FAA-Certificated InstructorsTwo-Hour Beginner Lessons From $249Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
A beginner flying lesson at Van Nuys is two hours long, from $349, and about seventy minutes of it is spent flying. The half hour before that is on the ground with your instructor, learning the controls. It is a real lesson, logged in a real logbook, and it counts toward the forty-hour minimum for a private certificate.
Most people who book beginner flying lessons with us have flown before, in the back of something with a hundred and eighty other passengers. That is not this. You get the left seat, a headset, and an instructor in the right seat who talks you through what your hands are doing.
We teach under Part 61, so flight lessons for beginners here are shaped around you rather than around a syllabus someone else approved. If you have never touched an airplane, we start with the yoke, or the stick, and the rudder pedals. If you flew gliders twenty years ago, we skip ahead.
The seventy minutes is a plan, not a meter. The price is flat, and if the air is smooth and you are enjoying the airwork, nobody is watching the clock to the second. The simulator lesson keeps the same shape, with ten minutes setting up the Redbird's cockpit where the walk-around would be.
Your instructor covers the controls and what each one moves, how a wing makes lift and how to read the instruments in front of you. Then the plan: exactly what the two of you will do once you are airborne.
You walk around the airplane with your instructor and the checklist, and you check the fuel, the oil and the control surfaces yourself.
You steer the taxi with your feet and watch the run-up at Charlie from the left seat. Once you are out over Simi Valley the airplane is yours, with your instructor beside you talking you through each turn.
What you did well, what to work on next time, and your logbook entry, signed before you leave.
Lessons fly in the open air over Simi Valley and the Santa Susana Mountains, northwest of the airport. The airspace there is quiet, and there is room to make mistakes without anyone minding. Our guide to the Simi Valley practice area has the detail.
That matters more than a view does on a first lesson. You cannot learn a level turn while craning at a hillside. Simi gives you a horizon, a few landmarks and nothing to dodge.
Coming home, the Valley is laid out under the nose, and somewhere below you Sherman Way runs through its tunnel under the field.
Every lesson runs the same two hours. What changes is what you fly: a Cessna 162 or a Piper Warrior, the Warrior with a guest in the back, the Diamond DA20, the Cirrus SR22 Turbo, or the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator.
Each card below has the price and a Book button. If you cannot decide, our opinion follows the cards.
All five are the same two hours at a flat price, with no tax and nothing added at the desk.
Credited in full toward your training if you enroll within 24 hours.
Half an hour on the ground learning what the yoke, the pedals and the throttle do, then about seventy minutes in the air over Simi Valley with your instructor beside you.
Lesson Length
$349all-in · one student · 2 hours
One of you takes the lesson. The other rides along on the intercom.
The same two hours in the four-seat Piper Warrior, with somebody you know in the back. They sit in on the ground lesson, listen in the air and take the photographs.
Lesson Length
$449all-in · student and guest · 2 hours
A stick instead of a yoke, and a canopy you can see straight out of.
Lighter on the controls than the Cessna, and quicker to show you when your feet are lazy on the rudder. A good first lesson if you already think you want the certificate.
Lesson Length
$549all-in · one student · 2 hours
+ Luxury
Turbocharged, all glass, and fitted with a whole-airframe parachute.
Not the sensible first lesson, and most people do not start here. The ones who do usually know they will finish the certificate and want to begin in the airplane they will fly afterwards.
Lesson Length
$749all-in · one student · 2 hours
Weight limit 200 lb for the person flying. No guest seat on this lesson.
Or gift it →
An FAA-approved AATD, so the time is loggable.
The same two-hour lesson, flown in the full-motion Redbird MCX instead of an airplane. Book it if the weather looks unsettled, if you would rather start on the ground, or if $249 is the number that works.
Lesson Length
$249all-in · one student · 2 hours
No weight limit. You accept the weather and cancellation policy before you book.
Or gift it →
We sell five flying lessons for beginners, and for most first-timers the honest answer is the $349 one. You get a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, a hundred-horsepower two-seater with a Garmin G300 glass panel, or a Piper Warrior, a hundred-and-sixty-horsepower low wing with four seats. Which one depends on what is on the ramp that morning. Both are forgiving, and both are what our students fly on day one.
