Private Pilot Training for West Hills, at Van Nuys Airport
West Hills sits directly beneath the airspace where Van Nuys students practise, which means the aeroplanes you hear on a Saturday morning are doing exactly what you would be doing.
You already live under the classroom
Anyone who has spent a weekend in a garden off Valley Circle or Woodlake knows the sound. Light aircraft cross West Hills all day, because the ground west and north-west of Van Nuys is where students go to practise, and the route out there passes over this corner of the Valley. Most people stop noticing after a year. A few look up, work out that those aeroplanes contain someone on their fourth or fifth lesson, and start wondering what it would take to be the one flying.
The honest answer is money and rhythm, in that order. Money, because a private pilot certificate is a real purchase: $10,900 for the standard course, $15,900 for the comprehensive version and $22,500 for the premium one. Rhythm, because the students who finish are the ones who fly twice a week rather than twice a month. West Hills has an advantage on the second point that almost nowhere else in the county has, which is that the airport is twenty minutes away on ordinary streets.
The neighbourhood itself suits this. West Hills is largely people who have stayed put: households near Chaminade and West Hills Hospital, families in the cul-de-sacs above Sherman Way, and professionals who commute east into the Valley each morning and would rather not commute anywhere at all at the weekend. Long tenure means predictable weekends, and predictable weekends are exactly what flight training needs. It is a far better predictor of finishing the course than natural ability is.
The cost is also less monolithic than it looks. Very few people write one cheque. Financing runs through Stratus Financial, we operate our own payment plans in house, and the first flight is credited back in full if you enrol within a day of taking it. Between those three things, most West Hills students end up paying for the certificate over the same sort of period they would finance a car, and flying it long after the car has gone.
The routes in, and what each one costs
Six ways to start or continue, from a single simulator hour to the rating that follows your certificate.
Standard Private Pilot
The full FAA Private Pilot Certificate. Where most students start.
Learn morePremium Private Pilot
The widest margin of hours for students who want no surprises.
Learn moreInstrument Rating
The rating that makes a licence useful in Southern California weather.
Learn moreTry it first — a discovery flight from Van Nuys
You fly the aircraft from the left seat with an instructor beside you. The time is loggable and counts toward a certificate.
Luxury Cirrus For Two
The SR22 Turbo, glass cockpit. 90 min $549, 120 min $699.
Learn moreRedbird Simulator Session
FAA-approved full-motion MCX, on the field at Van Nuys.
Learn moreWest Hills to 7900 Balboa Blvd
Sherman Way is the run most people settle on. Pick it up at Valley Circle or Fallbrook and drive east in a straight line through Canoga Park, Winnetka, Reseda and Lake Balboa. At Balboa Boulevard turn south and the airport perimeter appears within a couple of blocks. It is about ten miles, twenty minutes in normal traffic, and there is no freeway on it at any point, which is the reason West Hills students almost never miss a booking.
If Sherman Way is congested, Vanowen and Victory run the same direction and land you in the same place, and none of the three involves a freeway. From the northern streets near Chatsworth, Valley Circle up to the 118 and east to Balboa works well and is often quicker in the late afternoon. The 101 is the one route worth avoiding, since it adds distance and puts you into Woodland Hills traffic for no gain.
The address is 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, Van Nuys, CA 91406, and the parking outside is ours and free. No structure, no ticket, no gate code and no waiting around for an escort to walk you across a ramp. We are open nine in the morning until nine at night, seven days a week, so a lesson can go before work, after work or in the middle of a Sunday. The number is (818) 290-8249.
What makes this convenient from West Hills
Your lesson starts at takeoff
The manoeuvring areas used out of Van Nuys sit west and north-west, which is the direction of your own house. You are not paying twenty minutes of aircraft time to reach somewhere useful before the teaching begins. Over a full certificate that saves several hours of billable flying, and more of each lesson goes on learning.
The simulator stretches the budget
A session in the Redbird MCX costs a fraction of the same time in the air and can be repeated endlessly. Emergency drills, instrument approaches and diversions are far better learned in a machine you can pause. Students who use it properly reach the same standard for less money, which matters when the total is measured in thousands rather than hundreds.
