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.
Private Pilot Licence (PPL) · Van Nuys Airport
PPL Flying: What You Actually Do Once You Hold The Licence
The checkride is the beginning of PPL flying, not the end of it. This is what the first year looks like: two currency clocks that never stop, an aircraft checkout, and the moment you stop practising and start going places.
5.0★85 reviews on Google
24 mobetween flight reviews, 14 CFR 61.56
90 dayspassenger recency window, 14 CFR 61.57
$179/hrwet, single-engine, package rate for enrolled students
The Direct Answer
What Does PPL Flying Actually Look Like After You Qualify?
Most private pilots fly somewhere between twenty and fifty hours a year, and the shape of that year is roughly one third local practice, one third short trips inside a hundred miles, and one third the two or three longer flights that were the reason for getting the licence in the first place. PPL flying is not a continuation of training. Nobody is sitting beside you telling you the runway is behind you, and the aircraft goes where you decide it goes.
What changes most is not the flying. It is the planning. During training somebody else checked the weather with you, chose the exercise, and had already decided the flight was a good idea. After the checkride all three of those are yours, and the first few flights feel disproportionately heavy because of it. That settles after about five hours of flying as pilot in command, and almost everyone reports the same thing: the aeroplane felt easier than the decision-making.
There are two clocks running against you the whole time and neither one is optional. A flight review every 24 calendar months under 14 CFR 61.56, and three takeoffs and landings in the preceding 90 days before you may carry a passenger under 14 CFR 61.57. Nearly every private pilot who finds themselves grounded is grounded by one of those two, not by anything to do with the certificate itself.
The Clocks
Every Currency Requirement A PPL Has To Keep, In One Table
The certificate never expires. These do. Each row is a separate requirement and meeting one does not meet another.
| What lapses | Regulation | The requirement | How to reset it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acting as pilot in command at all | 14 CFR 61.56 | A flight review within the preceding 24 calendar months — a minimum of 1 hour of ground training and 1 hour of flight training | One session with a CFI |
| Carrying passengers by day | 14 CFR 61.57(a) | 3 takeoffs and 3 landings within the preceding 90 days, as sole manipulator, in the same category, class and type | Three circuits, solo |
| Carrying passengers at night | 14 CFR 61.57(b) | 3 takeoffs and 3 landings to a full stop within the preceding 90 days, between 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour before sunrise | Three full-stop circuits after dark |
| Medical eligibility, under 40 at the exam | 14 CFR 61.23(d) | Third-class medical valid to the end of the 60th month after the month of the examination | See an AME, or move to BasicMed |
| Medical eligibility, 40 or over at the exam | 14 CFR 61.23(d) | Third-class medical valid to the end of the 24th month after the month of the examination | See an AME, or move to BasicMed |
| Flying in instrument conditions | 14 CFR 61.57(c) | Six instrument approaches, holding, and intercepting and tracking courses in the preceding 6 calendar months — and only with an instrument rating | An instrument proficiency check |
A flight review is not a test and there is no pass or fail entered anywhere. It is an hour on the ground and an hour in the air with an instructor who signs your logbook at the end. Book it two months before it runs out rather than two days after, because the one thing you cannot do with a lapsed review is fly yourself to the airport to sort it out.
The First Year
Four Flights That Define The Year After A PPL Checkride
Every private pilot we have trained describes the same four, usually in this order.
The First Flight With Somebody Who Is Not An Instructor
This is the one people remember more than the checkride. The right seat is occupied by a person who trusts you completely and has no idea what any of the switches do, and the difference in atmosphere is enormous. Fly it locally, keep it under an hour, and pick a day with no wind. The temptation to make it a grand tour is strong and it is the wrong instinct.
The First Flight That Is Transport Rather Than Practice
Somewhere between five and fifteen hours after the checkride, most people fly somewhere with a reason attached — lunch, a relative, a meeting. Camarillo is about 30 nautical miles from Van Nuys and takes roughly twenty minutes in a Piper Warrior. Santa Barbara is about 65 nautical miles and forty minutes. That is the flight where a private pilot licence stops being a hobby qualification and starts being a way of getting somewhere.
The First Flight You Cancel
This matters more than any of the others. In Los Angeles the marine layer will make the decision for you perhaps ten mornings a year, and the pilots who get into trouble are the ones who have never practised saying no. Cancelling a flight you have been looking forward to for a fortnight is a skill, and it is easier the second time. 14 CFR 91.103 makes you responsible for becoming familiar with all available information concerning that flight before you go, which is a legal way of saying the decision is yours.
The First Flight Review
Two years on, an hour of ground and an hour of flying with an instructor under 14 CFR 61.56. Most pilots arrive slightly embarrassed about how much they have forgotten and leave surprised at how little. What is almost always rusty is not the handling. It is the radio work, the airspace boundaries and the emergency briefings, and those are the three things a good reviewer will spend the ground hour on.
