Milestone birthdayThe birthday where nothing else lands
Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. The years with a zero in them are the hardest to shop for, because the honest answer is that the person does not need anything. A flight is one of the few gifts that is genuinely new to them at that age, and the first time they hold the yoke in level flight tends to reset a few assumptions about what they are still capable of. We have taught first lessons to people well past retirement who booked their second before leaving the parking lot.
What we usually suggest: For One at 60 minutes, $229, or step up to 90 minutes at $299 if the number ends in a zero.
Valentine's DayValentine's Day and anniversaries
Van Nuys sits close enough to the coast that a ninety-minute flight gets you out over Malibu and back with the light doing what it does in the late afternoon. For Valentine's Day and anniversaries the Cirrus is the one people ask about by name, mostly because it is quiet, air conditioned and does not feel like a training airplane. One of you flies, the other rides, and there is no dinner reservation on earth that competes with the photographs.
What we usually suggest: Luxury Cirrus for Two, 60 minutes at $399 or 90 minutes at $549 for the coastline.
Mother's DayMother's Day, without the flowers
Mothers are given things to put on a table roughly every May, and the useful thing about a discovery flight is that it is not a thing at all. A good number of the women we fly on Mother's Day weekend arrive expecting to sit and watch, then find out in the run-up briefing that they are the one flying. Adult children often buy the two-seat version so they can be in the back for it, which is generally the part they are really paying for.
What we usually suggest: For Two at 60 minutes, $299, so you are in the airplane when she takes the controls.
Father's DayFather's Day for the man who wanted to fly
There is a specific kind of father who mentions once a decade that he nearly went for his license, then talks about something else. Father's Day is when families finally call his bluff. If he has read about airplanes his whole life, put him in something with two engines and let him do the departure himself; if he just likes the idea of it, the Diamond DA20 with its bubble canopy gives him more to look at than anything else on the ramp.
What we usually suggest: Multi-Engine in the Seminole at $499 for 60 minutes, or For One at 90 minutes, $299.
GraduationGraduation, when the next thing is undecided
High school and college graduations arrive with a lot of talk about the future and not much of it settled. A discovery flight is a cheap way to test one particular future before committing to it, and it is the only graduation gift on the list that can turn into a career. The hour is loggable toward a certificate, and if the graduate enrolls in training within twenty-four hours of landing, the full cost of the flight credits toward the course.
What we usually suggest: For One at 90 minutes, $299, with the cost credited if they enroll the same day.
ChristmasChristmas and the holidays
December is our busiest month for certificates and the reason is practical: you can buy one on the twenty-fourth and still have something real to hand over on the twenty-fifth, because it is emailed rather than shipped. Schedule the delivery for Christmas morning if you want it to arrive while everyone is in the room. Nobody has to fly in the cold or in the middle of the holidays either, since the certificate has no expiry and most recipients end up going in spring.
What we usually suggest: For Two at 120 minutes, $499, when the whole family has chipped in.
Veterans DayMemorial Day and Veterans Day
These are not gift-giving holidays and we would not pretend otherwise. What we do see, around both weekends, is families booking flights for someone who served, and for the children and grandchildren of someone who did. Sometimes the person flying has been in a military aircraft before and has not touched the controls of anything since. Those flights are quiet on the ground and talkative afterward, and the instructors here treat them accordingly.
What we usually suggest: For Two at 90 minutes, $399, so a family member can be in the airplane too.
RetirementRetirement, and the list that was always going to wait
Learning to fly sits near the top of a great many retirement lists and near the bottom of a great many priority lists for the forty years before it. A discovery flight settles the question in an afternoon. If the retiring person has been saying it for long enough that everyone in the office has heard, the office can pool the money and give them the training credit instead, which covers rather more than one flight.
What we usually suggest: For One at 120 minutes, $399, or the $2,500 Flight Training Credit from a group.
