West Hills is where the Los Angeles street grid runs out of valley, which puts you ten flat miles from the only full-service training airport on this side of the county line.
West Hills spent most of its life as the western end of Canoga Park and only took its own name in the late eighties. The boundary still means something. Cross Valley Circle Boulevard and you are in Ventura County; walk to the end of Victory Boulevard and the pavement simply stops at a trailhead, with almost three thousand acres of ungraded grassland beyond it. Very few Los Angeles neighborhoods end that abruptly. It gives people here a particular relationship with open space, and open space is the thing flying gives back.
It is also a neighborhood of houses rather than apartments, which changes who calls us. Families around Fallbrook and Platt with teenagers at El Camino Real or Chaminade. Consultants and engineers working from a converted back room. Staff from West Hills Hospital coming off a shift. Retired people who spent a career in something technical and finally have Tuesday mornings free. The common thread is time that can be scheduled in advance, which is exactly the condition under which a pilot certificate gets finished rather than abandoned.
The practical case is short. There is no airfield west of you until Camarillo, twenty-five miles away across the Conejo Grade, and nothing north until Whiteman. Van Nuys is ten miles due east on a straight surface street, with two parallel runways, a control tower staffed all day, and seven aircraft types parked on the same ramp. From most of West Hills that is twenty to twenty-five minutes without ever touching a freeway or making a decision about one.
On money: the Standard Private Pilot program is $10,900 and takes most people four to six months at two flights a week. Forty hours is the legal minimum and sixty to seventy is honest. A Solo Certificate, which ends the day you fly the aircraft alone, is $5,500. A Discovery Flight For Two is $299 for sixty minutes, logged in your name, and the whole cost comes off training if you enroll within a day. Those are the figures. Nothing waits behind a phone call.
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.
From almost anywhere in West Hills the answer is Roscoe Boulevard. Pick it up at Valley Circle or Fallbrook and drive east through Winnetka, De Soto, Tampa and Reseda. Ten miles later Balboa Boulevard arrives with the airport boundary just beyond it. Turn south on Balboa, pass a couple of blocks, and 7900 Balboa Boulevard sits on your left with Suite 108A facing the lot. Twenty to twenty-five minutes in ordinary traffic, and the only thing that can slow you is a school run.
Vanowen Street and Sherman Way run the same direction and work just as well if Roscoe is torn up, which it occasionally is. The 118 is available from the north end of the neighborhood but adds an interchange to save nothing, and the 101 points the wrong way entirely. This is one of the few parts of Los Angeles where the freeway network is genuinely irrelevant to a journey of ten miles, and that is worth more to a training schedule than any discount.
Our lot is free and open, immediately outside the suite, with no gate arm, ticket or attendant. You will be out of the car and inside in under a minute. The reason we labor this is arithmetic: a lesson booked at six in the evening only costs you until half past seven, which is the difference between flying twice a week and flying when you remember. If it is your first visit, ring (818) 290-8249 from Balboa and someone will come and meet you.
Most Los Angeles students fly their first solo navigation legs across unbroken city. Departing west from Van Nuys you are over the Simi Hills and open rangeland within minutes, then out toward Camarillo and the coastal plain. Forced-landing planning stops being a paper exercise when there are actually fields underneath you, and the habits it builds last.
The western Valley funnels air through the gaps in the Simi Hills, and Santa Ana conditions in autumn make the west end of the field genuinely interesting. You learn crosswind technique because you cannot avoid it, not as a lesson bolted on at the end. Pilots trained in dead-calm air discover this later, usually at an awkward moment.
Cessna 162, Piper Warrior, Diamond DA20, Piper Arrow II, Cirrus SR22 Turbo, Piper Seminole and a Redbird MCX simulator, all on the same ramp with the same maintenance and the same paperwork. You can move from a first lesson to a multi-engine rating without ever changing school, and rent afterwards from aircraft you already know well.