Take the $449 if somebody wants to watch. It is the same lesson in the Warrior with a second person in the back, listening on the intercom and taking the photographs. The guest is not charged separately and does not need to do anything. Partners and parents sit back there and it changes the day; a lot of people fly better with an audience than without one.
Take the DA20 if you have flown before, or if you already know you want the certificate and want to find out early whether you like a stick. The bubble canopy lets you see straight out, it is lighter on the controls than the Cessna, and it is quicker to tell you when your feet are lazy. Our opinion: it is the better airplane to learn in, and it is less forgiving for exactly that reason.
Take the Cirrus if the airplane is the point. N422SN has three hundred and ten turbocharged horsepower, a Perspective glass panel, a side-stick and a parachute for the whole airframe, and it cruises at 215 knots. It is not the sensible first lesson and most people do not start here. The ones who do tend to know already that they are going to finish the certificate.
Take the simulator if the weather looks doubtful, if you would rather your first time at the controls happened on the ground, or if $249 is the number that works. The Redbird MCX moves, it is an FAA-approved AATD, and weather never cancels it. Nothing in it is wasted: up to fifty hours in the Redbird count toward a commercial certificate later.
Not included: nothing. There is no tax and nothing is added at the desk, so the price on the card is the price you pay. The simulator lesson includes the same instructor, ground lesson and debrief, with the Redbird in place of the airplane.
$349 buys two hours, of which about seventy minutes are spent flying. Taken apart at our pay-as-you-go rates, that seventy minutes in the Skycatcher is $269 an hour wet, and an instructor is $110 an hour for the whole two, which comes to about $534. Our beginner flight lessons are priced below the sum of their parts because they are how people start training with us, not because anything has been left out.
Inside a course package the Skycatcher drops to $179 an hour and the instructor stays at $110. A Private Pilot Standard package is $10,400 and covers thirty-eight hours of airplane, two of simulator, thirty hours of dual and three of ground.
For hourly rates and what each certificate costs, read what ongoing flight training costs at Van Nuys. For the five lesson prices taken apart one at a time, read what a beginner flying lesson costs.
In a package: Skycatcher $179/hr, instructor $110/hr.
Enroll in a course within twenty-four hours of your lesson and the whole lesson price comes off what you pay. Not a discount code, not a credit toward something else — the $349 or the $749 comes straight off the package.
If you do not enroll, you still keep the logbook entry. The time is dual instruction received, and it counts toward the forty-hour minimum in 14 CFR 61.109 wherever you fly next.
When you want to see the whole certificate laid out, start with our private pilot course at Van Nuys.
Example: your lesson, then the Private Pilot Standard package
Yes. Your instructor works the radio and keeps a hand near the controls, and the climbs, the turns and most of the cruise are yours.
Not for the lesson. You need one before your first solo, under 14 CFR 61.87 and 61.23.
Anyone under eighteen needs a parent or guardian. You must be sixteen to fly solo and seventeen for the private certificate.
We reschedule and you are not charged. The decision comes on the 9 AM weather call. In June, book an afternoon, after the marine layer has had time to burn off.
Yes, on the $449 lesson in the Piper Warrior, with your guest in the back seat. The Cessna 162 and the DA20 have two seats, and the Cirrus lesson has no guest seat.
Yes. It is 180 lb per person in the Cessna 162 or the Warrior, and 360 lb combined for two on the $449 lesson. In the DA20 or the Cirrus it is 200 lb for the person flying. The simulator has none.
Call (818) 330-1318. Moving a lesson is free up to twenty-four hours before it starts.
A photo ID, closed-toe shoes and sunglasses. We lend the headsets. Arrive about fifteen minutes before your slot.
Six guides, each answering one question people ask us before they book.
Two hours, from $349, and you fly the airplane. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Main Terminal Unit 108, on the field at Van Nuys, with lessons nine to five, seven days a week.
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