Van Nuys Airport sits inside a residential valley, and how our aircraft are flown out of it matters to tens of thousands of people who never set foot on the field. LAWA publishes the noise rules for VNY — a mandatory partial curfew, a voluntary Quieter Nights program between 11 PM and 7 AM, a ban on touch-and-go operations between 9 PM and 7 AM, and specific departure procedures off each runway. We teach all of it from the first lesson, and we fly to it.
This page sets out the published procedures, what a light training aircraft can realistically do about noise, and what our students are taught. If you want the airport itself — the airspace, the runways, what you fly over — that is on our flying out of Van Nuys Airport page.
The Published VNY Noise Rules
These are LAWA's own published restrictions for Van Nuys Airport. Check iflyvny.com and lawa.org for the current text before you plan a flight, because procedures are periodically amended.
| Rule | What it says | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Quieter Nights Program | Jet operators are encouraged to avoid flights between 11 PM and 7 AM wherever possible | Voluntary |
| Partial curfew, Stage 2 aircraft | Stage 2 aircraft may not depart between 10 PM and 7 AM; medical and military flights exempt | Mandatory |
| Stage 3 aircraft | Not restricted until 11 PM | Mandatory |
| Touch-and-go operations | Prohibited between 9 PM and 7 AM | Mandatory, and it applies to us |
| Preferred runway for jets | Runway 16R | Preferential |
| Departures from 16R and 16L | Climb straight out over the flood basin before starting any turn | Procedure |
| Departures from 34R and 34L | Climb to 1,800 feet before starting any turn | Procedure |
| Jet repetitive operations | Pattern flying and repetitive training by jets is not permitted | Mandatory |
| No Early Turn Program | Minimizes jet departures that turn before reaching the Sepulveda Basin | Program |
| Landings and helicopter operations | No curfew restriction | — |
Two of those bind us directly. The 9 PM touch-and-go prohibition ends pattern work for the night, which is why our evening lessons after that hour are flown as cross-country, airwork or night currency rather than circuits. The departure procedures — straight out over the flood basin southbound, 1,800 feet before turning northbound — are taught as the normal way to leave the airport, not as an optional courtesy.
What The Departure Procedures Are Actually Protecting
The geometry explains the rules. Departing south on 16R or 16L, an early left or right turn puts an aircraft over dense housing within a mile of the runway end. Continuing straight keeps you over the Sepulveda Basin — a flood control basin with golf courses, playing fields and a wildlife reserve rather than bedrooms — for the first part of the climb. It is the single largest piece of open ground in the area and it is directly off the departure end.
Departing north on 34R or 34L, the terrain rises toward the San Gabriel foothills and the housing is closer in. The 1,800-foot requirement before turning exists so that the aircraft is already high when the turn puts it over homes. Height is the most effective noise abatement available to any aircraft: noise falls with distance, and a few hundred extra feet on the climbout is worth more to the people below than any power reduction.
What A Training Aircraft Can Do
Most of the published noise apparatus at Van Nuys is aimed at jets, because that is where the complaints come from. A 100-horsepower Cessna 162 is not the source of anyone's sleepless night. That is not a reason to be careless, and a school flying hundreds of circuits a month is a meaningful presence over the same neighborhoods.
These are the habits we teach.
- Climb at the best rate you safely can. Getting height early puts distance between the propeller and the ground. Vy gets you up faster than a shallow cruise climb.
- Fly the published pattern altitude precisely. A pattern flown 200 feet low is measurably louder on the ground and is also a traffic hazard.
- Reduce power smoothly in the descent rather than making repeated large changes. Rapid power changes and propeller speed changes are what people notice.
- Avoid unnecessary high-RPM operation at low altitude. On a fixed-pitch trainer this is mostly about not dragging the aircraft in on a long low approach under power.
- Do not overfly noise-sensitive areas when there is an alternative. Schools, hospitals and the residential blocks either side of the extended centerline.
