Your Callback Request Is In — Expect a Call Shortly
Your request is with an instructor now and you should expect a call within the hour. Below is what the conversation covers, how to be ready for it, what training costs, and how to reach us sooner.
Where we are, for when you visit
Our door is at 7900 Balboa Blvd, on the western perimeter of Van Nuys Airport. Drivers from the east side of the Valley usually take Sherman Way or Vanowen Street straight across, since both run unbroken from North Hollywood to Balboa and skip the freeway entirely. From Burbank and Glendale the quickest run is Victory Blvd west, or the 134 to the 101 north if you would rather sit on a freeway.
From the north, the 5 down to Roscoe Blvd and west across Panorama City works well outside rush hour, as does the 405 south to Roscoe. From the south and the Westside the 405 over the Sepulveda Pass is the only real option, and it is honestly slow between seven and ten on weekday mornings. Sepulveda Blvd runs parallel the whole way and is sometimes quicker when the pass is stacked up.
Public transport is workable. The Metro G Line busway runs along the south side of the Valley with a stop at Balboa, and the Van Nuys Metrolink station is a short rideshare away. If you take a rideshare, give the street address rather than the airport name, because Balboa Blvd has several gates serving different tenants and the wrong one leaves you outside a locked fence. Ask to be set down inside the lot.
When you come in, parking is free and unattended. Turn right on entering the lot off Balboa Blvd, follow it to the visitor spaces beside the hangars, and Suite 108A is the numbered door.
What happens between now and the call
Nothing further is needed from you; the next move is ours.
Your request is already routed
The form you sent goes straight to the desk at Suite 108A rather than a queue somewhere out of state. If you sent it inside opening hours you will normally hear back well within the hour. If it arrived late in the evening, the call comes in the morning once the phones are staffed from 9 AM.
The call itself
It comes from an 818 number and it will be an instructor, not a script reader. Expect a real conversation rather than a pitch: five minutes if you only want a price, twenty if you want to talk properly about how training works. Nobody is timing it and nobody is measured on whether you book.
If you miss it
We leave a message and try again rather than giving up after one attempt. You can also call (818) 290-8249 back at any point between 9 AM and 9 PM, seven days a week, and reach the same desk. Saving the number now is worth doing, because an unknown 818 caller is easy to ignore.
What we will ask you
Three things, mostly. What you are trying to do, whether that is a bucket-list flight or an airline career; how much time you can give it in a normal week; and whether you have flown a small aircraft before. Those answers change the advice completely, which is why we ask before quoting anything at all.
What we will tell you
Straight answers on price, on how long each certificate realistically takes at your flying frequency, on what the medical involves, and on what financing looks like. If a discovery flight is the sensible first step we will say that. If you are better served waiting six months and saving, we will say that too. Nothing is quoted vaguely.
After the call
You get a short email with whatever we discussed written down, so you are not relying on memory for the numbers. If you want to move forward we can book a discovery flight, a free in-person consultation or a first lesson on the call. If you want to think, nothing happens until you get in touch.
Course packages and what they cost
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.
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 moreWhat the flying around here looks like
It helps to picture what you would be looking at.
The west side of the San Fernando Valley opens up within two minutes of leaving the runway. Below the wing are the long straight boulevards, Sherman Way, Roscoe and Victory, running out toward Canoga Park, with the Santa Monica Mountains along the southern edge and the Santa Susanas closing off the north-west. Climb a little and the whole Valley floor is visible in one look, which is the moment most people stop gripping the seat.
Turn west and the terrain does something more interesting. The mountains rise, the houses thin out, and within fifteen minutes you cross the ridge and the Pacific appears from Malibu round to Point Mugu. Turn north instead and you are over Santa Clarita and the reservoirs in a similar time. Both runs are ordinary training flights here rather than special occasions, which is a genuine advantage of learning at Van Nuys.
What you fly over
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Twenty minutes north over the Newhall Pass, on its own hill above the 5. The coasters are unmistakable from the air.
Point Dume
The headland west of Malibu, with the coastline curving away either side. It is the usual turning point on a coastal flight.
Mount Wilson
The antenna farm and observatory above Pasadena, high enough to be visible across the basin. On a clear day it marks your eastern edge.
Castaic Lake
A blue reservoir in the hills north of Santa Clarita, off the 5. Water is easy to identify from altitude, which makes navigation practice easier.
