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.
Van Nuys Airport · KVNY
Flight Training For Malibu, Flown From Van Nuys Airport
Our school is at Van Nuys Airport, twenty-two miles inland over the Santa Monica Mountains: a towered field that is usually flying while your own stretch of coast is still under gray. Malibu is where you drive from.
5.0★100+ reviews on Google
2,000+discovery flights flown safely
$10,900standard private pilot course
15+ yrsexperience per FAA instructor
Local
The Marine Layer Is Most Of The Argument
Malibu is twenty-seven miles of coast with a mountain range pressed against its back, and for eight months of the year the same thing happens every morning. Cool air off the water sits against the hillside and the shoreline goes flat gray until ten or eleven. It is lovely to live under and a poor place to schedule flying lessons from. Twenty-two miles inland, on the far side of the Santa Monica Mountains, that layer has usually already lifted off the Valley floor. That gap in the weather is why Malibu students end up at Van Nuys.
The people who call us from Malibu are rarely first-timers in the general sense. They have been passengers in small aircraft, or they have a friend with an airplane at Camarillo, or they have spent years watching traffic track down the coast at 3,500 feet and doing arithmetic. Some are Pepperdine staff. Some run businesses that need them in Santa Barbara on a Tuesday. Several have booked lessons somewhere on the water and canceled four in a row.
The airport question comes up on nearly every call. Santa Monica is closer on paper, but its runway was cut to 3,500 feet in 2017 and the field is scheduled to close at the end of 2028, which is a poor foundation for a two-year training plan. Camarillo is a fine airport thirty miles up the coast with the same morning problem you already have. Neither is ours. We fly from Van Nuys, which is inland, has two parallel runways, a tower staffed around the clock and every aircraft you would want to learn in sitting on one ramp.
What you get for the drive is the thing that decides whether people finish: lessons that happen. Flying twice a week is not a luxury, it is the difference between forty hours of training and seventy. The coast is not lost to you either. From Van Nuys the shoreline is fifteen minutes off the nose, and by the time you are flying cross-countries you will be running the beach west past Point Dume toward Point Mugu.
Courses & Pricing
Every Course We Teach
★★★★★
5.0 Rating
100+ Google Reviews
Course prices are packages, not hourly rates - the aircraft, your instructor, ground school and simulator time are all in the figure. Van Nuys Airport, KVNY. Financing Available Through Stratus & In-House Plans.
Start Here
Discovery Flight
The First Hour At The Controls. Credited Toward Your Training If You Enroll Within 24 Hours Of Landing.
From$229
Book A Discovery Flight
01
Discovery Flight
The first hour at the controls; credits toward training if you enroll within 24 hours of landing.
From$229
02
Teen Flight Training Ages 10–15
Starting before it is legal to solo.
$4,200
03
Multi-Engine Rating
For existing pilots adding a twin.
$5,100
04
Solo Certificate
Enough training to take an aircraft around the pattern alone.
$5,500
05
Sport Pilot
A real certificate, fewer hours, narrower privileges.
$8,400
06
Private Pilot Most Enrolled
The one most people mean by “learn to fly.”
$10,900
07
Instrument Rating
Turns a fair-weather pilot into a useful one.
$11,700
08
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Private with flight time, ground instruction and materials bundled.
$15,900
09
Premium Private Pilot
The most flight time before your checkride - 80 logged hours.
$22,500
10
Airline Pilot Program
Zero experience to airline-hireable qualifications.
$89,000
All Prices In USD. 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, Van Nuys, CA 91406 · Open 9 AM–9 PM, Seven Days. Free In-Person Tour Of The School
Book It Or Gift It
Fly It Yourself, Or Give The Flight To Someone Else
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
Two Seats
The Nice One
Twin Engine
Discovery Flight For One
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 It Or Gift It
Same Price Either Way
Discovery Flight For Two
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 It Or Gift It
Same Price Either Way
Luxury Discovery Flight
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
Bring A PassengerInstructor + 2 is our maximum+$100
$499Book It Or Gift It
Same Price Either Way
Multi-Engine Seminole
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 It Or Gift It
Same Price Either Way
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.