- Respect the 9 PM touch-and-go cutoff without being reminded.
- Keep run-ups in the designated areas and keep them brief.
None of these compromises safety. Where a noise procedure and a safe flight path conflict, the safe flight path wins every time — that is the pilot in command's authority and no abatement program overrides it. Under 14 CFR 91.119 you must in any case remain at least 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a 2,000-foot horizontal radius over congested areas, except when taking off or landing, and that floor is a legal minimum rather than a target.
Where We Practice Instead
Not every lesson has to happen over houses, and most of ours do not. Airwork — steep turns, slow flight, stalls, emergency descents — is flown in practice areas away from residential density: over the Santa Susana and Santa Monica mountain ranges, out toward the open ground north-west of the Valley, and over the water once clear of the coast. Cross-country training goes to Camarillo, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield and out into the high desert, which takes the aircraft out of the basin entirely.
Pattern work has to happen at an airport, and some of it happens here. When circuits are the lesson and the pattern is busy, we will often take a student to a quieter field for the session, which is better training and better for the neighborhood at the same time.
The full-motion simulator does real work here too. Emergency procedures, instrument approaches and engine-failure drills flown in the Redbird MCX are hours not flown over anybody's roof, and a proportion of them count toward certificates.
Why Van Nuys Generates Complaints At All
It helps to understand the shape of the problem rather than just the rules. Van Nuys is a Class D tower airport with two parallel runways, 16R/34L at 8,001 feet and 16L/34R at 4,000 feet, and it is one of the world's busiest general aviation airports by movements. The long runway takes business jets; the short one takes most of the training traffic. The airport is surrounded on three sides by residential San Fernando Valley, and there is a road tunnel under the runway at Sherman Way because the city grew around the field rather than away from it.
The complaints are not evenly distributed across that traffic. Jet departures, particularly early-turning ones and early-morning ones, generate most of them, which is why almost every published program — Quieter Nights, the No Early Turn Program, the preferential use of 16R, the ban on jet pattern work — is written about jets. Light piston training aircraft feature far less. But there are a great many of us, we fly the same patterns repeatedly, and a school that treats the rules as somebody else's problem is a school that eventually becomes part of one.
What Time We Fly, And Why
Our hours are 9 AM to 9 PM, seven days, and the flying day is shaped as much by air quality as by the curfew. Mornings are smooth and the marine layer usually burns off by mid-morning; afternoons build thermals over the heated Valley floor and the sea breeze strengthens; evenings settle again. We schedule first-timers and nervous students into mornings where we can, which happens to also be the part of the day with the least noise sensitivity.
Evening flying is real training, not scenic flying with a syllabus stapled to it. Night currency under 14 CFR 61.57(b) requires ten takeoffs and landings to a full stop at night to carry passengers, and full-stop landings are exactly what remains available after the 9 PM touch-and-go cutoff, so the restriction and the requirement fit together more neatly than you would expect. Our page on night flying currency and training explains how those lessons are built.
If You Live Under The Pattern
If aircraft noise is affecting you, the effective route is the airport's own channels rather than calling a flight school. LAWA runs a noise portal at noiseportal.lawa.org/vny for logging comments, a noise comments form on the LAWA site, and a phone line on (855) 463-5252. The VNY airport office publishes a separate contact number on iflyvny.com, listed there as (818) 442-6506. Reports through those channels are recorded against operations and feed into the data the airport and the Southern San Fernando Valley Airplane Noise Task Force work from. A complaint to us is not recorded anywhere official.
That said, if you believe one of our aircraft is flying badly — low, repeatedly over the same houses, at an unreasonable hour — call (818) 330-1318 and tell us. Our tail numbers are public and our fleet is listed on the airplanes you'll fly. We would rather hear it from you than not hear it.
