Flight School at Van Nuys Airport, 7900 Balboa Blvd
We are on the Balboa side of the field, seven days a week, with the trainers, the twin, the Cirrus and the simulator all parked within sight of the door.
Where we are and what actually happens here
LA Flight School operates from Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, on the western edge of Van Nuys Airport. It is a shared hangar complex with a lot of aviation businesses in it, so the suite number matters more than the street number when you arrive. Walk in and you are a short distance from the aircraft: no shuttle, no separate ramp on the far side of the field, no waiting in one building for an airplane parked in another. The whole operation sits in one place.
A first visit is a conversation and a walk outside. You meet an instructor, look at the airplanes, and get straight answers about money, medical certificates and how long any of this takes for someone with your particular schedule. It costs nothing and takes about thirty minutes. Most people follow it with a discovery flight, which is a real lesson rather than a ride: you handle the controls from shortly after takeoff, the flight goes in a logbook, and it counts toward a certificate later.
After that, training runs to an FAA syllabus rather than an improvised sequence of lessons. Ground instruction pairs with each flight, simulator sessions in the Redbird MCX cover the procedures that are expensive to practice in the air, and every stage finishes with a check before the next one begins. Instructors here are FAA-certified with fifteen years or more behind them, which shows up less in stories about their own flying and more in how quickly they spot the habit you are about to form.
The program ladder is priced plainly. A Solo Certificate is $5,500 if all you want is the moment the instructor climbs out and you go around alone. The Standard Private Pilot certificate is $10,900. Instrument is $11,700, a multi-engine add-on is $5,100, and the full zero-to-airline program is $89,000. Discovery flights start at $229 for one person, or $189 for a sixty-minute session in the full-motion simulator. Nothing above is a starting figure that grows quietly.
Programs flown from this field
Six routes through the same ramp, each with its real number.
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 license 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 moreReaching 7900 Balboa from any direction
From the 405, leave at Roscoe or Victory and head west; both put you on Balboa within a mile or so of the gate. From the 101, take the Balboa Boulevard exit in Encino and drive north through Ventura, Burbank and Victory. From the 118 across the top of the Valley, take Balboa and come south past Devonshire, Nordhoff and Roscoe. The airport fence appears alongside you before Saticoy, and our building is on the western side of the field.
Balboa itself is a straightforward road with lights rather than surprises, and the Valley grid means there is almost always a parallel escape a block away if something is blocked: Woodley to the east, Hayvenhurst and Sepulveda beyond that. The genuinely slow times are the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass at rush hour and the 101 through Woodland Hills in the afternoon, neither of which you have to touch if you plan around them from your own side of the Valley.
Parking is free in our own lot immediately outside Suite 108A. There is no structure, no barrier arm and nothing to validate, and a car can sit there through a long block lesson or a ground school session without any trouble. Because the complex holds a number of unrelated aviation businesses, it is worth looking for the suite number rather than the building name on your first visit. Call (818) 290-8249 if anything is unclear and someone will walk out to meet you.
What this particular airport gives a student
Two parallel runways
A main runway of just over eight thousand feet and a shorter parallel of about four thousand. Two runways means training traffic and faster aircraft can be separated, so a lesson rarely dissolves into a long queue for a single strip. It also means a landing practice session actually delivers landings rather than a slow tour of the circuit.
Real air traffic control from day one
Van Nuys is one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world, with a control tower, a Class B shelf overhead and Burbank close by. You learn to talk on the radio while flying the airplane from the first lesson. That is harder at the start and much easier for the rest of your flying life.
Every category of aircraft on one apron
Two-seat trainers, a complex retractable single, a turbocharged glass-cockpit Cirrus, a twin-engine Seminole and a full-motion simulator, all in one place under one maintenance operation. You never reach a rating that requires moving to another school, and your training records stay in a single file instead of being scattered across three of them.
Weather that lets you finish
The Valley sits inland behind the Santa Monica Mountains, so the marine layer that stalls coastal fields most mornings from late spring often burns off here first. Consistency is what finishes a certificate. Cancelled lessons cost you the slot and the relearning at the start of the next one, and that is where budgets quietly go.
