Flight Schools In Los Angeles Compared: 30 Schools, One Honest Table

Thirty flight schools across eight Los Angeles airports are compared here on the same seven columns: airport, Part 61 or Part 141 status, published fleet, programs, intro flight price, whether any prices are published at all, and what makes each one different. Every figure comes from the school's own website, checked on 13 September 2026, and where a school publishes nothing the entry says so rather than guessing.

We are one of the thirty. You Fly LA trains at Van Nuys, which makes this a comparison written by a competitor, so nothing here is ranked or scored and no school is criticized — the columns are facts and the judgment is yours. This page exists for the plural search: you are looking at the field, not for one school. If you have already narrowed it down and want the argument for training in Los Angeles with us specifically, that belongs on flight school in Los Angeles, and the single-airport version covering all twenty-two Van Nuys operators in far more depth is every flight school at Van Nuys Airport.

How These Thirty Schools Were Chosen

There is no official register of flight schools, which is why every list you find online is different and most of them are advertising. The thirty here had to meet four tests: the business trains civilian pilots toward FAA certificates, it has a working website of its own, it operates from an airport inside or adjoining Los Angeles County, and we could verify it was trading in September 2026.

The eight airports are Van Nuys (KVNY), Santa Monica (KSMO), Torrance Zamperini Field (KTOA), Long Beach (KLGB), Whiteman (KWHP), El Monte (KEMT), Hawthorne (KHHR) and Camarillo (KCMA). That is where flight training in this metropolitan area actually happens.

What Was Deliberately Left Out, And Why

Five kinds of business are excluded, and saying so is part of being honest about a list of thirty.

• Rental and maintenance operations that are not schools. American Aviation Sales & Services at Van Nuys rents aircraft and connects renters to independent instructors, which is a different product from a course.
• Charter operators that mention training. Clipper Aviation at Van Nuys flies King Airs and lists flight training in a contact form, with no published program.
• Helicopter operators. Group 3 Aviation, Lite Flight and Pacific RotorWays are rotary-wing businesses; they appear in the Van Nuys directory instead. We do not teach helicopter flying.
• Businesses we could not confirm are trading. The Flight School at Van Nuys publishes a $99 discovery flight but no street address and does not appear in the airport's current tenant information.
• Schools outside the eight airports. DuBois Aviation, for instance, is at Chino in San Bernardino County; it appears often in Los Angeles search results because it publishes guides ranking LA flight schools, but you would be driving to Chino.

A Word On ATP Flight School

ATP is the biggest name in American flight training and the one most people searching for a Los Angeles flight school expect to find here. It publishes eighty-seven training centers nationally and a fixed-cost Airline Career Pilot Program at $123,995 from zero experience over nine months, $100,995 with credit for solo over seven months, or $90,995 with credit for a private certificate over six months, plus a training center premium of up to $5,000 at selected locations. The program delivers 282 logged hours and every certificate through flight instructor.

It is not in the table for one simple reason: ATP has no training center at Van Nuys, Burbank or Torrance. Its Southern California locations are elsewhere in the region — Long Beach, La Verne, Riverside, Camarillo, Carlsbad and San Diego — so if you live in the San Fernando Valley or on the Westside, "ATP in Los Angeles" means a long commute to an outlying field. Check their current location list before you plan around it. The full comparison of ATP's model against the other accelerated programs is on accelerated flight schools compared.

The Eight Airports, And Why The Airport Matters More Than You Think

Before the schools, the fields. In a city this size the airport you train from decides your commute, your weather cancellations, your radio education and the shape of every lesson. It is the variable most people consider last and should consider second, after whether they can realistically fly twice a week.

Two of those rows are time-sensitive. Santa Monica's runway has already been shortened to 3,500 feet and the airport closes at the end of 2028 under the consent decree between the City and the FAA; a student starting a long part-time course there now should ask the school where it intends to move. We wrote that up separately on the Santa Monica airport closure and flight training. Torrance adopted a flight-school ordinance in 2024 and charges a landing fee, which changes the economics of touch-and-go practice in a way that matters over a forty-hour course.

The fuller argument about which field suits which student is on best airport for flight training in Los Angeles, and the honest case against training at a congested Class D field is made there too.

The Table: Thirty Los Angeles Flight Schools

"NP" means not published on the school's own website as of 13 September 2026. It is a statement about their website, not about their school.

