flight and turns, which is most of the hour.
Sport pilot at $8,400 is limited to lighter aircraft, daytime flying and one passenger. The private certificate at $10,900 has none of those limits and is the one to take if you might eventually fly at night or into busier airspace. We will talk you through which fits.
First solo typically arrives between fifteen and twenty-five hours, depending entirely on how often you fly. Twice a week gets people there in a couple of months. Once a month does not, because each lesson is spent recovering the last one. Frequency decides this, not talent.
Yes. We work with Stratus Financial and also run payment plans in house. For the larger programmes, particularly the $89,000 airline track, financing is how most people do it. Come in for the free consultation and we will lay out the monthly commitment.
Book a discovery flight
Call (818) 290-8249 or come up the 101 to 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, and see the aircraft before you decide anything. We fly seven days a week, and the slot after work is usually the one Hollywood people take.