Flyable Days: How Often You Can Actually Fly At Van Nuys

The NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals for Van Nuys Airport, station USW00023130, record an average of 33.9 days a year with measurable precipitation of 0.01 inches or more, which leaves roughly 331 days a year with none. That is not the same as 331 flyable days, and the gap between those two numbers is what this page is about.

We would rather give you a small number of verifiable figures than a large number of invented ones. Everything numeric below comes from published NOAA climate normals with the station identifier and the period stated. Where no published figure exists for something — and for cloud ceilings at these airports, none that we could source does — we describe the pattern qualitatively and say so plainly. If you are at the earlier stage of working out how training fits your life, start with learn to fly in Los Angeles.

What Flyable Actually Means

There is no single definition, because the standard moves with who is flying.

A commercial pilot on an instrument flight plan can operate on days a student cannot leave the pattern. A private pilot with an instrument rating has a wider window than one without. A student flying dual, with an instructor beside them, can fly in conditions that same student cannot fly solo. And a pre-solo student has the narrowest window of all, because the endorsement under 14 CFR 61.87 is issued by an instructor who sets conditions on it, and because those first lessons need reasonably smooth air and a manageable crosswind to be worth the money.

So there are really four questions hiding inside the phrase how often can I fly. Can the airplane legally fly. Can the airplane safely fly. Can you usefully learn in those conditions. And is it a good use of the money you are paying for the hour. A lesson flown in heavy turbulence at the edge of the crosswind limit satisfies the first two and fails the second two.

When we say a day is flyable for training, we mean the third and fourth of those: conditions in which a student makes progress rather than simply survives.

The Only Numbers We Can Actually Source

Aviation weather cancellations are driven mainly by cloud ceiling, visibility and wind. Published long-period climate normals for ceiling and visibility at individual Los Angeles airports are not something we were able to source in a form we could cite, so we are not going to print any. Anyone quoting you a precise percentage of days with a ceiling below 1,500 feet at Van Nuys should be asked where it comes from.

What is published, and easy to verify, is the NOAA 1991–2020 monthly and annual climate normals for precipitation and temperature at each airport weather station. Precipitation days are an imperfect proxy for cancellations, because most Southern California cancellations happen on days with no rain at all. Temperature normals, by contrast, turn out to be a surprisingly good indirect measure of the marine layer, which is the thing that actually cancels lessons here.

Here are the annual figures for the four airports most Los Angeles students choose between.

The first thing to notice is how little difference there is. Across twenty miles of coastline and valley, the wettest of these fields sees about four more wet days a year than the driest. Rain is simply not the variable that separates Los Angeles airports, and any school selling you on its dry weather relative to a rival ten miles away is selling you a rounding error.

Rain Days, Month By Month

From June to September the normals give Van Nuys 0.4, 0.1, 0.1 and 0.6 wet days respectively. Torrance records a normal of 0.0 days in August. Four months of the year, rain effectively does not happen here. Almost all of the annual total lands between December and March, and even then February, the wettest month, averages 6.4 wet days at Van Nuys, which is a little over a fifth of the month.

A wet day is also not a lost day. Southern California rain tends to arrive in frontal bands with clear air behind them, so a February morning can be unflyable and the same afternoon perfectly good.

Rain Is Not The Problem. Low Cloud Is

The thing that cancels lessons in Los Angeles is the marine layer: a shallow deck of stratus that forms over the cool ocean and pushes inland overnight, most persistently from late spring into early summer. It produces low ceilings and reduced visibility under a sky that is often brilliantly clear a thousand feet above, and it burns off through the morning as the land heats.

Because it is driven by the temperature contrast between the ocean and the land, its strength shows up clearly in the temperature normals. Here is the mean daily maximum temperature at a valley station and a coastal station, four miles from the water, and the gap between them.

In December the two stations are 1.2 degrees apart. In August they are 16.6 degrees apart. That widening gap is the marine influence holding the coast down while the valley heats, and it is the reason coastal and inland fields have different flying days from the same weather system.

Two practical consequences follow. First, an inland field usually clears earlier, because burn-off works from the inland edge outward, so Van Nuys is frequently flying while a coastal field is still waiting. Second, the same heat that clears the cloud produces summer afternoon turbulence and higher density altitude in the valley, which coastal fields largely escape. Neither field wins outright; they lose different hours.