Van Nuys: Seventeen Of The Thirty

More than half the table sits at one airport, and that is not an artifact of us being based there. Van Nuys is the deepest training market in the western United States by number of operators, and the reason is structural: two parallel runways absorb a very high circuit rate, the Valley sits inland of the marine layer that closes coastal fields on summer mornings, and the field has enough hangar and office space to let a dozen schools coexist.

What that means for you is choice, and choice is genuinely valuable when your instructor leaves or your school's only twin goes into annual inspection. It also means the seventeen behave very differently from one another. Corsair holds Part 61 and Part 141 and is the Cessna Pilot Center on the field. Flying Academy is Part 141 and SEVIS approved, which makes it the realistic door for anyone arriving on an M-1 student visa. Mach 1 is Cirrus-only at the Platinum tier. Vertical trains in the Sling 2 light sport aircraft. The Flight Academy publishes tailwheel and upset recovery, both hard to find in this basin. LA Flight Academy publishes its fleet by tail number and its rates by aircraft, and offers a Part 135 employment route through SOFAR. 14DAYPILOT and 30 Day CFI compress the calendar. Ascent runs the largest published single-type fleet at twelve. One Source runs three aircraft and publishes every rate.

Each of those seventeen gets a full profile on every flight school at Van Nuys Airport, which also covers the rental operation, the charter operator and the three helicopter businesses this table leaves out. If Van Nuys is where you are likely to train, read that page instead of this one — it is considerably more detailed and it is organized for walking the field in an afternoon.

Our own entry: we are Part 61, twelve aircraft plus a full-motion Redbird MCX and a TD2 desktop trainer, fixed course prices published from $8,400 for Sport Pilot to $84,000 for the airline program, hourly rates published in both package and retail form, and a $229 sixty-minute discovery flight credited in full toward training if you enroll within twenty-four hours. We do not hold Part 141, cannot issue I-20 forms and are not a GI Bill provider for a private certificate. Those are real limitations and three of the schools in this table do not share them.

Santa Monica: Three Schools And A Deadline

Santa Monica Flyers is the most visible school in Los Angeles search results after the Van Nuys group, and it publishes more intro-flight detail than almost anyone: twenty aircraft including SportCruisers, Cessna 172s, a retractable 172, Cirrus aircraft and an electric trainer, with four separate intro flights priced at $199 for sport, $199 for electric, $299 premium and $449 in a Cirrus. It is the only school in this table flying a type-certificated all-electric airplane, which is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to log. Programs run from Sport Pilot through ATP, including the sport pilot instructor certificate.

Skyward Air Pilot Academy takes the opposite approach and publishes a route menu rather than a rate card: $199 for a twenty-five minute Malibu flight, $329 for the Hollywood Sign, $359 for downtown, $399 for a three-landmark run, $649 to Catalina and $699 to Ventura. Private pilot training and an airline pathway are offered; the fleet is not published.

Proteus Air Services publishes PPL, IR, CPL and CFI courses and very little else — no fleet, no prices, no intro flight figure.

All three carry the same caveat. Santa Monica's runway is already down to 3,500 feet and the airport closes on 31 December 2028. A private certificate started today can comfortably finish there. A part-time commercial or instructor path probably cannot. Ask each school directly where it will operate from in 2029, and get the answer before you buy a block of hours.

Torrance And The South Bay: Three Schools

Sling Pilot Academy is the largest single operation in this table by fleet: more than sixty glass-cockpit aircraft across Torrance, Long Beach, Santa Monica and San Diego, including Sling NGT and Sling TSi trainers, a Super Decathlon, a Tecnam P2006T twin and Redbird simulators. Its headline is an Accelerated Airline Pilot Program advertised at nine to twelve months, alongside a casual club program and individual courses. It references an hourly-rate page but does not publish the figures on its main pages. A sixty-aircraft fleet solves the scheduling problem that defeats most students; the trade is that Torrance is a long drive from most of the city and the 2024 ordinance and landing fee apply.

Pacific Skies Aviation publishes a Fast Track accelerated option and a self-paced option covering private through multi-engine, and builds its message around pay-as-you-go with no upfront lump sum. Fleet and prices are not published.

South Bay Aviation publishes discovery flights and training courses, along with an unusually specific cancellation and daily-minimum policy — two hours on weekdays, three at weekends for long bookings, and a cancellation fee inside twelve hours on flights of three hours or more. That kind of policy detail is worth reading, because it is the sort of thing that quietly costs money later. Fleet and prices are not published.