Getting Here
Malibu To 7900 Balboa Blvd, Honestly
From central Malibu the route is Malibu Canyon Road. Turn inland at Pepperdine, climb past the Rindge Dam and through the tunnel, and eleven miles later you are on Las Virgenes at the 101 in Calabasas. Take the freeway east through Woodland Hills and Tarzana, come off at Balboa Boulevard in Encino, and drive north for four and a half miles. Balboa runs straight past the airport fence, and Suite 108A is on the 7900 block. Twenty-two miles door to door, about forty minutes on an ordinary morning.
West of Zuma, use Kanan Dume Road instead. It climbs out of Point Dume through the tunnels to the 101 at Agoura Hills, and adds ten to fifteen minutes to the same trip. From Las Flores and Carbon Beach, Topanga Canyon Boulevard over the crest into Woodland Hills works, then north on Topanga and east on Roscoe. Two honest warnings: Malibu Canyon closes for rockfall after heavy rain, sometimes for days, and PCH on a summer Friday afternoon is not a road anybody should plan a lesson around.
Parking is free in our own lot, immediately outside the door of Suite 108A. There is no terminal, no shuttle, no gate arm and nobody to pay, which surprises people whose only picture of an airport is LAX. Give yourself fifteen minutes at the start for the briefing, wear closed-toe shoes and bring sunglasses; the light over the Valley is harder than the light you are used to at sea level. We supply the headsets.
Why Van Nuys
Why Malibu Students End Up Inland
1
Days That Actually Fly
Van Nuys sits behind the mountains, and the coastal stratus that holds your morning down often never reaches the Valley floor at all. Over a year that is the single biggest factor in how quickly anyone finishes a certificate. Canceled lessons do not only delay you, they cost money, because skills you paid for go stale and get flown twice.
2
A Tower, And Traffic Worth Learning In
You learn to talk to a control tower from the first lesson, hold a heading in a real sequence, and share a pattern with business jets and helicopters. Pilots trained at quiet fields tend to freeze on the radio the first time they fly somewhere busy. Ours arrive at Santa Barbara having already done it a hundred times.
3
The Coast On One Side, Mountains On The Other
Fifteen minutes puts you over the shoreline; the same distance the other way puts you against the Santa Susanas for real terrain work. Malibu students get both without repositioning. Cross-countries run from Van Nuys out to Camarillo, Santa Barbara and Santa Paula, and the airspace around Point Mugu teaches restricted-area planning better than any classroom exercise.
4
You Choose The Airplane
Five types on one ramp plus a full-motion simulator indoors, so you are not flying whatever happens to be unbooked. Start in a Cessna 162 or a Diamond DA20, do the complex work in the Piper Arrow II, add the twin in the Seminole, and take the Cirrus when you want to go somewhere properly.
The Fleet
What You Will Be Flying
Primary training happens in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Diamond DA20 and the Piper Warrior, and all three are inside your package price rather than billed separately. They are light, honest airplanes with modern radios and GPS, chosen because they make a beginner's mistakes small and recoverable. The DA20 has a bubble canopy and the best downward view of anything we operate, which matters more than it sounds when you are learning to hold a ground track along a coastline with a sea breeze pushing you inland.
Beyond primary training the ramp keeps going. The Piper Arrow II has retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller for complex work. The Piper Seminole is the twin, two engines and a set of numbers you have to manage rather than admire, and it carries the $5,100 multi-engine rating. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is turbocharged, air-conditioned and carries a whole-airframe parachute; it is the airplane Malibu owners tend to end up buying, and the Luxury Cirrus discovery flight from $499 is the simplest way to try one. Indoors, the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator is $189 for a one-hour session and is built into the private packages.
From The Air
Malibu From 2,500 Feet
Four things you will pick out on the way over the ridge without anyone pointing at them.
🌊
The Point Dume Headland
A blunt sandstone shoulder shoving out into the water, with Westward Beach curving beneath it and Zuma running flat to the north. It is the only true promontory on this coastline.
