Your first solo happens when your instructor is satisfied you can fly the airplane safely without them, and the regulation that governs it is 14 CFR 61.87. Before you go, you must hold a student pilot certificate, pass a pre-solo knowledge test written and marked by your instructor, receive and log flight training in the 15 maneuvers and procedures listed for single-engine airplanes, demonstrate proficiency in them, and hold a logbook endorsement for the specific make and model, given within the preceding 90 days. At Van Nuys you will also need the Class D airspace and traffic-pattern work that goes with soloing at a towered field under the Los Angeles Class B shelf.
This page walks through each requirement and then through what solo day actually looks like here. For the free document you need before any of it, read student pilot certificate, and for the application itself, IACRA student pilot certificate.
When Does First Solo Usually Happen
There is no hour requirement for solo in part 61. There is a proficiency requirement, and the difference matters. Nationally, first solo commonly falls somewhere between 10 and 25 hours, and at a Class D field beneath Class B airspace it tends toward the upper part of that band, because a student here is learning to fly the airplane and to work a busy tower at the same time.
The number that actually predicts it is not your total time but the gap between your lessons. A student flying three times a week will solo earlier and in fewer hours than a student flying twice a month, every time, without exception. If soloing quickly matters to you, book more frequently rather than trying harder.
Your instructor is the only person who can make this call, and they are signing their name to a judgment about your safety. A good instructor will not be rushed, and will also not hold you back to sell hours. If you feel either of those things is happening, say so.
The Pre-Solo Knowledge Test: 14 CFR 61.87(b)
This is not the FAA written exam. It is a test your own instructor writes and administers, and 61.87(b) requires it to cover three things:
- the applicable sections of parts 61 and 91 of the regulations;
- the airspace rules and procedures for the airport where the solo flight will be performed; and
- the flight characteristics and operational limitations for the make and model of aircraft to be flown.
The instructor must then review every incorrect answer with you before authorizing the solo. That review is the point of the exercise. A pre-solo test is not a hurdle to clear and forget; it is a structured way of finding out what you do not yet know about the airplane and the airport you are about to operate alone.
At Van Nuys the middle item carries real weight. A pre-solo test here asks about the Class D surface area, the tower and ground frequencies, the parallel runways 16R and 34L at 8,001 feet and 16L and 34R at 4,000 feet, pattern altitudes and directions, noise abatement procedures, and where the Los Angeles Class B shelf sits above you. Students who solo at quiet fields do not have to answer those questions. Ours do, and they are better radio operators for it.
The Flight Training: 14 CFR 61.87(c) And (d)
Paragraph (c) requires that you have received and logged flight training for the maneuvers and procedures in the section that are appropriate to the make and model to be flown, and that you have demonstrated satisfactory proficiency and safety in them as judged by an authorized instructor.
Paragraph (d) lists those maneuvers and procedures for a single-engine airplane.
| Item | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| Flight preparation | Preflight planning, powerplant operation and aircraft systems |
| Taxiing or surface operations | Including runups |
| Takeoffs and landings | Normal and crosswind |
| Straight and level flight, and turns | Turns in both directions |
| Climbs and climbing turns | Including departure and en route climbs |
| Airport traffic patterns | Entry and departure procedures |
| Collision, windshear and wake turbulence avoidance | Applied in the pattern and en route |
| Descents | With and without turns, using high and low drag configurations |
| Flight at various airspeeds | From cruise to slow flight |
| Stall entries and recoveries | From straight flight and from turns |
| Emergency procedures and equipment malfunctions | Including simulated failures |
| Ground reference maneuvers | Tracking and wind correction |
| Approaches to a landing area with simulated engine malfunctions | Power-off and partial-power approaches |
| Slips to a landing | Forward slips for descent control |
| Go-arounds | From any point on the approach |
Read that list and notice what is on it: stalls, emergency procedures, simulated engine failures and go-arounds. A pre-solo student is not simply a person who can land. They are a person who can recognize an approach that is going wrong and abandon it, recover from a stall without drama, and handle a failure on climb-out. Those are the items that decide when you solo, not the number of acceptable landings in a row.
The Endorsements: 14 CFR 61.87(n) And (p)
Two logbook endorsements sit behind a solo flight, and both have a 90-day clock attached.