Why This Matters To A Flight School
Airports close. Santa Monica's runway has already been shortened to 3,500 feet and the airport is scheduled to close on 31 December 2028 under a consent decree, after decades of conflict with the neighborhood around it. Torrance passed a flight school ordinance in 2024 aimed squarely at training operations. General aviation does not lose airports to economics as often as it loses them to exhausted neighbors.
Van Nuys is one of the world's busiest general aviation airports, and it exists inside a city. Every student we train who flies quietly, climbs promptly and stays off the houses is part of why it will still be here in twenty years. That is not sentiment, it is self-interest, and we teach it as such. Our page on the Santa Monica airport closure covers what happens to a training community when a field goes.
Related Reading
- Flying out of Van Nuys Airport — the airspace, the runways and the traffic.
- Flying in Los Angeles airspace — Class B, the corridors and how to transit.
- The airplanes you'll fly — our fleet and tail numbers.
- The Santa Monica airport closure — what happens when a field loses its neighbors.
- Night flying currency and training — how evening lessons work around the curfew.
- Safety at You Fly LA — maintenance, weather minimums and standards.
- Workshops, open houses and safety seminars — including the FAA safety evenings we host.
Noise Abatement At Van Nuys FAQ
Is There A Curfew At Van Nuys Airport?
There is a mandatory partial curfew: Stage 2 aircraft may not depart between 10 PM and 7 AM, Stage 3 aircraft are not restricted until 11 PM, and touch-and-go operations are prohibited between 9 PM and 7 AM. The Quieter Nights Program additionally asks jet operators to avoid flights between 11 PM and 7 AM voluntarily. Landings and helicopter operations are not restricted.
What Are The Van Nuys Departure Procedures For Noise?
Departing on 16R or 16L, climb straight out over the flood basin before starting any turn. Departing on 34R or 34L, climb to 1,800 feet before starting any turn. Runway 16R is the preferred runway for jets, and jet pattern and repetitive training operations are not permitted.
Can Student Pilots Do Pattern Work At Night At Van Nuys?
Not after 9 PM. Touch-and-go operations are prohibited between 9 PM and 7 AM. Night lessons after that hour are flown as full-stop landings, airwork, cross-country or night currency work instead.
How Do I Report Aircraft Noise Over My House?
Use the LAWA VNY noise portal at noiseportal.lawa.org/vny, the noise comments form on lawa.org, or the phone line published by LAWA on (855) 463-5252. The VNY airport office number published on iflyvny.com is (818) 442-6506. Those channels record the report against airport data; a call to a flight school does not.
Do Small Training Aircraft Have To Follow Noise Abatement?
The published procedures apply to operations at the airport, and we fly them. Most of the curfew apparatus is aimed at jets, but the touch-and-go restriction and the departure procedures apply to light aircraft, and climbing promptly and flying accurate pattern altitudes is expected of every pilot here.
Does Noise Abatement Ever Override Safety?
No. The pilot in command's responsibility for the safe conduct of the flight comes first, and no abatement procedure changes that. In normal conditions there is no conflict, because the quiet way to fly and the safe way to fly are usually the same thing.
Where Do You Practice Maneuvers?
Airwork is flown in practice areas over the mountains and open ground away from residential density, and cross-country training goes out of the basin altogether. Pattern work happens at airports, and we will often take a student to a quieter field for a circuits lesson.
What Is The Sepulveda Basin And Why Does It Matter?
It is a flood control basin immediately south of the airport containing golf courses, playing fields and a wildlife reserve rather than housing. Southbound departures climb straight out over it before turning, which keeps the noisiest part of a departure over open ground.
Learn To Fly Well, And Quietly
Being a good neighbor is a skill, and it is taught the same way every other skill is: from the first lesson, by an instructor who cares about it. A discovery flight is $229 for 60 minutes from Van Nuys, you fly it from the left seat, and the full amount is credited toward your course if you enroll within 24 hours. To talk about training, book a free consultation or call (818) 330-1318 any day from 9 AM to 9 PM. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406.