A flying academy in Los Angeles will train you to an FAA certificate, not a European one, and that single fact decides whether any of them is right for you. If you intend to fly in the United States, an FAA certificate from any competent school at any Los Angeles airport does the job, and our Private Pilot course is $10,400 at Van Nuys. If you intend to fly commercially in Europe, you need an EASA license, and training here is a partial step that you will finish at home.
We get this question constantly, because the phrase flying academy is far more common in British, European, Indian and Middle Eastern English than in American English, and the people typing it are usually not from Los Angeles. This page is written for them. If you are a local reader looking at programs and prices, start with learning to fly in Los Angeles or with what the word flight academy actually means, which covers the business models behind the term.
FAA Or EASA: Decide This Before Anything Else
There are two large regulatory systems issuing pilot licenses to most of the world, and they do not recognize each other automatically.
The FAA system, under 14 CFR Part 61, issues certificates: student, sport, recreational, private, commercial, airline transport, plus ratings for instrument and multi-engine. It is the system we teach in, and it is the system that governs flying in the United States.
The EASA system, under Part-FCL, issues licenses across the European Union and is mirrored closely by the UK CAA post-Brexit and by several other authorities. Other countries — Australia, Canada, India, the Gulf states — run their own frameworks, most of them built on the same ICAO standards but with their own examinations and conversion rules.
A certificate from one system is not a license in another. There are conversion routes, and they are not symmetrical.
| Your Goal | Is An FAA Certificate From Los Angeles The Right Route? |
|---|---|
| Fly privately in the United States | Yes. This is exactly what an FAA private pilot certificate is for. |
| Fly privately in an N-registered aircraft anywhere | Yes, subject to the rules of the country you are flying over. |
| Fly for a US airline | Yes, but you need the legal right to work in the United States, which training does not provide. |
| Fly for a European airline | No, not by itself. You need an EASA or UK CAA license. Hours flown here count toward the total, but the theory examinations and the skill tests are separate. |
| Build hours cheaply toward any license | Often yes. Hours are hours, and Southern California weather means you actually fly them. |
| Convert an existing foreign license for US flying | Yes, under 14 CFR 61.75, described below. |
Converting An FAA Certificate To EASA
The general shape, which you must confirm with the authority that will issue your license, is this. For a private license, an ICAO-compliant FAA certificate converts with a theoretical knowledge examination and a skill test with an examiner, and much of your flight time counts. For a commercial license and above, conversion is harder: EASA requires its own set of theoretical knowledge examinations, which are considerably more extensive than the FAA written tests, plus skill tests, and the credit given for FAA experience varies with your total hours and ratings.
This is why a common pattern among European career students is to do the expensive, weather-dependent part of hour building in the United States and the examinations at home. It is a reasonable strategy. It is not a shortcut, and anyone who tells you an FAA commercial certificate converts easily to an EASA one is selling something. Confirm the current requirements directly with the national authority that will issue your license before you spend money on this basis. Conversion rules change, and they changed materially for UK applicants after Brexit.
Flying A Foreign License In The US Under 14 CFR 61.75
If you already hold a license from an ICAO contracting state and you want to fly in the United States without repeating your training, 14 CFR 61.75 is the route. It issues a US private pilot certificate on the basis of your foreign license, and the detail matters.
- The certificate carries private pilot privileges only, regardless of what your foreign license permits. A foreign commercial license still yields a US private certificate under this section.
- It is dependent on the foreign license. You may only exercise its privileges while the foreign license is valid and in your possession or readily accessible in the aircraft.
- Only one foreign license may serve as the basis for it.
- You need either a medical certificate issued under Part 67 or the medical license issued by the country that issued your foreign license.
- You must read, speak, write and understand English.
- An instrument rating on your foreign license can be placed on the US certificate if the foreign license authorizes instrument privileges, you pass the FAA instrument knowledge test within the preceding 24 months, and you demonstrate English language proficiency.
For a visiting pilot who wants to rent an airplane and fly the California coast, this is usually the right answer and it is much cheaper than starting over. You will still need a checkout with one of our instructors before we rent you an aircraft. For a career pilot, a 61.75 certificate is a convenience rather than a qualification.
The Visa Question, Answered Honestly
This is where most flying academy inquiries from outside the United States end, and we would rather it ended here than after a deposit.
