The Airplanes You'll Fly

A discovery flight is a real flying lesson in a real training airplane, so it is reasonable to want to know what you will be sitting in. This page covers the aircraft we use for discovery flights at Van Nuys, what each one is actually like from the left seat, and how the weight limits work — because that is the one thing worth checking before you book rather than after.

It is also the reference for the whole training fleet. Six aircraft types and two simulators fly out of Van Nuys with us, from a two-seat Cessna 162 Skycatcher at $179 an hour inside a course package to a Cirrus SR22 Turbo and a twin-engine Piper Seminole at $449. Every aircraft has two published rates, a package rate for training inside a course and a retail rate for renting or paying as you go, and all of them are wet, meaning fuel is included. The complete price list, including courses and instruction, is on flight school rates at Van Nuys.

The Fleet At Van Nuys, At A Glance

Quantities matter more than most people expect. Five Cessna 162s and two Piper Warriors means a maintenance event is almost never a canceled lesson, and holding a twice-weekly rhythm is the single strongest predictor of finishing a certificate near the hours in your package rather than well past them.

Why Small Airplanes Are Better For A First Flight

Most people's mental picture of an airplane is an airliner: a tube with small windows, thirty rows back from anything interesting, and the flying done by somebody behind a locked door. A training airplane is the opposite of all of that. You sit in the front, shoulder to shoulder with your instructor, with glass on three sides and the ground clearly visible below and ahead. At two thousand feet over the San Fernando Valley you can pick out individual streets.

They are also simpler than people expect. There is a yoke or a stick, rudder pedals, a throttle, a trim wheel and about six instruments that matter. Your instructor will explain all of it at the briefing in fifteen or twenty minutes, and that briefing is the point at which most first-timers stop being nervous — not because they have been reassured, but because the airplane has stopped being mysterious.

The Cessna 162 Skycatcher

Five of them, registered N60225, N7030B, N6039M, N179LC and N5208V, which makes the Skycatcher the backbone of the fleet. It is a two-seat, high-wing light sport airplane with a 100-horsepower Continental O-200-D, a Garmin G300 glass panel and a cruise of about 118 knots. High wing means an uninterrupted view down over the Valley, and a glass panel means students learn on the kind of display they will meet in almost every modern aircraft.

What The Skycatcher Is Like To Fly

Light, honest and easy to land. It is the cheapest hour in the fleet and the aircraft behind the Sport Pilot course, and because there are five of them you can almost always get one. Two seats means it is a solo-flyer's airplane rather than one to bring somebody along in. Full specifications are on our Cessna 162 Skycatcher guide, and each airframe has its own page: N60225, N7030B, N6039M, N179LC and N5208V.

The Piper Warrior PA-28-161

The Warrior is normally the airplane behind our standard discovery flights , and it is one of the most widely used training aircraft ever built. It is a four-seat, low-wing single with fixed tricycle gear and a 160-horsepower Lycoming engine — deliberately unexciting, extremely forgiving, and stable enough that it will more or less fly straight while you work out what your hands are doing. We have two, N3034Q and N6312C, both IFR-equipped, and both are $179 an hour inside a package and $269 at retail.

The four seats are the practical reason we use it. A four-seat cabin is what makes the Discovery Flight For Two possible: one of you flies from the left seat while the other rides along on the intercom, hearing every word of the instruction and the tower.

What The Warrior Is Like To Fly

Heavier on the controls than the two-seaters and correspondingly steadier. It is not a quick airplane and it is not trying to be — at cruise you have time to look out of the window, which on a flight over Los Angeles is precisely the point. The low wing gives you a clean view into a turn, and the single door and wing walk mean you climb onto the wing to get in, which is the first small moment where flying stops being abstract.

Full specifications, speeds and performance figures are on our Piper Warrior PA-28-161 reference page, and the individual airframes are covered on N3034Q and N6312C.

The Diamond DA20-C1

The DA20 is the sporty one. It is a two-seat composite aircraft with a bubble canopy, a control stick rather than a yoke, and visibility that is genuinely startling the first time you sit in it — there is glass over your head and out to both sides, and the view is closer to a fighter than to a family car. The Continental IO-240 produces 125 horsepower, and because the airframe is light it climbs better than the number suggests. We operate two, N306EF and N308EF, both with a Garmin 430, at $229 an hour inside a package and $329 at retail.

It is also certificated in the utility category, which is why it is the airplane we use for spin training and for the spin endorsement a CFI candidate needs under 14 CFR 61.183(i).