The Training Year, Month By Month

December to February. The best flying of the year and the least appreciated. Cool, stable air, excellent visibility after a front passes, minimal turbulence and no marine layer to speak of, with the coast-to-valley temperature gap at its narrowest of the year. Against that, these are the three wettest months, with Van Nuys normals of 5.6, 5.1 and 6.4 wet days. You will lose some mornings to rain, and the days you fly will be the smoothest you ever get.

March and April. Transitional. Rain tapers from 5.3 to 3.0 normal wet days at Van Nuys, wind picks up as systems move through, and the marine layer begins to appear on some mornings as the coast-to-valley gap widens from 5.7 to 7.2 degrees. Afternoons are often excellent.

May and June. The marine layer season, known locally by names that need no explanation. Rain is essentially finished, with normals of 1.5 and 0.4 wet days at Van Nuys, but low overcast is at its most persistent, and on the worst days it does not clear until the afternoon. This is the period where early morning lessons are the most likely to be canceled and late morning or midday slots are the most reliable, which is the opposite of the rest of the year.

July to September. Rain effectively stops. Van Nuys normals give 0.1, 0.1 and 0.6 wet days. The marine layer weakens through the season and generally clears earlier in the day. The limiting factor becomes heat: mean daily maximums of 91.2, 93.1 and 90.4 degrees at Van Nuys, which brings afternoon turbulence and density altitude of roughly 3,400 feet at 95 degrees given the field elevation of 802 feet. Fly at 6:30 or 7:00 and the air is glassy. Fly at 3:00 in the afternoon and you will work hard for less learning.

October and November. Often the second-best stretch of the year. The marine layer has gone, the heat has broken, and rain has not yet arrived in quantity, with Van Nuys normals of 2.4 and 3.4 wet days. The complication is offshore wind. Santa Ana events are strongest in autumn and produce strong, gusty, often turbulent conditions over the passes and canyons. They are usually short-lived, they are forecast well in advance, and they cancel more lessons than October rain does.

What Actually Cancels A Lesson At Van Nuys

In rough order of how often it happens across a year.

A low ceiling. Overwhelmingly the most common cause, and almost always a marine layer morning between roughly April and July. It rarely costs a whole day; it costs the first slot or two.

Wind and crosswind. Van Nuys runways are aligned roughly north-south, so a strong westerly puts the wind across them. Every aircraft type has a demonstrated crosswind component, and every school sets student limits inside it, tighter for solo than for dual. A wind that is fine for a dual lesson can still ground a solo student.

Turbulence. Summer afternoons over the valley, and Santa Ana conditions in autumn. Rarely dangerous, frequently pointless for early training.

Rain and thunderstorms. Thirty-four days a year on the normals, most of them between December and March, and many of them partial days.

Non-weather causes. Aircraft maintenance, an instructor on a checkride, and temporary flight restrictions, the last of which matter more here than most places because wildfire restrictions and stadium events both occur in this basin.

Our full policy on cancellations, rebooking and what happens to your money is set out on the weather and cancellation policy, and we are not going to restate it here.

How To Lose The Fewest Lessons

Book the first slot of the day, except in May and June. For nine months of the year the morning air is the smoothest and the pattern the quietest. In late spring and early summer, reverse it and book late morning or midday, when the marine layer has had time to lift.

Fly twice a week rather than once. This is a weather strategy as much as a learning one. Two scheduled lessons a week means a cancellation costs you three days, not ten, and your skills do not decay while you wait.

Be reachable and be flexible. Marine layer mornings clear quickly and unpredictably. Students who can accept a same-day slot when a burn-off happens early, or take somebody else's cancellation, fly considerably more hours a year than students who cannot.

Use a canceled slot rather than losing it. A grounded morning is a good morning for ground instruction at $110 an hour, for a simulator session, or for the written exam preparation that most students postpone.

Watch the forecast, not the window. A gray sky at seven in June tells you very little. The terminal forecast for the field tells you when it is expected to lift, and learning to read it is part of becoming a pilot.