The legal minimum age to fly solo is sixteen and a private certificate can be held at seventeen. For families around Chaminade and El Camino Real that means a teenager can be signed off alone in an aircraft in the same school year they take a driving test. The Teen Package is $4,200.
Primary training runs on the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Piper Warrior and the Diamond DA20, all three inside the package price. They are light, honest airplanes that report your mistakes immediately and forgive them anyway, which is what a trainer is for. We hold enough of each that an unscheduled maintenance day is our problem rather than yours, and that redundancy shortens a certificate more reliably than any clever syllabus. Your first solo will almost certainly be flown in one of these three, most likely off the western runway.
Beyond them sit the Piper Arrow II, with retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller for the complex time a commercial certificate requires, and the Cirrus SR22 Turbo and twin-engine Piper Seminole, the latter carrying the $5,100 multi-engine rating. The Redbird MCX full-motion simulator is $189 for a sixty-minute session and earns its keep in winter, when the marine layer sits over the west Valley until noon. One session in it will fly six approaches, fail an engine on demand, and reset the weather without burning a drop of fuel.
Four features that fix the western edge of the Valley from the air.
The old Ahmanson Ranch: nearly three thousand acres of bare rolling grassland where the housing tracts stop. It is the largest unbuilt space on this side of the Valley and it changes color completely between March and August.
A single narrow valley of houses tucked behind the ridge on the Ventura County side, reached through one gate. From the air it looks like a settlement that wandered off and never came back.
A dark windrow of tall trees in the middle of the street grid off Vanowen, planted in the eighteen seventies on what was then a working ranch. Nothing else nearby is that old or that green in September.
The blunt sandstone summit standing over the northwest corner of the neighborhood, marking where the Simi Hills begin. It makes a reliable turning point when you are working the western practice area.
Twenty to twenty-five minutes for about ten miles, all of it on Roscoe Boulevard or one of its neighbors. No freeway is involved and no interchange can ruin it. Most West Hills students hold a standing weekday slot because the journey is predictable enough to plan a working day around it.
We do not teach at Camarillo. Our aircraft, our instructors and Suite 108A are all at Van Nuys Airport. Camarillo is twenty-five miles west over the Conejo Grade, roughly triple the drive, with one runway and a part-time tower. Van Nuys has two parallel runways, a tower staffed all day, seven aircraft types and a full-motion simulator. You will fly into Camarillo during training anyway, as a cross-country destination.
None. Come to Suite 108A, meet an instructor, walk out to the aircraft and ask about medicals, timelines and money. It takes thirty minutes, the consultation is free, and nobody will chase you afterwards. If you would rather start in the air, a discovery flight runs from $229.
There is no minimum age to begin lessons, only to fly alone. A student can solo at sixteen and hold a private pilot certificate at seventeen. The Teen Flight Training Package is $4,200 and we schedule it around school terms. Several families around El Camino Real and Chaminade run it alongside driving lessons.
Standard is $10,900, Comprehensive is $15,900 and Premium is $22,500. The difference lies in instructor availability, simulator hours and built-in contingency, not in the certificate itself. Financing runs through Stratus Financial and we operate payment plans in house.
Mostly the practice areas over the Simi Hills and the open ground west of the neighborhood, four or five minutes from the runway. Later you will run navigation legs toward Camarillo, Santa Paula and the coast. Almost every student picks their own street out of the grid on the first flight.
Rarely for long. The marine layer usually clears the west Valley by late morning, and the Redbird MCX, $189 for a sixty-minute session, absorbs the mornings it does not. Simulator time counts toward the instrument rating and keeps procedures sharp, so a gray week costs progress rather than money.
The Instrument Rating at $11,700 if you intend to travel on a schedule, and the Multi-Engine Rating at $5,100 if you want a second engine or are heading toward professional flying. The multi-engine add-on takes about ten days in the Piper Seminole. Plenty of pilots do both in one year.
Drive Roscoe east to Balboa, turn south, and park free outside the door twenty minutes after leaving West Hills. Call (818) 290-8249 for a free consultation or book a discovery flight from $229 and fly the same week.
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