What The DA20 Is Like To Fly

Light, responsive and immediate. The stick moves with your fingertips rather than your arms, and small inputs produce visible results, which some people find delightful and others find like being handed a sports car on day one. It seats two, so it is a solo-flyer's airplane — if you want somebody along for the ride, the Warrior or the Cirrus SR22 is the answer.

Full specifications are on the Diamond DA20-C1 reference page, and the individual airframes on N306EF and N308EF.

The Piper Arrow PA-28R

One airplane, N316EF, and the only complex aircraft on the ramp: retractable landing gear, a constant-speed propeller and a fuel-injected 200-horsepower Lycoming IO-360 turning about 135 knots, with a Garmin 430 in the panel. It looks like a Warrior and flies noticeably faster, and it exists to teach the two habits that separate a basic trainer from everything above it — managing propeller pitch as a separate control, and managing landing gear as something that can be forgotten.

What The Arrow Is Like To Fly

Familiar and then quicker. The cockpit, the door and the wing walk are pure Cherokee, but 200 horsepower and a clean airframe mean it accelerates away from you if you are slow to reduce power, and the approach needs planning a fixed-gear trainer forgives. It is the airplane in which most pilots build their gear-check flow. Full specifications and the POH guide are on the Piper Arrow PA-28R page, and the airframe itself on N316EF.

The Piper Seminole PA-44-180

One twin, N311EF, with two 180-horsepower counter-rotating engines, a Garmin 430 and 162 knots in the cruise. Counter-rotating propellers mean there is no critical engine, which is why the Seminole has been the standard American multi-engine trainer for decades. It is the airplane behind our seven-day multi-engine rating at $5,100, behind MEI training, behind multi-engine time building, and behind the multi-engine discovery flight.

What The Seminole Is Like To Fly

Stable, well mannered and a genuine step up in workload. Two of everything means two of every check, and the training is less about handling than about decision-making when one engine stops. Because the propellers turn in opposite directions, the asymmetric case is the same whichever engine fails. Specifications are on the Piper Seminole page, and the airframe on N311EF.

The Cirrus SR22

The luxury discovery flight is flown in the Cirrus SR22. Ours is N422SN, a turbocharged SR22 producing 310 horsepower, cruising at 215 knots and certificated to FL250, with Cirrus Perspective glass, side-yoke controls, air conditioning and leather seats — and a whole-airframe parachute built into the structure rather than strapped to the occupants. The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, CAPS, is standard equipment, and it is the single feature that changes how nervous passengers feel about the airplane.

The SR22 is the larger, more powerful airplane in the Cirrus SR line. That extra performance is the practical difference on a sixty-minute flight: the coast stops being a turnaround point and becomes somewhere you arrive with time in hand. Book it at Luxury Cirrus SR22 Discovery Flight For Two. It is also the airplane behind the high-performance endorsement under 14 CFR 61.31(f) at $1,799 and behind the Turbo Cirrus Private Pilot course at $23,400.

What The Cirrus SR22 Is Like To Fly

Quieter, smoother and noticeably more comfortable than a traditional trainer. The side-yoke sits by your left hand rather than in front of your chest, the panel shows you a moving map and a synthetic horizon rather than a row of round dials, and the air conditioning matters more than you would think on a Valley afternoon in August. It is the flight to pick for a birthday, an anniversary or a proposal.

For the airframe, the panel and the CAPS system in detail, read our Cirrus SR22 reference and the Cirrus SR20 page, which covers the design features the whole family shares. The airframe itself is on N422SN.

The Full-Motion Flight Simulator

Not every first hour has to happen in the air. Our Full-Motion Flight Simulator Experience is an hour on a moving platform with an instructor beside you, indoors on the field. It is a genuine simulator on a motion base rather than a desktop program with a joystick, with dual controls and a real instrument panel.

The machine is a Redbird MCX, an FAA-approved advanced aviation training device with both single- and multi-engine profiles, and the regulations let you count real hours in it: up to 50 creditable hours toward a Commercial certificate, and 20 of the 40 hours of instrument dual required for an instrument rating. Inside a course package it is $120 an hour; at retail it is $200.

It has three specific advantages over an airplane, and they are the reason people choose it deliberately rather than as a consolation prize:

• It can be paused. Mid-maneuver, mid-approach, mid-question. Try the tricky part again, then again.
• It is never canceled for weather. The marine layer is irrelevant indoors.
• There is no weight limit. None. If an aircraft limit rules you out, this does not.

For an anxious first-timer it is a far better opening hour than an airplane, because nothing about it is irreversible and you can stop at any moment. $189 for the hour.