The Aircraft
How A Private Pilot Gets Hold Of An Aeroplane
A PPL is permission to fly. It is not access to an aircraft, and this is the part nobody explains during training.
1
The Checkout
Every operator will want you to fly with one of their instructors before releasing an aircraft to you, regardless of your total time. Expect a ground session on the type, its systems and its fuel, then a flight covering normal and short-field work, stalls, and at least one simulated engine failure. It is not a test of whether you can fly. It is a test of whether you know this particular aeroplane.
2
Insurance And Minimums
Insurers, not regulations, set most of the rules a low-hour private pilot runs into. Total time, time on type and recent experience all appear in the policy, and higher-performance aircraft carry higher numbers. This is one of the honest arguments for building a few dozen hours in a simple trainer before moving up.
3
What It Costs To Keep Flying
Enrolled students at Van Nuys fly single-engine aircraft at $179 an hour, wet. Aircraft are available to qualified pilots who have checked out with us — call for availability. Budget for the aeroplane and the fuel in it, and remember that a two-hour trip somewhere is four hours of flying if you intend to come home the same day.
4
Currency Is Cheaper Than Rust
Three landings every ninety days is roughly forty minutes of flying, four times a year. That is the cheapest insurance available to a private pilot, and it keeps the 14 CFR 61.57 requirement alive at the same time. Pilots who fly once a quarter to stay legal are markedly safer than pilots who fly twice a year in bursts.
Where You Can Go
What Is Actually Inside Range Of A PPL From Van Nuys
A Piper Warrior cruises at roughly 110 knots, which is the number that decides what a day trip looks like. Camarillo sits about 30 nautical miles west, twenty minutes away, and it has a restaurant on the field. Catalina is about 55 nautical miles south-west across open water, thirty-five minutes, and the runway on a plateau at 1,600 feet is the most talked-about approach in Southern California. Santa Barbara is about 65 nautical miles up the coast. Big Bear is about 85 nautical miles east at 6,750 feet of elevation, which is a genuine density-altitude lesson rather than a scenic one.
Further out, Mammoth is around 230 nautical miles north and Las Vegas around 215 nautical miles north-east. Both are comfortable in a morning with one fuel stop, and both are the kind of flight the licence was really for. Nothing in 14 CFR 61.113 limits where a private pilot may go, and nothing requires you to file a flight plan in visual conditions — though filing one, and opening flight following, is what sensible people do anyway.
The constraint on all of it is not the certificate. It is currency, weather and the aircraft you can get hold of. Los Angeles helps with the second of those: our study of twelve months of NOAA hourly observations at Van Nuys counted 355 days a year meeting a 3,000-foot ceiling and 5 statute miles of visibility.
What Goes First
Four Things That Decay Fastest When A Private Pilot Stops Flying
Handling is the last thing to go. These are the first.
1
Radio Work
Phraseology and the ability to hear your callsign in a busy transmission both fade within a couple of months. Van Nuys is a Class D field under the Los Angeles Class B shelf, so a rusty pilot notices this on the first taxi call.
2
Landings In Wind
Calm-air landings survive a long lay-off. Crosswind technique does not. The 14 CFR 61.57 three-in-ninety requirement exists precisely because this is the skill that decays on a schedule.
3
Cross-Country Planning
Not the navigation, which the avionics will do. The fuel reserve arithmetic, the alternate, the airspace boundaries on the route and the terrain. This is the ground half of a flight review for a reason.
4
Emergency Reflexes
The engine-failure flow you could do in your sleep at the checkride is slower six months later. Fifteen minutes in the Redbird MCX at $189 a session rebuilds it faster and cheaper than an aircraft hour does.
Getting There First
The Private Pilot Licence That Makes All Of This Legal
Fixed prices, hours inside the package. Aircraft, instructor, ground school, simulator time and books are all included.
Standard Private Pilot
$10,900
40 logged hours, the 14 CFR 61.109 minimum. Right for someone who can fly two or three times a week and study between lessons.
- ✓Single-engine Cessna, Piper or Diamond — 38 hrs
- ✓Dual flight instruction — 30 hrs
- ✓Redbird full-motion simulator — 2 hrs
- ✓Ground school — 3 hrs
Most chosen
Comprehensive Private Pilot
$15,900
60 logged hours and ten hours of ground school, which is closer to what a private pilot licence takes most people in practice.
