$500 off every Private Pilot Program and $5,000 off the Airline Pilot Course — applied automatically at checkout.
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A working airfield since 1928, still one of the busiest general aviation airports anywhere, and still the place a large share of Los Angeles learns to fly.
The field opened in 1928 as Metropolitan Airport, a private aerodrome on what was then farmland at the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. During the Second World War it was pressed into military service and used for training. The City of Los Angeles took it on afterwards, and it has been called Van Nuys Airport since 1957. Almost a century later it carries no scheduled airline service at all and remains one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world.
That history matters less as a story than as an explanation of the traffic. This is a working airport, not a quiet strip that happens to host a school. Business jets use it constantly, charter and maintenance operations fill the east side, news and utility helicopters come and go, and the Los Angeles Fire Department flies its aircraft from here. A student pilot shares the frequency with all of it from the first lesson, which is the single biggest difference between training here and training somewhere gentler.
Physically it is two parallel runways running roughly north to south: a main one of just over eight thousand feet and a shorter parallel of about four thousand. There is a control tower, a Class D airspace ring around the field, and the Class B shelf belonging to Los Angeles sitting above. Burbank is a few miles east with its own tower and its own traffic. The practice areas lie north-west, beyond the Santa Susana Mountains, which is a ten-minute transit rather than a journey.
What you can earn here runs from a sport certificate to an airline career, and we price all of it openly. Sport Pilot is $8,400. The Standard Private Pilot certificate is $10,900, with Comprehensive at $15,900 and Premium at $22,500. Instrument is $11,700, a multi-engine add-on is $5,100, and the full zero-to-airline program is $89,000. Every one of those numbers is a fixed program price rather than an estimate that drifts upward once you have started.
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 field has two very different sides and knowing which one you want saves a first-time visitor twenty minutes. The eastern side along Woodley Avenue holds the corporate terminals, the jet operators and the FlyAway bus station. The western side along Balboa Boulevard is where the flight schools, maintenance shops and light aircraft sit. We are on the Balboa side, at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, Suite 108A, roughly midway between Roscoe Boulevard and Saticoy Street on the western fence.
By road it is simple from every direction. The 405 runs a mile east of the field, so Roscoe or Victory westbound puts you on Balboa quickly. The 101 meets Balboa in Encino, and from there it is a straight run north. The 118 crosses Balboa at the top of the Valley, and you come south past Devonshire and Nordhoff. Public transport reaches it too, with bus routes on Balboa, Sherman Way and Victory, and the Van Nuys station a short ride east.
The complex at 7900 Balboa is shared. Around ten unrelated aviation businesses operate out of it, which is completely normal for a general aviation airport and does mean you should look for the suite number rather than the building. Suite 108A is ours, parking outside it is free with no barrier or ticket, and the aircraft are a short walk from the door. Call (818) 290-8249 on arrival if anything is unclear and someone will come out.
Sharing a tower frequency with jets, helicopters and other trainers forces clear, brief transmissions from the beginning. Students find it intimidating for a fortnight and then stop noticing. The alternative is learning it later, alone, in worse circumstances, which is how nervous pilots end up avoiding whole regions of airspace for years.
Van Nuys sits inside a dense residential valley and operates with published noise abatement procedures. Flying them properly is part of training here, and it builds the habit of reading and following local procedure at any unfamiliar airport rather than assuming that every field works like the last one you used.
Burbank, Whiteman, Camarillo, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Santa Monica all sit inside a comfortable training flight of this field. That range covers towered and non-towered airports, Class C and Class D, mountain approaches and coastal ones, so the cross-country requirements become genuinely varied instead of the same triangle flown three times over.
Maintenance, avionics, examiners and aviation medical examiners all work in and around this airport. That matters at the boring moments: a checkride slot, a signed medical, an unscheduled snag on an aircraft. Fewer waits mean fewer gaps in training, and gaps in training are what quietly extend a certificate by months.
The two-seaters carry the early hours. The Cessna 162 Skycatcher is a light sport airplane that cruises around 118 knots and is the aircraft behind the $8,400 sport certificate. The Diamond DA20 is quicker, with a bubble canopy and superb visibility, which makes traffic scanning easier in busy airspace. The four-seat Piper Warrior is slower and steadier at around 115 knots, and it is where most of the navigation training and the passenger-carrying practice happens. All three are covered by whichever package you choose.
Above them the aircraft become tools for specific ratings. The Piper Arrow II has retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller, satisfying the complex requirement in commercial training. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is a fast, high-performance, glass-cockpit single with an airframe parachute. The Piper Seminole is the twin used for the $5,100 multi-engine add-on. The Redbird MCX full-motion simulator, $189 for a sixty-minute session, supports every one of them, and the time logged in it counts toward the instrument rating.
Four features that orient you over Van Nuys itself.
Standing between the runways with a clear view of both, it is the voice you will hear on every circuit for months. On a first flight it is also the easiest way to work out which way round the field you are.
The eastern side of the airport is lined with business jets parked in ranks outside the terminals on Woodley Avenue. It is a striking view from the downwind leg and a reminder that this is a commercial airfield, not a club strip.
The Ventura County commuter line runs across the north-east of the airport with the station just beyond it. From the air the tracks are a hard straight line through an otherwise fussy street grid.
The ridge that closes off the Valley to the north-west, with the practice areas immediately beyond it. Nearly every training flight from this field heads that way once the circuit work is finished.
It opened in 1928 as Metropolitan Airport, served as a military training base during the Second World War and took its present name in 1957. It has been continuously used for flight training throughout, which is why the surrounding infrastructure of maintenance shops, examiners and instructors is unusually deep.
No, and that is the wrong way round. Busy airspace is a skill, and it is easier to learn alongside everything else than to add afterwards. Two parallel runways also mean training aircraft are not queueing behind faster traffic, so a circuit lesson delivers circuits rather than waiting.
Sport Pilot at $8,400 is the fastest and cheapest route to flying yourself, with a twenty-hour minimum and, in most cases, no medical certificate needed. The Standard Private Pilot at $10,900 is the more common choice because it carries no daylight or aircraft restrictions and everything else builds on it.
Forty for a private certificate, twenty for sport, and for an instrument rating fifty hours of cross-country as pilot in command plus forty hours of instrument time. A commercial certificate needs 250 hours and an airline transport certificate 1,500. The multi-engine add-on has no hour minimum and is judged on proficiency.
For a private certificate, yes: a third-class medical, issued by an FAA-authorized examiner, before your first solo. Commercial flying requires second class. Sport pilots can usually fly on a valid US driving license instead. Several aviation medical examiners work close to the airport, so it is rarely a scheduling problem.
Typically Burbank, Camarillo, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Whiteman and Santa Monica, which between them cover towered and untowered fields and several airspace classes. Cross-country requirements are far more useful when flown to genuinely different destinations rather than around the same familiar triangle three times.
Suite 108A at 7900 Balboa Boulevard, on the western side of the field where the flight schools and light aircraft are. Around ten unrelated aviation businesses share the same complex, which is normal at a general aviation airport, so look for the suite number. Parking outside is free.
Either a free in-person consultation, which takes thirty minutes and commits you to nothing, or a discovery flight from $229 where you fly the aircraft yourself with an instructor. The Redbird MCX session is $189. Whichever you choose, the time in the air is loggable and credits in full toward a package if you enroll within twenty four hours.
Come to Suite 108A on the Balboa side, walk the ramp with an instructor and ask whatever you want about certificates, hours and money. Call (818) 290-8249, or book a discovery flight from $229 and take the controls yourself.
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