Under 61.87(n) you may not fly solo unless you hold an endorsement in your logbook for the specific make and model of aircraft to be flown, given by an authorized instructor who gave the training, within the 90 days preceding the flight. Make and model is literal: an endorsement for a Cessna 162 does not authorize you to solo a Piper Warrior.
Under 61.87(p) the instructor who authorizes the solo must have given the training, determined that you are proficient and prepared, and provided the endorsement. That endorsement remains current for solo privileges provided an authorized instructor updates your logbook every 90 days thereafter.
In practice this means your instructor will re-sign your logbook roughly every three months while you are still doing solo work, usually after flying with you to confirm nothing has drifted. It is a short flight, not a re-examination, and it exists because skills fade.
What The Student Pilot Certificate Adds
The endorsements authorize the flight, but you also need the plastic. A student pilot certificate is free, does not expire, and is applied for through IACRA with your instructor's help. It takes a few weeks to arrive, so start it early. It is not a medical certificate, and it is not a license to carry anyone.
What You May Not Do As A Student Pilot: 14 CFR 61.89
A student pilot may not act as pilot in command of an aircraft that is carrying a passenger; that is carrying property for compensation or hire; for compensation or hire; in furtherance of a business; on an international flight, with a narrow exception for certain Alaska to Yukon training flights; with a flight or surface visibility of less than 3 statute miles by day or 5 statute miles at night; when the flight cannot be made with visual reference to the surface; or in a manner contrary to any limitations placed in the logbook by an authorized instructor.
That last one is the quiet one. Your instructor will write limitations into the endorsement, and they are binding: a maximum crosswind component, a restriction to the traffic pattern at your home airport, a ceiling and visibility minimum higher than the regulatory one. Those numbers are not suggestions, and exceeding them is a regulatory violation as well as a bad idea.
Night Solo: 14 CFR 61.87(o)
Soloing at night has its own requirements. Before a student may fly solo at night they must have received flight training at night on night flying procedures, including takeoffs, approaches, landings and go-arounds at night at the airport where the solo will be conducted; navigation training at night in the vicinity of that airport; and a separate endorsement for the specific make and model for night solo flight, given by an authorized instructor who gave the training within the preceding 90 days.
Note that the training must be at the airport where the solo will happen. Night flying at Van Nuys is its own skill, with the city lights of the Valley behind the runway and the black of the Santa Monica mountains to the south, and an instructor will want you comfortable with that specific picture before you see it alone.
What Solo Day Looks Like At Van Nuys
Almost nobody knows it is coming. The usual pattern is an ordinary lesson on an ordinary morning, three or four circuits that go well, and then your instructor asks the tower for a full stop, taxis clear, and gets out. That is deliberate. A solo announced a week in advance gives a student seven days to build it into something larger than it is.
What happens next, in order:
- The instructor gets out and checks your paperwork. Student pilot certificate, medical certificate or driver's license depending on which certificate you are training for, photo identification, and the logbook with the current endorsement in it.
- They brief the limits. Usually three takeoffs and landings, in the pattern, at this airport, with a stated crosswind and weather limit and an instruction on what to do if anything is not right.
- You call ground for taxi. Say "student pilot" in your first transmission. Van Nuys tower hears it constantly and controllers are noticeably more generous with instructions and spacing when they know.
- The airplane climbs better than you expect. Taking 170 or 180 pounds of instructor out of a light trainer changes the performance noticeably, and the first thing most students notice on rotation is how much sooner it happens and how much steeper the climb feels. Expect it, and fly the numbers rather than the sight picture.
- You fly the pattern. Downwind, base, final, land. Then again. Then again.
- You taxi back. Your instructor will be somewhere near the hold-short line looking calm and will have been anything but.
The traditional shirt-tail cutting is a real thing and predates the intercom, when an instructor in the front seat tugged the student's shirt to get their attention and the cut tail signified the student no longer needed it. If you would rather keep your shirt, say so; nobody will mind.
What Usually Delays A Solo
When a student is stuck short of solo, it is almost never everything at once. It is one of four things, and naming it usually unsticks it.
Landings that are inconsistent rather than bad. Most pre-solo students can land; what they cannot yet do is land the same way twice. The fix is a dedicated pattern lesson with no other objective, flown at a quieter hour, where the only thing being practiced is a repeatable approach. Eight circuits in an hour teaches more than eight circuits spread across four lessons.