The Redbird TD2 Desktop Trainer

Alongside the full-motion machine we keep a Redbird TD2 desktop procedures trainer. It is not a substitute for either an airplane or the MCX, and it is not sold as an experience. It is where you rehearse flows, checklists, radio calls and instrument procedures until they are automatic, which makes the expensive hours count for more. It is free with course packages and $90 an hour at retail.

Which Aircraft Normally Flies Which Flight

Treat the middle column as what usually happens rather than a guarantee. The aircraft for your flight is confirmed on the day, and it can change for maintenance, weather or scheduling reasons — what does not change is that a two-person flight needs an airplane with a seat for your passenger.

If a specific airplane matters to you — and for a proposal or a birthday it often does — call (818) 330-1318 when you book rather than after, and we will tell you exactly what is available on your date. A particular aircraft is much easier to hold with a phone call than a click.

How Weight And Balance Actually Works

The limits are not arbitrary and they are not about comfort. Every aircraft has a maximum gross weight and a permitted range for its center of gravity, both set by the manufacturer and certificated by the FAA. Before every flight, your instructor works out what the airplane weighs with you, your passenger, the fuel and the baggage in it, and where that weight sits fore and aft. If either number falls outside the envelope, the airplane does not fly. That calculation is done on the ground, which is also why you cannot swap seats in the air on a two-person flight.

So: 180 lb per person and 360 lb combined in the Warrior; 200 lb and 400 lb combined in the Cirrus SR22; no limit in the simulator. If you are close, ring us. We would far rather have that conversation on the phone than at the door, and there is almost always a flight that works.

How These Aircraft Are Looked After

Aircraft used for flight instruction are held to a higher inspection standard than privately owned airplanes — a 100-hour inspection under FAR 91.409(b) in addition to the annual. Every flight also begins with a full pre-flight walk-around, which you will do alongside your instructor: fuel quantity and color, oil, control surfaces, tires, the pitot tube. You are not watching a performance; you are learning the routine every pilot repeats before every flight for the rest of their flying life.

Aircraft Reference Library

Each airplane we fly, and a few that pilots ask about, has its own reference page: specifications, weights, typical V-speeds and performance, what the Pilot's Operating Handbook contains, where to get the official manual, and what the airplane is actually like to fly. They are written for students, renters and owners as much as for first-time flyers.

• Cessna 162 Skycatcher: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the light sport Cessna, five of which make up the backbone of our fleet
• Piper Warrior PA-28-161: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the four-seat trainer behind most of our discovery flights and most private pilot courses at Van Nuys
• Diamond DA20-C1: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the two-seat composite trainer with the bubble canopy and the control stick
• Piper Arrow PA-28R: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the complex airplane, with retractable gear and a constant-speed propeller
• Piper Seminole PA-44-180 — the counter-rotating twin behind the multi-engine rating
• Cirrus SR20: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the smaller Cirrus, and the design features the whole SR family shares
• Cirrus SR22: Specs, Performance And POH Guide — the airplane on our luxury discovery flight, with CAPS and the Perspective flight deck
• The Full-Motion Flight Simulator — the Redbird MCX, and which hours count toward a certificate
• Flight School Rates At Van Nuys — every package and retail rate, course price and endorsement on one page
• Aircraft Checkout Requirements For Renters — documents, currency and the checkout flight, type by type
• Aircraft Rental At Van Nuys Airport — what a checkout involves and how hourly rental works once you hold a certificate
• Aircraft Rental: How Renting An Airplane Works — the general guide for anywhere in the United States: certificates and checkouts, wet versus dry rates, Hobbs versus tach time, renter's insurance, and what rental costs by aircraft class
• Rent A Plane In Los Angeles — what it costs to take one of these up on your own once you hold a certificate, field by field across the metro

Every Airframe, Tail Number By Tail Number

Each aircraft in the fleet has its own page covering that airframe: its equipment, its rates and what it is used for. If you want to know what you will be flying rather than what type you will be flying, start here.

• Cessna 162 Skycatcher: N60225, N7030B, N6039M, N179LC, N5208V
• Piper Warrior PA-28-161: N3034Q, N6312C
• Diamond DA20-C1: N306EF, N308EF
• Piper Arrow PA-28R: N316EF
• Piper Seminole PA-44-180: N311EF
• Cirrus SR22 Turbo: N422SN

Every one of these pages says the same thing about handbooks, and it bears repeating here: the official, current POH issued for a specific tail number is the only legal authority for operating that aircraft. The reference pages are a study aid and a way to compare airplanes before you fly them.

Next: What To Expect On Your Discovery Flight, Flying Out Of Van Nuys Airport, or the Discovery Flight FAQ. Buying for someone else? A You Fly LA gift card lets them choose the airplane and the date themselves.