Long Beach: Two Very Different Models

Long Beach Flying Club and Flight Academy publishes the lowest hourly rates in this table: Cessnas from $108 per hour and Pipers from $142 per hour, both including fuel and insurance, with a simulator from $18 per hour, and 24-hour fleet access for members. It states it has trained pilots since 1980. The club model trades packaged hand-holding for price, which suits a self-directed student and defeats a student who needs structure.

Angel City Flyers, part of Aero City Group, sits at the other end entirely: a Diamond fleet of DA40, DA42 and DA62 aircraft plus Cessna Citation Mustang and M2 jets, training from private through ATP, and single-pilot jet type ratings. Very few schools in the country can take you from a first lesson to a jet type rating in one organization. Neither an intro flight price nor hourly rates are published.

Long Beach itself is worth a sentence: three runways with the longest at 10,003 feet, airline traffic mixed with training, and a Class D tower under the Class B. Students who train there arrive at their checkrides comfortable with sequencing behind jets, which is a real skill.

Whiteman: The Valley's Cheaper Alternative

Vista Air at Whiteman publishes a $99 demo flight for new customers — the joint-lowest intro price in this table — and offers private and commercial training plus further certificates. It also hosts a PSI testing center, which is where a good number of San Fernando Valley students sit their FAA knowledge tests; details of the local options are on FAA written test centers in Los Angeles. Fleet and rates are not published.

USA Aero Club operates from Whiteman, Corona and Fullerton with a Pipistrel fleet — the Alpha Trainer, an IFR-certified Alpha and a Virus tailwheel — every aircraft fitted with a ballistic parachute. Published rates are $145 per hour for the Alpha with fuel included and $140 for the Virus, with a $199 one-hour discovery flight. For light sport training on a budget, those are among the lowest wet rates published anywhere in the basin.

Whiteman is six miles north-east of Van Nuys with a 4,120-foot runway and considerably less traffic. It is cheaper and quicker to get airborne from; you get less exposure to busy tower work. That is a genuine trade rather than a flaw, and which side of it you want depends on whether you are training for a career or for weekend flying. Our page on flight schools near Whiteman Airport sets out the comparison from the student's side.

El Monte, Hawthorne And Camarillo: One Each

Universal Air Academy at El Monte is one of only four schools in this table stating Part 141 programs, and the only one that also trains helicopter pilots — PPL-H through CFII-H — alongside the full fixed-wing ladder. It publishes Piper Archers, Cessnas and Robinson helicopters without counts, states more than thirty years of operation, and supports international students with TSA approval, M-1 visas and I-20 forms. If you need a student visa and cannot get to Van Nuys, this is the San Gabriel Valley answer. Prices are not published.

CalAir Aviation at Hawthorne is all-Cirrus and publishes its numbers with unusual bluntness: rental from $380 per hour, a private pilot course at $34,325, certifications from $3,500, and an introductory flight course at $1,425. Those figures are the highest in this table by a wide margin and they are not hidden, which deserves credit. Cirrus training is a coherent choice for someone who intends to own or fly SR-series aircraft; it is an expensive way to buy a private certificate if you do not.

Channel Islands Aviation at Camarillo states both Part 141 and Part 61 programs, publishes a $219 introductory flight, and covers private through multi-engine with four decades of operation behind it, open 7 AM to 7 PM daily. Camarillo is thirty-five miles west of Van Nuys, which for most Angelenos is a deliberate choice rather than a convenient one — the trade-offs are set out on Van Nuys versus Camarillo for flight training.

The Four Business Models Behind These Thirty Schools

The airport tells you where you will fly. The business model tells you what you are buying, and it explains the differences in this table better than geography does. Four models are represented, and most schools are a blend of two of them.

The Packaged Academy

Fixed-price courses, a written syllabus, stage checks and a stated career pathway. Ascent Aviation Academy, ActivePILOT, Flying Academy, Universal Air Academy, 14DAYPILOT and ourselves all run this model in different forms. The strength is that you know the total before you start and the school has a reason to move you through efficiently. The weakness is that you pay a large sum in advance for something you cannot yet judge, which makes the refund and withdrawal terms the most important paragraph in the contract. Ask for them in writing and read them before the deposit, not after; ours are on our refund and enrollment policy.

