Nearly Ten Million People Live Here. Almost None of Them Have Flown a Plane Over It.
You have done Griffith Observatory. You have hiked to the Sign, walked the Venice boardwalk, queued at Grand Central Market and sat in traffic on the 405 wondering what it all looks like from up there. Here is the answer: take off from Van Nuys and fly over it yourself, with an FAA-certified instructor beside you.
Most 'unique things to do in LA' lists are just less-crowded restaurants
Search for unusual things to do in Los Angeles and you get the same forty entries: a bookshop with a tunnel made of books, a museum about a museum, a bar that used to be a bank. All good. All still fundamentally an evening out.
Flying a plane is a category error on that list, and that is the point. It is not a nicer version of something you have already done — it is a thing most people assume is not available to them. There is no licence required to take a discovery flight, no medical certificate, no experience, and no minimum age. Your instructor is the pilot in command, which means the legal requirements sit with them. You just have to show up and be willing to put your hands on the controls.
About eight minutes after takeoff, somewhere over the Santa Monica Mountains, the instructor says 'your airplane' and stops flying it. That moment is the thing. Everything after — the Hollywood Sign under your wing, the coast, the city grid going out to the mountains — is scenery you are looking at while doing something you did not think you could do.
Six versions of the same good idea
Same aircraft, same instructors, entirely different experiences depending on what you pick.
The Hollywood Sign
Eight miles from the runway. Circle it two or three times from angles no hiker gets.
- Time60 min
- From$229
Sunset over the coast
Golden hour over Malibu, then the city lighting up underneath you on the way home.
- Time60–90 min
- From$229
The city at night
A hundred miles of light, and the smoothest air of the entire day.
- Time60 min
- From$229
Catalina Island
Twenty-two miles of open water, and an airport on a plateau 1,602 feet above the Pacific.
- Time120 min
- From$499
Fly a twin
Two engines, two props. Even people who have flown before have almost never done this.
- Time60 min
- From$499
Full-motion simulator
An FAA-approved Redbird that pitches and rolls, on the ground. Never cancelled for weather.
- Time60 min
- From$189
The things people quietly wonder about
Is it actually me flying, or is that marketing?
It is actually you. Your instructor does the takeoff and the landing — those are the two demanding bits — and hands you the airplane for essentially everything in between, which on a 60-minute flight is somewhere around 40 minutes. You make the turns. You hold the altitude. When you get it wrong the airplane does something slightly wrong, and you correct it. That is what makes it worth doing.
Do I need to be fit, young, or good at anything?
No. Our guests range from ten-year-olds to people in their eighties. There is no fitness requirement, no medical certificate needed, glasses and contact lenses are fine, and hand-eye coordination beyond 'can drive a car' is not required. The one practical constraint is weight and balance — tell us in advance and we will put you in the right aircraft.
Will I be terrified?
Some people are, for about ninety seconds. Then almost everybody reports the opposite of what they expected: a small airplane in smooth air feels stable and unhurried, you can see out properly in every direction, and having something to do with your hands turns out to be a very effective cure for anxiety. If you would rather test the water first, the $189 Redbird full-motion simulator gives you the same controls on the ground.
Do I have to want to become a pilot?
Not at all, and nobody will pressure you. Roughly one in four guests comes back to start training; the other three take their logbook, their photographs and a good story. There is a credit available if you do enrol within 24 hours, which we will mention once and then leave alone.
What it costs
Priced per flight, not per person. Every option includes the aircraft, fuel, headsets and an FAA-certified flight instructor.
Discovery Flight For One
Just you and the instructor. 90 min $299 · 120 min $399.
Book for oneLuxury Cirrus SR22T For Two
Glass cockpit, leather, whole-airframe parachute. 90 min $549 · 120 min $699.
Book the CirrusMulti-Engine Piper Seminole
Two engines, three seats. 90 min $699 · 120 min $899.
Book the twinBefore you decide it sounds reckless
Instructional flying is one of the more heavily regulated things you can do on a Saturday in Los Angeles.
A professional is in command
Your instructor holds an FAA commercial or airline transport pilot certificate, a flight instructor certificate and a current medical, and is legally pilot in command for the whole flight.
Inspected every 100 hours
FAR 91.409(b) requires aircraft used for instruction for hire to be inspected every 100 flight hours — privately owned aircraft only need an annual.
Two sets of controls
There is a complete duplicate set of controls in front of your instructor. They can take the airplane in under a second, and they fly the takeoff and landing.
A parachute on the Cirrus
CAPS lowers the entire airframe under a rocket-deployed parachute. It is standard equipment on the SR22T.
Towered airspace
Van Nuys is a controlled Class D field under the LA Class B shelf, with air traffic control separating you from other traffic throughout.
A no-go policy that means it
Marginal weather, no flight. Free reschedule or switch to the simulator. The instructor makes the call, not the customer.
Questions
Neither. Your instructor is the pilot in command, which means the certificates and the medical are their responsibility, not yours. Every single person who books a discovery flight is flying an aircraft for the first time.
$229 for one person for 60 minutes, or $299 for two people. That is the total for the flight and it includes the aircraft, the fuel, the headsets and a certified instructor. A ground session in the full-motion Redbird simulator is $189.
No upper limit — we have flown guests in their eighties. At the other end, our youngest regular students start at 10. Under-18s need a parent or guardian to sign, and it is worth knowing that a teenager can legally fly solo at 16 and hold a private pilot certificate at 17.
Tell your instructor and they will take the controls and bring you home. It happens occasionally and nobody makes anything of it. Most people who think they will hate it do not.
About two hours door to door for a 60-minute flight: twenty minutes of briefing and preflight, an hour in the air, and fifteen or twenty minutes of debrief and logbook.
Yes. The multi-engine Seminole and the Cirrus both carry three, and we can run consecutive flights for larger groups — birthdays, bachelor parties and corporate days all work. Call and we will schedule it.
There is a version of this city you have never seen
Book online in two minutes, or call (818) 290-8249 and we will tell you which route and which slot suits what you want out of it.