The Simulator Never Cancels

Our Redbird MCX is a full-motion device approved by the FAA as an advanced aviation training device, with single- and multi-engine profiles. It flies in any weather, and the hours are not merely practice: up to 50 hours are creditable toward a commercial certificate, and 20 of the 40 dual hours required for an instrument rating may be flown in it. Inside a training package it is $120 an hour, and a standalone sixty-minute simulator experience is $189.

In a marine layer month, a student with a simulator option loses far fewer training days than one without. That is the single most effective hedge against Los Angeles weather that a flight school can offer, and it is worth asking about wherever you train. More on the full-motion simulator.

So How Many Days Can You Actually Fly

Here is the honest answer. The published normals establish that measurable rain falls at Van Nuys on about 34 days a year, leaving roughly 331 days without it. Subtract marine layer mornings concentrated in May and June, high-wind days concentrated in autumn, and summer afternoons that are flyable but poor value for early training, and a realistic student flying mornings will find the great majority of their scheduled lessons go ahead, with the highest cancellation rate in late spring and the lowest in autumn and midwinter.

We are not going to reduce that to a single percentage, because we would be making it up. What we can say from the published data is that Los Angeles has among the most reliable flying weather of any major metropolitan area in the United States, that the differences between local airports are small, and that when you schedule your lessons matters more than where you schedule them.

Related Reading

• Weather and cancellation policy — what happens when we cancel, and how rebooking works.
• Best airport for flight training in Los Angeles — six fields on published FAA data.
• The full-motion simulator — the hedge against a grounded morning.
• Learn to fly in Los Angeles — the whole process, step by step.
• Van Nuys versus Camarillo — the same weather question between two specific fields.
• Night flying, currency and training — using the long tower day.

Flyable Days In Los Angeles FAQ

How Many Days A Year Can You Fly In Los Angeles?

The NOAA 1991–2020 normals for Van Nuys Airport, station USW00023130, give 33.9 days a year with 0.01 inches of precipitation or more, leaving about 331 days without measurable rain. Not all of those are good training days, because low cloud and wind ground more lessons than rain does.

What Is The Marine Layer And When Is It Worst?

A shallow deck of low stratus that forms over the cool ocean and pushes inland overnight, producing low ceilings that burn off through the morning. It is most persistent from late spring into early summer, which matches the widening of the coast-to-valley temperature gap in the NOAA normals, from 2.8 degrees in February to 16.6 degrees in August.

Which Month Has The Best Flying Weather?

December through February give the smoothest air, the best visibility and no marine layer, at the cost of being the three wettest months. October and November are a close second, with the caveat of Santa Ana wind events.

Does It Rain Much In Los Angeles?

Very little, and almost all of it between December and March. The Van Nuys annual normal is 13.42 inches. From June to September the monthly normals for days with measurable precipitation are 0.4, 0.1, 0.1 and 0.6.

Is The Weather Better Inland Or At The Coast?

They lose different hours. Inland fields clear the marine layer earlier, so they lose fewer late-spring mornings. Coastal fields stay cooler, so they lose fewer summer afternoons to turbulence and density altitude. Annual rainfall is almost identical: 13.42 inches at Van Nuys, 13.45 at Santa Monica, 13.64 at Torrance and 12.02 at Long Beach.

What Time Of Day Should I Book My Lesson?

The first slot of the day for nine months of the year, because the air is smoothest and the pattern quietest. In May and June, book late morning or midday instead, so the marine layer has time to lift.

What Happens If My Lesson Is Canceled For Weather?

You are not charged and the lesson is rescheduled. The full policy, including rebooking notice periods, is on our weather and cancellation policy page.

Can I Still Train On A Grounded Day?

Yes. Ground instruction is $110 an hour and the Redbird MCX full-motion simulator flies in any weather at $120 an hour inside a package. Up to 50 simulator hours are creditable toward a commercial certificate and 20 of the 40 dual hours for an instrument rating.

Pick A Morning And Come And Fly

If you are trying to work out whether the weather will let you train consistently, the answer is that it almost certainly will, and the scheduling advice above matters more than the climate does. A discovery flight is $229 for sixty minutes, flown from the left seat with an instructor beside you, logged as dual instruction toward a certificate, and credited in full toward a course if you enroll within twenty-four hours. If the weather grounds us, you are not charged and we rebook. To plan a schedule around your own 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.