The Flying Club

Membership, a low wet hourly rate, instructors booked separately, and often 24-hour fleet access. Long Beach Flying Club at $108 per hour for a Cessna and USA Aero Club at $145 for a Pipistrel Alpha are the clearest examples here. The rates are the lowest in this table by a wide margin and the airplanes are the same airplanes. What you give up is momentum: nobody rings you when you have not booked for a month, and nobody notices that you have quietly stopped. Clubs suit disciplined self-starters and certificated pilots who want cheap currency flying, and they defeat people who need someone to hold the structure for them.

The Type Specialist

One aircraft family, deep expertise, higher prices. Mach 1 Aviation and CalAir Aviation are both built around Cirrus, Vertical Aviation around the Sling 2 light sport aircraft, Angel City Flyers around Diamonds and Citation jets, and Corsair Aviation around the Cessna Pilot Center program. If the type is where you are going — you intend to buy an SR22, or you fly a Diamond at work — a specialist gets you genuinely good on it and your insurance underwriter will notice. If the type is not your destination, you are paying a premium for training that is transferable but not uniquely valuable. Our own view on that trade is on best trainer aircraft for learning to fly.

The Accelerated Shop

Calendar compression as the product: 14DAYPILOT, 30 Day CFI Academy, Sling's Accelerated Airline Pilot Program, Pacific Skies' Fast Track, and our own seven-day multi-engine rating. Flying every day rather than weekly cuts the time spent re-learning the last lesson, so accelerated students typically finish in fewer total hours. The cost is that you must clear the block completely and arrive with your medical and knowledge test already done. The full comparison is on accelerated flight schools compared.

The question worth asking on a visit is which of these four a school is really running, because the model predicts the things the table cannot show you: how the money is held, how hard it is to get on the schedule, and whether anyone will notice if you disappear for three weeks.

What A Private Pilot Certificate Really Costs Across These Thirty Schools

Almost every published price in this table is an hourly rate, and an hourly rate is not a budget. To turn one into the other you need an honest number for hours flown. The legal minimum in 14 CFR 61.109 is 40 hours for an airplane single-engine land private certificate, including 20 hours of dual and 10 hours of solo. The national average is closer to 60 to 75 hours, and the gap is almost entirely explained by how often a student flies.

So budget on 60 hours of aircraft time and 40 hours of instruction, add around ten hours of ground instruction, the FAA knowledge test at roughly $175 at a PSI center, and an examiner fee of roughly $800 to $1,000. Instructor rates are almost never published in Los Angeles — Santa Monica Flyers lists one instructor at $110 per hour and ours is $110 per hour, so $110 is a reasonable placeholder until each school gives you its own figure.

Two things fall out of that table. The first is that the hourly rate, not the instruction, drives the difference: the instructor column is identical across all three. The second is that a fixed-price package is a bet against the hours column. Our Standard Private Pilot package is $10,400 and our Comprehensive is $15,400 at 55 aircraft hours and 50 dual, which is roughly where the average student actually lands — so a fixed price is cheaper than the middle column above if you fly like an average student and more expensive if you finish near the minimum. CalAir publishes a private pilot course at $34,325, which is consistent with the Cirrus column plus materials.

The lever that moves your number is not the rate you negotiate. It is how often you fly, because that decides the hours. Fly twice a week and the aircraft column shrinks by ten or fifteen hours; fly twice a month and it grows. The full arithmetic is on flight school cost in Los Angeles, and the items that do not appear in any of these columns — headset, charts, materials, checkride retests, rescheduling fees — are on the hidden costs of flight training.

What Thirty Schools In One Table Actually Reveal

The table is more useful read down the columns than across the rows.

Ten Of Thirty Publish Anything You Can Compare

ActivePILOT, Ascent, LA Flight Academy, One Source, Santa Monica Flyers, Skyward, Long Beach Flying Club, USA Aero Club, CalAir and ourselves publish rates, course prices or both. That is a third of the market. The other twenty ask you to call. If you are trying to build a budget from a laptop you will fail, and the failure is not your fault — there is simply not enough published information in Los Angeles flight training to do it. Build the budget from the schools that publish, then ask the rest to quote against those numbers.

The Real Price Spread Is Enormous

A private pilot certificate in this table runs from something like $13,000 at the cheapest published end to $34,325 at CalAir. Both numbers are honest. The difference is aircraft: a $108-an-hour Cessna at a Long Beach club and a $380-an-hour Cirrus at Hawthorne are not the same product, and the certificate at the end is identical. Decide what you are buying before you compare prices. If it is the certificate, the cheapest airworthy airplane with a good instructor wins. If it is time on type in an aircraft you intend to fly afterwards, it does not.