Radio work at a busy Class D field. This is the Van Nuys-specific one. A student who flies the airplane well can still be overloaded by a tower instruction issued while they are turning base. It is a capacity problem, not a knowledge problem, and it resolves with exposure. Listening to the tower frequency on the ground, or in the simulator with an instructor playing controller, is the cheapest way to build it.
Go-arounds. Students are reluctant to abandon an approach because it feels like failure. An instructor will not sign a solo until the go-around is automatic, because the whole safety case for soloing rests on the student's willingness to stop a bad approach rather than rescue it.
Gaps between lessons. The most common of the four, and the only one that is entirely within your control. If the calendar is the problem, our page on part-time flight training in Los Angeles covers how to structure training around a working week.
After The First Solo
The first solo is a milestone, not a destination. What follows is solo practice in the pattern, then solo work in the practice area under the limits in your endorsement, then dual cross-country training, and then solo cross-country flying, which needs its own endorsements under 14 CFR 61.93 covering the specific route or area. Our page on private pilot cross-country requirements covers that stage and the 150-nautical-mile solo cross-country that eventually comes with it.
Keep the 90-day clock in mind throughout. A student who solos, then goes away for four months, comes back to a lapsed endorsement and a short flight with an instructor before they can go alone again. That is not a penalty; it is the regulation recognizing that flying is perishable.
Related Reading
- Student pilot certificate — the free, non-expiring document you need before solo.
- IACRA student pilot certificate — how to apply, step by step.
- Private pilot license requirements — 14 CFR 61.109 and the 40-hour minimum.
- Private pilot cross-country requirements — the solo cross-country stage that follows.
- Flight training at Van Nuys — how lessons run at a Class D field under Class B.
- Van Nuys Airport — runways, airspace and procedures at KVNY.
First Solo Flight FAQ
How Many Hours Before Your First Solo?
There is no hour requirement in 14 CFR 61.87, only a proficiency requirement. First solo commonly falls between 10 and 25 hours, and at a towered field beneath Class B airspace it tends toward the higher end. How often you fly matters far more than how much you have flown.
What Is The Pre-Solo Written Test?
A test written and administered by your own instructor under 14 CFR 61.87(b), covering the applicable sections of parts 61 and 91, the airspace rules and procedures for the airport where you will solo, and the flight characteristics and operational limitations of the make and model. Your instructor must review every incorrect answer with you before authorizing the solo.
What Endorsements Do You Need To Fly Solo?
A logbook endorsement for the specific make and model under 14 CFR 61.87(n), given by the instructor who provided the training within the preceding 90 days, and kept current by an authorized instructor updating the logbook every 90 days thereafter under 61.87(p). Night solo requires a separate endorsement under 61.87(o).
What Is The 90-Day Rule For Solo?
A solo endorsement must have been given within the 90 days preceding the flight, and it remains valid for solo privileges only while an authorized instructor updates the logbook every 90 days. In practice your instructor flies a short lesson with you and re-signs it.
Can A Student Pilot Carry A Passenger?
No. 14 CFR 61.89(a) prohibits a student pilot from acting as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying a passenger, and no endorsement changes that. Passengers become possible when you hold a pilot certificate.
What Weather Minimums Apply To A Student Pilot?
14 CFR 61.89(a) prohibits solo flight with a flight or surface visibility of less than 3 statute miles by day or 5 statute miles at night, or when the flight cannot be made with visual reference to the surface. Your instructor will normally impose higher personal limits in the endorsement, and those are binding too.
Do You Need A Medical Certificate To Solo?
It depends on the certificate you are training for. A student training toward a private pilot certificate needs at least a third class medical. A student training toward a sport pilot certificate may solo on a valid US driver's license under 14 CFR 61.23(c), subject to the exclusions on our sport pilot medical requirements page.
Can You Solo At Sixteen?
Yes. A student pilot may solo an airplane from the age of sixteen, holding a student pilot certificate and the required endorsements. The certificate itself comes later: seventeen for a sport or private pilot certificate.
Start The Clock On Your First Solo
Everything on this page is achievable in a few months of consistent flying. A discovery flight is $229 for 60 minutes, you fly it from the left seat with an instructor, and it is logged as dual instruction toward every requirement above; enroll within 24 hours and it credits in full toward your course. If you want to know what a realistic timeline looks like around your work and your calendar, book a free consultation. Call (818) 330-1318 any day between 9 AM and 9 PM. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406, on Van Nuys Airport.