The aircraft, and what each one is for
Primary training uses the Cessna 162 Skycatcher and the Piper Warrior, and the Diamond DA20, all of them covered by your program price. The Skycatcher and DA20 are two-seaters that keep the cockpit simple while you learn to fly rather than to manage systems. The Warrior has four seats and the steadiness that makes a long navigation leg comfortable rather than a wrestling match. Between the three, most students have flown at least two types before the checkride, which is better preparation than it sounds: an airplane you have not flown before stops being an event and becomes a checklist.
The heavier end of the ramp: the Piper Arrow II with retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller, which is the complex time a commercial certificate requires, and the Cirrus SR22 Turbo and twin-engine Piper Seminole. The multi-engine rating flown in the Seminole is a $5,100 package. The Redbird MCX full-motion simulator, $189 for a sixty-minute session, is used at every level here, from somebody's first cautious look at flying through to instrument approaches, engine failures and the other emergencies nobody sensible wants to rehearse in an actual airplane.
What you see on your first circuit here
Four things that appear from the pattern before you have learnt to land.
The two parallel runways
Laid out roughly north to south, the long one on the east and the short one on the west, with rows of hangars and business jets between them. From the downwind leg the whole field reads at a glance, which is exactly what a student needs.
The Sepulveda Basin
The wide green flood plain immediately south of the field, with playing fields, golf and the stepped concrete of the reclamation plant. It is the one large empty space in the Valley and it sits right where you turn crosswind.
The brewery on Roscoe
The big industrial plant north-east of the field with its tanks and stacks visible for miles. Students use it as an informal reporting point long before they learn the official ones printed on the chart.
The Mulholland ridge
The Santa Monica Mountains close the Valley off to the south, with Mulholland Drive running along the top and the notch of the Sepulveda Pass cut through it. It is the horizon you fly toward on almost every departure from this field.
Common questions
Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, on the western boundary of the field. The complex is shared with a number of unrelated aviation businesses, so look for the suite rather than the street number when you first arrive. Parking is free and directly outside, and we are open nine to nine every day.
None. Most people begin with a discovery flight at $229, which is a real lesson with your hands on the controls and sixty minutes that go into a logbook. Ground school, medical certification and the written exam are all handled in sequence with an instructor, so nothing needs arranging in advance.
Realistically four to eight months at two lessons a week, or considerably less if you fly more often. The FAA minimum is forty hours; most people take sixty to seventy. Frequency matters far more than natural ability, because time between lessons is spent relearning rather than progressing.
It is harder for the first few weeks and easier forever afterwards. You learn radio work, sequencing and clearances alongside the flying rather than bolting them on later. Pilots trained at quiet fields often find their first entry into busy airspace genuinely stressful, and that is a poor time to learn.
Solo Certificate $5,500, Standard Private Pilot $10,900, Comprehensive $15,900, Premium $22,500, Instrument Rating $11,700, Multi-Engine add-on $5,100 and the Airline Pilot Program $89,000. Financing runs through Stratus Financial and we offer in-house payment plans. The consultation is free and there is no obligation attached to it.
For part of your training, yes. The Redbird MCX is a full-motion simulator, $189 for a sixty-minute session, and time in it counts toward an instrument rating. It is also a sensible first session for anyone nervous about flying, because it never cancels for weather and no medical certificate is required to sit in it.
Nine in the morning until nine at night, seven days a week. Early lessons are usually the smoothest air of the day, and evening flying is worth doing deliberately at some point because the night rating requirement has to be met anyway. There is no weekend-only bottleneck for aircraft here.
Yes, on the same ramp at Van Nuys you trained on. Members of the club fly the Cessna 162, the Piper Warrior, the Diamond DA20, the Piper Arrow II, the Cirrus SR22 and the Piper Seminole, and we will talk the cost through with you in person. A checkout with an instructor comes first, which is shorter when you already know the aircraft.
Come and see the field before you decide
Walk in to Suite 108A, look at the airplanes on the ramp and ask an instructor anything you like, at no cost and with nothing to sign. Call (818) 290-8249, or book a discovery flight from $229 and fly the aircraft yourself.
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