Four Schools In Thirty State Part 141

Corsair Aviation and Flying Academy at Van Nuys, Universal Air Academy at El Monte, and Channel Islands Aviation at Camarillo state Part 141 or a combination of Part 61 and Part 141 programs. Part 141 permits reduced minimum hours in approved courses under §141.55 and is required for M-1 student visa sponsorship, but the national average time to a private certificate exceeds either minimum, so the hour saving usually stays theoretical. The detail is on Part 61 versus Part 141 in Los Angeles.

Intro Flight Prices Say Almost Nothing About Course Prices

The published intro flights in this table run from $99 at Vista Air to $1,425 at CalAir, a fourteen-fold spread, and the ordering bears no relationship to what a full course costs at the same schools. An intro flight is a marketing product at some schools and a first lesson at others. The three questions that separate them: how long are you airborne, is the time logged as dual instruction, and is the fee credited if you enroll. Ours is sixty minutes, logged, and credited in full within twenty-four hours; the comparison of what is on offer across the city is on discovery flight cost.

Fleet Size Is Where The Schools Genuinely Differ

Sling publishes more than sixty aircraft. Santa Monica Flyers publishes twenty. Ascent publishes twelve, and so do we. LA Flight Academy publishes nine. One Source publishes three. The rest publish types or nothing. Fleet size is a proxy for the thing you actually care about, which is whether you can book the slot you want in four months' time — but only when you divide it by active students, and nobody publishes that. Ask in the office.

How To Get From Thirty Schools To Three Visits

Thirty is not a shortlist, it is a starting population. Cut it in three passes.

Pass one: the drive. Put your home or office postcode into a map and cut every airport you cannot reach in forty minutes at the time of day you would actually fly. In Los Angeles this single filter usually removes two thirds of the list, and it is the filter that most predicts whether you finish. A student who can fly twice a week finishes a private certificate in a few months. A student who can fly twice a month may never finish at all, and the difference is almost always the commute. We put the arithmetic behind that claim on part-time flight training in Los Angeles.

Pass two: the hard requirement. If you need an M-1 student visa, your list is the Part 141 and SEVIS names. If you need a tailwheel or upset recovery endorsement, your list is very short. If you want to train in a Cirrus, it is Mach 1, CalAir, LA Flight Academy or ourselves. If you need helicopter training, it is Universal Air Academy or the Van Nuys rotary operators. A genuine hard requirement collapses a thirty-name list faster than any comparison table.

Pass three: the three visits. Book a discovery or intro flight at three schools, ideally in the same fortnight, and ask every one of them the same six questions: how many aircraft and how many active students; how long from inquiry to a booked first lesson; what an hour of dual costs all-in; what happens to your money if you stop halfway; what the written weather and cancellation policy says; and how many instructors have been there more than a year. The long version of that list is on questions to ask a flight school, and a scoring framework you can apply to any school is on best flight schools in Los Angeles.

Three intro flights will cost you somewhere between $300 and $700 in total. Against a course that will cost five figures, that is the cheapest due diligence in aviation.

Where We Sit In This Table, Plainly

We are one of thirty and we are not the right answer for everybody in it. If you need a student visa, we cannot help and Flying Academy or Universal Air Academy can. If you want the largest fleet in Southern California and you live in the South Bay, Sling has sixty aircraft and we have twelve. If you want the lowest hourly rate published anywhere in this table, Long Beach Flying Club starts at $108 and we start at $179 package or $269 retail. If you want an all-Cirrus school, Mach 1 and CalAir are built around that and we fly one SR22 Turbo.

What we do is publish everything and hold it fixed. Twelve aircraft and two training devices, an hourly rate for every airplane in both package and retail form, instruction at $110 per hour, and fixed course prices — Sport Pilot $8,400, Private Pilot from $10,400, Instrument $11,700, Commercial $15,400, Multi-Engine $5,100 over seven days, the full instructor ladder at $15,400 and the Airline Pilot Career Program at $84,000. Those prices do not move once you enroll. That is the whole proposition, and whether it is worth more to you than sixty airplanes or a Part 141 certificate is a judgment only you can make.

