Eight miles of flat Valley separate Canoga Park from the training ramp, and this page sets out exactly what the certificate involves once you get there.
The private pilot certificate is not one thing you buy, it is six or seven things you complete in order, and knowing the order removes most of the anxiety. Circuits and basic handling first, then stalls and slow flight, then the emergency drills, then the solo, then navigation, then night, then the checkride. From Canoga Park each of those stages happens over ground you already know, because the aircraft leaves Van Nuys and turns west toward your own half of the Valley within about four minutes.
Our standard program is $10,900. It buys aircraft time, instructor time and ground school, and it assumes the FAA minimum of forty hours plus a realistic margin on top. Most people who work full time finish somewhere between sixty and seventy. If you would rather have the extra instruction bought in advance than meet it as a surprise in month seven, the comprehensive program at $15,900 exists for exactly that, and the instrument rating afterwards is $11,700.
Canoga Park sends us a particular mix of people. Mechanics and body-shop owners off Sherman Way, technicians and warehouse supervisors, hospital and clinic staff, delivery drivers on split shifts, Warner Center office workers who can leave at five, and a steady handful of twenty-somethings who have worked out that flying professionally is a trade you can enter with training rather than a degree. Practical people, in other words, who tend to be good at this because they are used to procedure.
The other local fact worth naming is dark. The west Valley loses the sun behind the Santa Susana and Simi hills early, and the certificate requires night flying: three hours of it, ten takeoffs and landings, and a night cross-country. Because we instruct until nine every evening, that requirement stops being the awkward part of the syllabus and becomes a normal winter booking. Students from here often finish their night hours in November and December without moving anything else in their diary.
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.
Vanowen Street is the run most of our students from here settle on. Pick it up anywhere between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Winnetka and drive east through Reseda and Van Nuys with no turns to remember. At Balboa Boulevard turn north and continue about a mile, past Sherman Way, until the airport boundary appears on your right. The 7900 block sits on that side, Suite 108A faces our own lot, and the whole trip is eight miles.
Fifteen to twenty minutes at nearly any hour, because nothing about this journey depends on a freeway. Roscoe Boulevard does the same job a little further north and brings you to Balboa above the field. The only reliable congestion is the school run, roughly half past seven to half past eight in the morning and again around three, and it costs you a few minutes rather than a lesson. Evening runs after seven are close to empty.
Our lot is free, ours, and directly outside the door. No barrier, no meter, no attendant, and space for the car through a three-hour block if you are combining a flight with simulator time. The complex holds a number of separate aviation businesses, which is normal at Van Nuys, so look for Suite 108A rather than the street number alone. First time, call (818) 290-8249 from Balboa and someone will walk out to meet you.
The night requirement traps students at schools that shut at sunset. We instruct until nine every evening, and from November the dark starts at five, so a Tuesday lesson after work is a night lesson without any special arrangement. Ten takeoffs and landings, three hours of it and a night cross-country tend to be finished inside a fortnight rather than dragged across a year.
Being passed around a rota is the quiet reason people stall in flight training. Somebody has to reteach what the last instructor taught differently, and you pay for the difference. Our instructors are FAA-certified with more than fifteen years each, and you stay with one of them through the syllabus unless you ask otherwise, which keeps the standard and the shorthand consistent.
The practical test is conducted by an FAA-designated examiner who does not work here: an oral examination on the ground, then a flight. You will have flown a full mock checkride with an instructor first, so the format holds no surprises. Preparation for it sits inside the program price rather than arriving as an extra in month eight.
Life interrupts. Logged hours never expire, so a break of a few months costs you some currency and a couple of refresher flights, not the certificate. The written exam result stands for two years and the medical runs on its own clock. We will tell you honestly what a gap costs before you take one, which is usually less than people fear.
Training happens in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Piper Warrior or the Diamond DA20, and switching between them costs nothing extra, because the aircraft and the instructor are both inside the package price. They are deliberately simple airplanes. A good trainer lets a student get something slightly wrong at a safe height and recover it without theater, and these do that while carrying modern radios and GPS, so no habit you build has to be unpicked later. We keep several flying, because one airframe going into maintenance should never remove a fortnight from your training.
Then there is what you grow into. The Piper Arrow II brings retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller for the complex endorsement. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo has a full glass panel and a parachute built into the airframe, and it will carry four people to Monterey. The twin-engine Piper Seminole is the trainer for the $5,100 multi-engine rating. Indoors, the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator, $189 for a sixty-minute session, is where engine failures, diversions and instrument approaches get repeated until they stop being interesting. All of it sits on one ramp at Van Nuys Airport, eight miles east of Canoga Park.
Four features you will navigate by within your first month of flying.
A stand of very old eucalyptus in a square of green off Vanowen, planted long before the housing arrived around it. From the air the trees are far darker than anything else in the grid and read as a solid block.
Where the 101 meets Topanga Canyon Boulevard in a full set of curves beside the mall roofs. It is the largest piece of engineering in the south-west Valley and impossible to confuse with anything else.
The broken sandstone rim closing off the Valley to the north-west, with the 118 threading through the pass beneath it. Most of the maneuvering you do will happen in the open air short of that ridge.
The gap in the Santa Monica Mountains south of Ventura Boulevard where the canyon road starts its climb toward the sea. On a clear day the water is visible straight through it from a few thousand feet.
Eight miles and fifteen to twenty minutes on surface streets, with no freeway involved. Vanowen east to Balboa then north is the usual line, and Roscoe works the same way a little further up. Traffic here is school-run traffic rather than commuter traffic, so it costs minutes rather than lessons. Evenings after seven are the fastest run of the day.
Usually in autumn or winter, when it is dark by five and a lesson after work is automatically a night lesson. The certificate requires three hours at night, ten takeoffs and landings and a cross-country. Flying west over Canoga Park and Chatsworth after dark, with the grid lit below and the hills black, is the part most students remember longest.
The standard program is $10,900 and the comprehensive one $15,900. Each is one package covering the aircraft, your instructor, ground school and the simulator time in it, with financing through Stratus Financial or an in-house payment plan if you want it. Separately you pay for a medical examination, the FAA written exam and the examiner's fee for the checkride, none of which come to us.
Yes, unless you ask to change or a schedule genuinely will not fit. Consistency matters more than people realize, because different instructors teach the same maneuver with different emphasis and you pay for the translation. Every instructor here is FAA-certified with fifteen or more years behind them.
An FAA-designated examiner, not one of our staff, runs an oral examination on the ground and then flies with you. You will have completed a full mock checkride with your instructor beforehand, so the shape of the day is familiar. Preparation is included in the program price. The examiner's own fee is paid to them directly on the day.
No. Logged flight hours never expire and the written exam result stands for two years. What lapses is currency and sharpness, so returning after a long break usually means a few refresher flights before you carry on. Tell us in advance and we will plan around it rather than pretend it will not happen.
It can, and in this part of the Valley it is one of the few skilled careers you enter through training rather than a degree. The private certificate is step one. The full route to airline-ready is our $89,000 Airline Pilot Program, covering instrument, commercial, multi-engine and instructor ratings.
Nothing. You park outside the door, meet an instructor, look at the aircraft and the simulator and get the costs and the timeline explained without anyone selling at you. Bring your diary, since scheduling is the real decision. Call (818) 290-8249 to book, any day between nine in the morning and nine at night.
Drive Vanowen over one evening this week, park outside the door and let an instructor walk you through what the first ten lessons actually contain. Call (818) 290-8249 for a free consultation, or book a sixty-minute session in the Redbird for $189 and try the workload first.
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