Nobody has to pay it all at once
Financing is available through Stratus Financial and we run payment plans ourselves. The consultation where we walk through it is free and carries no obligation. You will leave knowing the full price of the course you are considering and what a monthly figure would look like, which is a more useful conversation than a rate card ever is.
Twenty minutes changes the maths
A lesson from West Hills costs you around two and a half hours door to door. That is small enough to fit a weekday evening or half a weekend morning, and small enough that twice a week is realistic rather than aspirational. Frequency is the biggest lever on what the certificate ends up costing.
The aircraft, and what comes after the certificate
You will start in a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, a Diamond DA20 or a Piper Warrior. All three are honest, lightly loaded aeroplanes that make your mistakes obvious, which is the point of a trainer. Your package covers the aircraft and the instructor together, so a morning flight out over the Simi Hills and back before lunch is already paid for and the choice of type is yours. West Hills students tend to work the total out early, and we would rather they had one honest figure than a rate card to add up.
After that there is somewhere to progress to without ever leaving the school. The Piper Arrow II adds retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is a glass-cockpit four-seater with a parachute built into the airframe and the range to make a weekend in Utah reasonable. The Piper Seminole is the twin the $5,100 Multi-Engine Rating is flown in, and the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator sits alongside them at $189 for a sixty-minute session, for the work best done on the ground.
West Hills from a couple of thousand feet
Turn west after departure and these arrive in roughly this order.
The Orcutt Ranch citrus grove
A dense rectangle of dark orange and walnut trees off Justice Street, completely unlike the roofs surrounding it. It is the most obvious green anomaly in West Hills from the air.
The Chatsworth Reservoir basin
A vast pale bowl behind the fences off Valley Circle, empty of water and full of scrub where nobody expects open land. From above it is the largest single feature on this side of the Valley.
The Fallbrook Center roofs
The mall's long white rooftops and car parks read as a bright block against the housing grid on Fallbrook Avenue. Students use it to find Vanowen and trace their own street from there.
The Simi Hills plateau
The high folded ground north-west of town rises abruptly out of the suburb, the old field laboratory terraces cut into its top. It marks where the county stops and where much of your practice flying happens.
Common questions
Sherman Way east to Balboa, then south, is the one most students use. Ten miles, twenty minutes, no freeway at any point. Vanowen and Victory are equivalent alternatives if it is slow. From the streets nearest Chatsworth, Valley Circle up to the 118 and east is often faster late in the day.
Yes. We take bookings until nine at night, seven days a week. From West Hills that means leaving home at six and being back before nine with a full lesson flown. In summer the daylight holds past eight, and at the night-flying stage those late slots become the ones you need.
Because the practice areas for Van Nuys lie west and north-west of the field, and the transit crosses this part of the Valley. Most of what you hear on a weekend morning is training: steep turns, stalls, slow flight and engine-failure drills. You will soon recognise them by the engine note.
Some pay in stages as they train, some finance through Stratus Financial, and some use our in-house payment plans. Most combine two of the three. We go through the options at a free consultation with no pressure attached, and the discovery flight fee is credited in full if you enrol within twenty-four hours.
Hours and margin. The standard course at $10,900 covers the certificate for someone training consistently. The comprehensive course at $15,900 builds in extra flight and simulator time for interrupted schedules. The premium course at $22,500 adds generous hours and heavy one-to-one attention. The certificate is identical in all three cases.
For most students, yes. The Redbird MCX is a full-motion device that can be paused, reset and repeated, which no aircraft can. Instrument work, emergencies and cross-country planning are cheaper and better learned there first. An introductory hour is $189, and simulator time is included in the comprehensive and premium courses.
It is worth a conversation. At $8,400 it costs less and takes fewer hours, but limits you to lighter aircraft, daylight and a single passenger. If your ambition is local weekend flying over the Simi Hills, that may be all you need. If you picture three passengers and Mammoth, take the private certificate.
You park outside Suite 108A, come in, and spend about sixty minutes with an instructor going through the syllabus, the aircraft and the full cost. It is free and there is nothing to sign. Plenty of people book a discovery flight for the same day.
Twenty minutes, and no obligation
Drive down Sherman Way one afternoon and see the aircraft, the simulator and the numbers before deciding anything. Call (818) 290-8249 or come to Suite 108A any day between nine and nine.