Related Reading

• Flight school in Los Angeles — the singular search: what we do, where, and what it costs.
• Every flight school at Van Nuys Airport — all twenty-two KVNY operators in full detail.
• Accelerated flight schools compared — ATP, Sling, 14-day and 30-day programs side by side.
• Best airport for flight training in Los Angeles — VNY, SMO, TOA, LGB, WHP and EMT compared.
• How to choose a flight school in Los Angeles — the twelve-point checklist for your visits.
• Flight school cost in Los Angeles — how hourly rates build into a course price.

Los Angeles Flight Schools FAQ

How Many Flight Schools Are There In Los Angeles?

Thirty schools across eight airports meet the criteria used on this page: they train civilian pilots toward FAA certificates, have their own website, operate from an airport in or adjoining Los Angeles County, and were trading in September 2026. Seventeen of the thirty are at Van Nuys. Counting helicopter operators, rental businesses and clubs would raise the total; counting only Part 141 schools would cut it to four.

Which Los Angeles Airport Is Best For Flight Training?

The one you can reach in forty minutes at the time of day you would actually fly, because lesson frequency decides whether you finish. Beyond that, Van Nuys offers the most schools and the busiest tower environment, Whiteman is cheaper and quieter, Long Beach mixes training with airline traffic, Torrance carries a landing fee and a 2024 flight-school ordinance, and Santa Monica closes on 31 December 2028.

Which Los Angeles Flight Schools Publish Their Prices?

Ten of the thirty publish rates, course prices or both: ActivePILOT, Ascent Aviation Academy, LA Flight Academy, One Source Aviation, You Fly LA, Santa Monica Flyers, Skyward Air Pilot Academy, Long Beach Flying Club, USA Aero Club and CalAir Aviation. The other twenty ask you to make contact for a quotation.

Is Part 141 Better Than Part 61 In Los Angeles?

Not for most private pilot students. Part 141 allows reduced minimum hours in FAA-approved courses under 14 CFR 141.55, but the average student exceeds either minimum anyway, so the saving rarely materializes. Part 141 matters decisively for M-1 student visa sponsorship and for certain funded programs. Four schools in this table state Part 141 programs: Corsair Aviation, Flying Academy, Universal Air Academy and Channel Islands Aviation.

What Does An Intro Or Discovery Flight Cost In Los Angeles?

Published prices in this table run from $99 at Vista Air to $1,425 for CalAir's introductory Cirrus course, with most schools between $195 and $299. Ours is $229 for sixty minutes. Compare three things rather than the headline: how long you are airborne, whether the hour is logged as dual instruction, and whether the fee is credited toward a course if you enroll.

Which Los Angeles Flight Schools Take International Students?

Sponsoring an M-1 student visa requires SEVIS approval and an FAA-approved Part 141 course. In this table, Flying Academy Los Angeles at Van Nuys states it is FAR 141 and SEVIS approved, and Universal Air Academy at El Monte states it supports TSA approval, M-1 visas and I-20 forms. We are Part 61 and cannot issue I-20 forms, though we do train visitors already lawfully in the United States — see international student pilots.

Which Los Angeles Flight Schools Offer Multi-Engine Training?

Those publishing a twin in their fleet or a multi-engine course include LA Flight Academy with a Baron BE55, Wings Over L.A. with two Travel Air BE95s, One Source Aviation with a twin at $350 per hour, Sling Pilot Academy with a Tecnam P2006T, Angel City Flyers with the Diamond DA42 and DA62, ActivePILOT, Ascent, The Flight Academy, Aviators, Pacific Skies, Universal Air Academy, Channel Islands and ourselves with a Piper Seminole. Availability rather than price is normally the constraint on twin time in Los Angeles.

How Do I Compare Two Flight Schools Fairly?

Ask both the same six questions and write the answers down on the day: aircraft count and active students per aircraft, time from inquiry to a booked first lesson, all-in cost of an hour of dual, refund position if you stop halfway, the written weather and cancellation policy, and how many instructors have been there over a year. Comparing hourly rates alone is the most common mistake, because the rate is the number least predictive of what you finally pay.

Start With One Flight, Not A Spreadsheet

Thirty schools is a table. One hour in the left seat is information. A discovery flight with us is $229 for sixty minutes from Van Nuys, you fly the airplane with an instructor beside you, the time is logged as dual instruction toward a certificate, and the fee is credited in full toward a course if you enroll within twenty-four hours. Book two more at two other schools on this page and compare what you found, not what you read. If you would rather talk it through first, book a free consultation and ask us about any school in the table, including the ones that are not us. Call (818) 330-1318 any day between 9 AM and 9 PM. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406.