We are a Part 61 flight school. We are not SEVP-certified and we cannot issue an I-20. An I-20 is the document that supports an M-1 vocational student visa, which is the status normally required when flight training is your principal purpose for being in the United States. Only an SEVP-certified school can issue one, and many flight schools including ours are not on that list. If you need an M-1, you need a different school, and we will say so on the phone rather than take a booking.
What that leaves is still substantial. People lawfully in the United States on a range of other statuses train with us regularly. Permanent residents train with us. Visitors who are already here for other reasons and want to fly a discovery flight or a few lessons train with us. What none of that changes is the immigration question, which is between you and a qualified immigration adviser, not between you and a flight school. We do not give immigration advice and you should be wary of any school that does.
TSA Clearance Under The Alien Flight Student Program
Separately from immigration status, United States law requires most non-citizens to obtain Transportation Security Administration clearance before beginning flight training toward a certificate or rating. This applies to green card holders and work visa holders as well as to visitors, and it is administered through the Alien Flight Student Program. You create an account, submit the application and the fee, get fingerprinted at an approved location, and wait for approval, which commonly arrives within around two weeks of the fingerprints being received. The clearance then opens a window during which training must begin.
Discovery flights are generally treated differently from training toward a certificate, which is why a visitor can usually fly an introductory flight without a completed AFSP application. Our full walkthrough of the process is on the international student pilots page, and the short version is on whether you need to be a US citizen to learn to fly.
What Training In Los Angeles Costs
Every price below is a fixed course price with books and materials included. These are the numbers to set against a quotation from a European or Gulf academy.
| Program | Price | Hours Included |
|---|---|---|
| Sport Pilot | $8,400 | 25 flight, 3 simulator, 25 dual, 10 ground |
| Private Pilot, Standard | $10,400 | 38 aircraft, 2 simulator, 30 dual, 3 ground |
| Private Pilot, Comprehensive | $15,400 | 55 aircraft, 5 simulator, 50 dual, 10 ground |
| Turbo Cirrus Private Pilot | $23,400 | 38 hours in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo |
| Instrument Rating | $11,700 | 20 aircraft, 20 simulator, 40 dual, 10 ground |
| Commercial Pilot | $15,400 | 30 aircraft, 20 simulator, 50 dual, 30 ground |
| Multi-Engine Rating | $5,100 | Seven-day accelerated course in the Piper Seminole |
| Flight Instructor: CFI, CFII, MEI | $15,400 | 20 single-engine, 8 multi, 2 simulator, 30 dual, 50 ground |
| Airline Pilot Career Program | $84,000 | Around nine months, 260 logged hours, every rating through MEI |
Hour building, which is what brings a great many international pilots to Southern California, runs at the retail rates: $269 an hour wet for the Cessna 162 Skycatcher or the Piper Warrior, $329 for the Diamond DA20-C1, $349 for the Piper Arrow, and $649 for the Piper Seminole or the Cirrus SR22 Turbo. Instruction, when you want it, is $110 an hour. Inside a course package those same aircraft are $179, $229, $229 and $449. Our time building page covers the logistics, and aircraft rental at Van Nuys covers the checkout requirements.
The Three Costs Nobody Quotes
The FAA knowledge test is approximately $175 at a PSI testing center. The examiner fee for a practical test in Southern California runs roughly $800 to $1,000, paid directly to the designated examiner. An FAA medical certificate from an aviation medical examiner is a separate appointment and a separate fee. Add a headset and a tablet subscription and the realistic gap between a quoted package and what leaves your account is $1,100 to $1,900. That gap exists at every school, including ours, and any quotation that does not mention it is incomplete rather than cheap. Our hidden costs of flight training page itemizes them.
Why Southern California, Specifically
The reason international students have trained in this part of the world for decades is not price. It is weather, and what weather does to a schedule.
A course priced at 45 hours costs 45 hours only if you fly them close together. Every gap between lessons costs you time re-flying material you had already learned, and in a climate with long unflyable stretches those gaps are not optional. Southern California gives you a very high proportion of flyable days across the year, which means a five-day-a-week schedule is a schedule rather than an aspiration. That is where the saving comes from, and it applies whether you are working toward an FAA certificate or building hours for a license you will finish at home.
The second reason is the airspace. Van Nuys is a Class D tower directly under the Los Angeles Class B shelf, with two parallel runways of 8,001 and 4,000 feet. You will do busy-tower radio work, sequencing and Class B transitions as ordinary weekly practice. Pilots who train in quiet airspace and then take a job in a busy one find that transition expensive. Pilots who train here do not.