🏫
Pepperdine On Its Hillside
White buildings and an improbably green lawn terraced into the slope where Malibu Canyon meets the sea. From the air the campus is the easiest way to find the canyon mouth.
🧱
Rindge Dam In Malibu Canyon
A concrete arch wedged into the gorge below the road, silted to the brim with a century of gravel. The creek simply runs over the top of it, and you cross directly above.
🏄
The Pier And The Lagoon At Surfrider
The wooden pier, the point break's lines of swell wrapping past it and the brown fan of Malibu Lagoon behind the sand. The Adamson House sits in the trees between the two.
FAQ
Common Questions
From central Malibu, about forty minutes for twenty-two miles: Malibu Canyon Road to Las Virgenes, the 101 east, then Balboa Boulevard north. From Point Dume via Kanan Dume Road allow fifty-five. It runs longer after rain, when the canyon closes for rockfall. Ring (818) 290-8249 and we will hold your slot.
Santa Monica is nearer, but its runway was shortened in 2017 and the field is scheduled to close at the end of 2028, which sits inside the working life of most training plans. Camarillo is thirty miles up the coast with exactly the marine layer you are trying to escape. Van Nuys is inland, towered, and keeps the whole fleet on one ramp.
Far less often than at a coastal field, which is most of the point. The stratus that grounds Malibu mornings frequently stops at the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains. When the Valley itself is down we move you into the Redbird MCX simulator at $189 a session and fly instrument procedures instead.
The standard course is $10,900. The comprehensive version, with more dual and simulator hours built in, is $15,900, and the premium course is $22,500. A solo certificate alone is $5,500 and the sport pilot license is $8,400. Financing runs through Stratus Financial, and we carry in-house payment plans. The consultation is free.
Flying twice a week, six to nine months is normal for a private certificate. One lesson a week roughly doubles it, because each flight spends its first twenty minutes recovering what the last one taught. That is the honest reason we push people toward two lessons a week, even when it means a Wednesday evening drive.
To fly with an instructor, nothing but identification. Before your first solo you need an FAA medical certificate from an aviation medical examiner, a student pilot certificate, and you must be sixteen. For the private certificate you must be seventeen and able to read, speak and understand English. There is no upper age limit.
The obvious runs from Van Nuys are Santa Barbara up the coast, Catalina's hilltop strip, Palm Springs over the pass and Big Bear in the mountains. Locally you can fly the shoreline past Point Dume at low level on a clear evening. It is a spectacular hour, and nothing about driving PCH substitutes for it.
Yes. The teen flight training package is $4,200, and a student can begin lessons at any age, solo at sixteen and hold a private certificate at seventeen. Parents from Malibu usually pair weekend lessons with one weekday evening. Sit in on the briefing if you like; most do for the first few.
Talk To Us
Come Over The Hill And Try One Hour
Book a discovery flight, drive up Malibu Canyon on a morning your own beach is still gray, and fly the airplane yourself over ground you know by heart. Call (818) 290-8249 and we will tell you whether the ninety-minute version is worth the extra from where you live.
Discovery Flight For One
$229
60 minutes, hands on the controls, fully loggable
Book A Discovery Flight
Or Call (818) 290-8249
No Cost, No Obligation
Get The Full Training Plan And Price Sheet
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.
- Every package price, itemised
- Financing from $2,500 down
- A timeline based on your schedule
Loved On Google
Over 100 Reviews. 5.0 Stars.
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
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...
See Discovery Flight Details — $229
Reviews shown verbatim, exactly as each reviewer published them.
Aviation News
Latest From The Field
Notes from the flight line at Van Nuys — weather, regulation changes, checkride questions and the cost of training, written up as they come.
Van Nuys Airport · KVNY
(818) 290-8249
7900 Balboa Blvd. Suite 108A
Van Nuys, CA 91406 Get directions →
Open the full contact page
Open 7 days · 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Los Angeles Flight School7900 Balboa Blvd. Suite 108A
Van Nuys, CA 91406 Get directions →
★★★★★
5.0 · 100+ Google reviews