Instrument Rating In Los Angeles — $11,700

The instrument rating at LA Flight School in Van Nuys is $11,700 as a complete package, covering the aircraft, instrument flight instruction, one-to-one ground instruction, Redbird MCX full-motion simulator time and all training materials. That price is agreed before you start and does not move. Any flying beyond the program is charged at the $179 per hour wet package rate.

Flying twice a week, four months is realistic. Flying most days on an intensive track, six weeks. The variable is frequency rather than talent: 14 CFR 61.65 requires 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument time, and instrument skill decays faster between lessons than any other flying skill.

14 CFR 61.65 requires 50 hours of cross-country flight time as pilot in command, at least 10 of them in airplanes, plus 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument time. At least 15 of those 40 hours must be instrument flight training from an authorized instructor. There is no separate total-time minimum beyond holding a private pilot certificate.

If you use an aircraft to travel, yes — $11,700 buys the single biggest capability and safety upgrade available to a private pilot. It is also effectively required for a career, because under 14 CFR 61.133(b)(1) a commercial pilot without an instrument rating cannot carry passengers for hire more than 50 nautical miles or at night. If you only fly locally on clear afternoons and never intend to file IFR, the six-monthly currency obligation may not be worth it to you.

It is the most mentally demanding flying in civilian training, and most pilots also call it the most satisfying. The difficulty is workload management rather than stick and rudder — you are flying, navigating, talking and thinking three minutes ahead at the same time. Simulator repetition is what flattens the curve: ten approaches in a two-hour Redbird MCX session is normal, against four in a two-hour flight.

14 CFR 61.65(d)(2)(ii)(C) requires one cross-country flight with an authorized instructor, flown under IFR on a filed flight plan, of at least 250 nautical miles along airways or by an ATC-directed routing. It must include an instrument approach at each airport and three different kinds of instrument approach flown with the use of navigation systems. In practice that means a three-airport flight, usually completed in one day.

Yes. 14 CFR 61.65(h) permits up to 20 of the 40 required instrument hours to be credited in a flight simulator or flight training device when the training is given by an authorized instructor, and 61.65(i) permits up to 10 hours in an aviation training device. The exact credit depends on the approval level of the device, so your instructor confirms your number before you enroll rather than after.

Under 14 CFR 61.57(c) you must have flown, within the preceding six calendar months, six instrument approaches, holding procedures and tasks, and intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigational electronic systems. If you miss it you get six further calendar months to regain currency with a safety pilot. After that you need an instrument proficiency check with an instructor or examiner before you can file IFR again.

Not to hold the certificate, but effectively yes to use it. 14 CFR 61.133(b)(1) places a limitation on a commercial pilot certificate held without an instrument rating: no carrying passengers for hire in airplanes on cross-country flights of more than 50 nautical miles, and none at night. Almost every career pilot earns the instrument rating before the commercial certificate for exactly that reason.

Yes — that is the point of it. The rating authorizes you to file an IFR flight plan, accept an air traffic control clearance and fly in cloud and reduced visibility. It does not authorize flight into known icing and it does not lower any published minimum on an approach chart, and the aircraft itself must be equipped and inspected for IFR under 14 CFR 91.205(d) and 91.411.

The FAA Instrument Rating Airplane knowledge test is 60 multiple-choice questions with a two-hour limit and a 70% pass mark, per the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix effective 22 October 2025. It leans heavily on approach chart interpretation, IFR regulations and weather. Take it early in the course, because the chart symbology you learn for the test is the same material you fly with on every lesson.

Yes. Airline pilots fly under an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, and 14 CFR 61.159 requires 75 hours of instrument time for an ATP. The instrument rating is the step where that time starts being logged, and it is the first hard gate on the path from private pilot to airline flight deck.

An oral examination on regulations, weather, aircraft systems and IFR procedures, followed by a flight test. Under the Instrument Rating Airman Certification Standards you fly a precision approach, a non-precision approach, a circling approach, holding, partial panel work, unusual attitude recoveries and a missed approach. You also need three hours of instrument flight training within the two calendar months before the test under 14 CFR 61.65(d)(2)(i).