The fleet and the simulator, in short
Ask about the aircraft on the call, because the fleet is the part of a flight school that actually decides the quality of your training. We fly the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, the Diamond DA20 and the Piper Warrior for primary work, the Piper Arrow II for complex-aircraft time, the Cirrus SR22 Turbo with its glass cockpit and airframe parachute, and the twin-engine Piper Seminole. All of it is maintained to be flown daily rather than to look good in photographs.
Alongside them sits a Redbird MCX full-motion simulator with dual controls, configurable weather and a visual system realistic enough for instrument approaches and emergency drills. It moves, which matters more than people expect, and it lets an instructor freeze a scenario and explain it in a way no aircraft allows. A sixty-minute simulator session is $189, well under the cost of the aeroplane, and used properly it takes a great deal of real money off the total cost of a rating.
How to be ready when we ring
Five minutes of thought makes the call twice as useful.
Save the number
Put (818) 290-8249 in your contacts now. Most missed callbacks are simply unknown numbers being screened, and we would rather not spend the afternoon playing telephone tag with somebody who genuinely wants to fly. It takes ten seconds and saves a chase.
Be somewhere you can hear
Half of this conversation is numbers and dates. If you are driving or standing on a factory floor, say so when you pick up and we will call back at a time you name. There is no penalty for rescheduling a call.
Know your rough timeline
Whether you want a certificate this year or are looking three years out changes what we recommend. Career changers and weekend flyers get different answers, and neither is the wrong question to be asking. A rough sense of it is enough.
Have a budget in mind
A range is enough. It lets us point you at the right programme instead of listing all of them, and it lets us bring up financing at the right moment rather than as an afterthought at the end of the call.
Ask the awkward questions
Age, weight, eyesight, a medical history, a nervous spouse, a past that includes a fear of heights. All of it comes up regularly and none of it is unusual. Getting it out early saves everybody time and sometimes saves money.
What the call will cost you to act on
If you are starting from nothing, the usual first step is a discovery flight from $229, or $189 for a sixty-minute Redbird simulator session if you would rather sit on the ground first. Every minute of a discovery flight is loggable, and the full cost is credited toward training if you enrol within twenty-four hours. From there the Solo Certificate is $5,500, the Sport Pilot License $8,400 and the Standard Private Pilot programme $10,900, with Comprehensive and Premium versions at $15,900 and $22,500.
For people already flying or aiming at a career, the Instrument Rating is $11,700 and the Multi-Engine Rating is $5,100 as an add-on in the Seminole. The Airline Pilot Program, which takes somebody with no experience through to airline-ready, is $89,000, and there is a Teen Flight Training Package at $4,200. Financing is available through Stratus Financial, and we run in-house payment plans that spread the cost across training rather than demanding it up front. Ask about both on the call.
Common questions
Within the hour if you submitted during opening hours, which are 9 AM to 9 PM every day. Requests arriving after 9 PM get a call the following morning. If an instructor is airborne, it may be closer to ninety minutes.
An 818 number. If you want to be certain it is us, our line is (818) 290-8249. Save it now, because an unrecognised local number is the commonest reason a callback goes unanswered.
We leave a voicemail and try again later the same day. You are also welcome to ring (818) 290-8249 back and reach the same desk without repeating your details. Nobody has to start over.
No. Plenty of these calls end with somebody deciding to wait a year, and that is a perfectly good outcome. You will not be put on a mailing sequence or chased weekly. Say you want time and we leave it there.
Yes, and most people who want one do exactly that. We can check aircraft and instructor availability while you are on the phone. Discovery Flight For One is $229 for sixty minutes and $299 for ninety.
You can. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A, open 9 AM to 9 PM seven days a week, and the free in-person consultation exists for exactly that. Calling ahead means an instructor is expecting you.
Yes. There is no separate sales team here, so the person on the phone teaches in these aircraft. Our instructors are FAA-certified with more than fifteen years of experience. Ask technical questions and you get technical answers.
Say so at the start and the call takes two minutes. We will give you the figure, email it to you, and leave it there. Nobody will keep you on the phone to sell you something else.
Would rather not wait for the call
Ring (818) 290-8249 any day between 9 AM and 9 PM and you reach the same desk your request is sitting on. We hold a 5.0 rating on Google across 53 reviews and have flown more than 2,000 discovery flights safely.