What To Look For In Any Flying Academy
Four questions separate the serious operations from the rest, wherever in the world you are asking them.
What exactly is included, in hours? Not in dollars. A package quoting the 40-hour minimum in 14 CFR 61.109 is quoting a legal floor. Most students need more, and the difference will be billed at the retail rate. Ask for aircraft hours, dual hours and ground hours as three separate numbers.
Who owns the aircraft, and who maintains them? A school flying its own fleet with in-house maintenance controls its own availability. A school brokering someone else's aircraft does not.
What is the instructor turnover? Every instructor change costs a student two or three hours of re-covering ground. At schools with high turnover it happens two or three times per certificate.
What happens if you have to stop? Ask about refunds, about the expiry of unused hours, and about what the rate becomes when the package runs out. Get the answer in writing. Our questions to ask any flight school puts these in the order that produces honest answers.
Related Reading
- Flight training for international students — the TSA Alien Flight Student Program step by step.
- Flight academy in Los Angeles — what the word means and the business models behind it.
- Flying school in Los Angeles — written for readers used to British and Commonwealth aviation English.
- Flying in the US on a foreign pilot license — the 14 CFR 61.75 route in detail.
- Time building in Los Angeles — rates, aircraft and how to plan a block.
- What flight school costs in Los Angeles — every line item, including the third-party fees.
- Aviation academy in Los Angeles — five kinds of institution use that name.
Flying Academy Questions, Answered
What Is A Flying Academy?
It is a flight school, usually one selling structured full-time programs rather than hourly lessons. The phrase is standard in British, European, Indian and Gulf English and rare in American usage. The FAA does not define or recognize the term, so it tells you nothing about certification or quality.
Can I Get An EASA License At A Flying Academy In Los Angeles?
Not from us. We train to FAA certificates under 14 CFR Part 61. Some pilots build hours here and complete the theoretical examinations and skill tests with an approved training organization in Europe, but you must confirm the current conversion requirements with the authority that will issue your license before planning around them.
Do You Issue An I-20 For An M-1 Student Visa?
No. We are not SEVP-certified, so we cannot issue an I-20 and cannot support an M-1 visa application. If flight training is your principal purpose for coming to the United States, you need an SEVP-certified school. We would rather tell you before you book than after.
Do I Need TSA Approval To Train In Los Angeles?
If you are not a US citizen, yes, for training toward a certificate or rating, through the Alien Flight Student Program. It applies to permanent residents and work visa holders as well as visitors. Approval commonly arrives within around two weeks of fingerprinting.
Can I Fly In The US On My Foreign Pilot License?
Yes, by obtaining a US certificate under 14 CFR 61.75 on the basis of your ICAO license. It grants private pilot privileges only, is valid only while your foreign license is valid and with you, and an instrument rating can be added if you pass the FAA instrument knowledge test within the preceding 24 months.
How Much Does A Flying Academy In Los Angeles Cost?
Our Private Pilot course is $10,400 for the Standard package or $15,400 for the 55-hour Comprehensive package. A zero-to-instructor career program is $84,000. Hour building is $269 an hour wet in the Cessna 162 or Piper Warrior. Add $1,100 to $1,900 for the medical, the written test and the examiner fee.
How Long Does It Take To Get A Private Pilot Certificate Here?
Six to eight weeks flying full-time, or three to six months flying twice a week. The FAA minimum in 14 CFR 61.109 is 40 hours, but most students need 50 to 65. How often you fly matters far more than anything else.
Is Training In Los Angeles Cheaper Than In Europe?
Hourly rates in Los Angeles are around or slightly above the US national average because hangar space, insurance and fuel cost more here. The saving against Europe comes mainly from consistency: a high proportion of flyable days means fewer wasted weeks and fewer repeated lessons, which is what actually drives the total.
Fly The Airplane Before You Commit To Anything
Whatever system you eventually license under, the first hour is the same hour. A discovery flight is $229 for 60 minutes from Van Nuys, you fly it yourself from the left seat with an instructor beside you, and it is logged as dual instruction in your logbook. If you enroll within 24 hours, the full $229 credits toward your course. If you want to talk through the FAA and EASA question, or the visa question, before booking anything, book a free consultation and we will give you a straight answer even when the answer is that we are not the right school. Call (818) 330-1318 any day, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM Pacific time. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406.