- ✓Single-engine Cessna, Piper or Diamond — 55 hrs
- ✓Dual flight instruction — 50 hrs
- ✓Redbird full-motion simulator — 5 hrs
- ✓Ground school — 10 hrs
Instrument Rating
$11,700
The rating that stops the marine layer deciding your weekends. 14 CFR 61.65 requires 50 hours of cross-country pilot-in-command time and 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument time.
- ✓Added to an existing private pilot certificate
- ✓Redbird MCX time inside the programme
- ✓Flown in Southern California airspace
Not qualified yet? Start with an hour in the left seat. It is logged as dual instruction under 14 CFR 61.51, it counts toward the 40 hours in 14 CFR 61.109, and the full price comes off any private pilot programme if you enrol within 24 hours.
Enrolled students fly single-engine aircraft at $179 an hour, wet. Financing through Stratus Financial and our in-house payment plans starts at $2,500 down.
$500 off any private pilot program this summer. Standard $10,400 · Comprehensive $15,400 · Premium $22,000. Ask when you enroll.
What People Say
5.0 Stars, 85 Google Reviews
Three things repeat across our reviews on Google.
★
The Briefing, Not The View
The most repeated compliment is about the twenty minutes at the table before the engine starts, not the aircraft and not the price.
★
Lessons That Actually Happen
Eleven instructors and a fleet we own. Reviewers mention scheduling more often than anything else, which tells you what most people find hard about learning to fly.
★
The Number Does Not Move
You enrol at $10,900 and you finish at $10,900. The absence of a surprise invoice is mentioned constantly.
Step One
Sixty Minutes Tells You More Than Another Article Will
A $229 discovery flight from Van Nuys is a real lesson with you at the controls and a CFI as pilot in command under 14 CFR 91.3(a). The hour is logged as dual instruction and counts toward the 40 hours in 14 CFR 61.109, and the price comes off any private pilot programme if you enrol within 24 hours. Call (818) 290-8249 or book a free consultation first if you would rather talk it through.
Discovery Flight For One
$229
60 minutes · you fly the aircraft · credited in full on enrolment within 24 hours
Book A Discovery Flight
Or Call (818) 290-8249
Keep Reading
The Private Pilot Licence
Private Pilot License (PPL): The Complete GuidePPL Pilot: What The Licence Lets You DoThe Private Pilot Checkride, Start To FinishPrivate Pilot Cross-Country RequirementsPrivate Pilot License Requirements
FAQ
PPL Flying After The Checkride: Common Questions
Three takeoffs and three landings in the preceding 90 days before carrying passengers, under 14 CFR 61.57(a), and a flight review within the preceding 24 calendar months under 14 CFR 61.56. Flying alone needs only the flight review. In practice about forty minutes of circuits every three months keeps both alive.
It is a minimum of 1 hour of ground training and 1 hour of flight training with an authorised instructor, required every 24 calendar months by 14 CFR 61.56. There is no pass or fail recorded. The instructor either endorses your logbook or tells you what to work on before they will.
At Van Nuys, enrolled students fly single-engine aircraft at $179 an hour, wet, which is the only hourly figure we publish. Aircraft are available to qualified pilots who have checked out with us, so call for availability. A day trip to Santa Barbara and back is about an hour and a half of flying each way.
Most fly between twenty and fifty hours a year. The pilots who stay comfortable are the ones who fly little and often rather than in bursts, because the skills that decay first are radio work, crosswind landings and cross-country planning rather than basic handling.
Yes, within the category and class on your certificate, but every operator will require a checkout with one of their instructors first, and insurers set minimums on total time and time on type. A checkout is typically a ground session plus one flight covering normal, short-field and engine-failure work.
There is no distance limit anywhere in 14 CFR 61.113. From Van Nuys, Camarillo is about 30 nautical miles, Catalina about 55, Santa Barbara about 65, Big Bear about 85, Las Vegas about 215 and Mammoth about 230. At roughly 110 knots in a Piper Warrior, everything under a hundred miles is a comfortable morning.
Not in visual conditions. A VFR flight plan is optional, though flight following from air traffic control is free, takes one radio call and is what most experienced private pilots use. 14 CFR 91.103 does require you to become familiar with all available information concerning the flight before you depart.
You may not act as pilot in command until you complete one. Nothing is revoked, nothing is reported and there is no penalty. You book an hour of ground and an hour of flight with an instructor and the certificate is usable again the same day.
No. Without an instrument rating you are restricted to visual meteorological conditions. In Los Angeles that means the marine layer will cancel some mornings. The instrument rating under 14 CFR 61.65 costs $11,700 at Van Nuys and is the single upgrade that changes how usable the licence is here.
Legally, immediately. Sensibly, after a handful of hours flying as pilot in command on your own. The flight where somebody who trusts you completely is sitting in the right seat is a genuinely different flight, and it is better to meet that after your own decision-making has settled.
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
Seventy 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.