You Fly LA runs four kinds of event at Van Nuys Airport: hangar open houses, checkride and oral exam prep workshops, ground school evenings on a single subject, and simulator clinics on the Redbird MCX. None of them has a fixed published calendar, because we schedule them around instructor and aircraft availability rather than around a marketing plan. Call (818) 330-1318 or register your interest and we will tell you what is next.
This page explains what each format involves, who it suits and how to get on the list. If you are planning a private booking for a group, a birthday, a corporate day or a proposal rather than attending one of ours, that is a different page: see groups, proposals and events.
Hangar Open Houses
An open house is two to three hours at 7900 Balboa Blvd with the aircraft out and the instructors available. It is aimed at people who have not committed to anything and want to ask questions in person rather than on a phone call.
What happens: you look over the fleet with someone who flies them — the Cessna 162 Skycatchers, the Piper Warriors, the Diamond DA20, the Piper Arrow, the Seminole and the Cirrus SR22 Turbo — sit in the cockpits, try the full-motion simulator, and talk to instructors and current students about what training actually involves. There is no presentation and no sales pitch, and nobody will ask you for a deposit. Bring photo ID for airport access, wear closed shoes, and bring your children if you have them.
It suits: anyone weighing up flight schools, parents of teenagers, people who have been thinking about it for years, and pilots returning after a long break.
Checkride And Oral Exam Prep Workshops
These are working sessions, not lectures, and they are run for students approaching a practical test. A prep workshop puts a small group in a room with an instructor and works through the Airman Certification Standards line by line: what the examiner is required to test, how the oral is structured, what a satisfactory answer actually looks like, and where applicants most often fail.
| Workshop | Who it is for | Typical content |
|---|---|---|
| Private pilot oral prep | Students within weeks of the private checkride | Certificates and documents, airworthiness, weather, cross-country planning, airspace, systems, aeromedical |
| Instrument rating oral prep | Instrument students before the practical test | Regulations under 14 CFR 61.65, currency under 61.57(c), approach charts, holds, partial panel, icing and alternates |
| Commercial oral prep | Applicants under 14 CFR 61.129 | Commercial privileges and limitations, complex and TAA systems, performance, the maneuvers and their tolerances |
| CFI prep | Instructor candidates | Fundamentals of instruction, lesson plans, teaching from the right seat, the spin endorsement under 61.183(i) |
| Flight review refresher | Pilots due a flight review under 14 CFR 61.56 | Rule changes since your last review, airspace, currency, and the one hour of ground the rule requires |
A workshop does not replace the one-to-one preparation your instructor gives you and it does not endorse you for a test. It is the group study you would otherwise have to organize yourself. If you want the written material now rather than waiting for a session, our pages on the FAA checkride and the private pilot written exam cover the same ground.
Ground School Evenings
Single-subject evening sessions, usually ninety minutes, on the topics students find hardest in isolation: weather and how to actually read a forecast, weight and balance arithmetic, the Los Angeles airspace and the Class B corridors, radio phraseology, and cross-country planning from Van Nuys. They are open to our own students and to pilots from elsewhere.
Our structured ground school in Los Angeles page covers the full course; these evenings are for topping up one subject rather than sitting a whole syllabus.
Simulator Clinics
The Redbird MCX is an FAA-approved advanced aviation training device with single- and multi-engine profiles, and it is the cheapest place to practice the things that are expensive or awkward in an aircraft: instrument approaches, engine failures, unusual attitudes and emergency procedures. A clinic runs a rotation of pilots through scenarios with an instructor at the station, which is more useful than an equivalent hour flown alone.
Simulator time is $200 an hour retail and $120 an hour inside a package, and some of it is creditable toward certificates — up to 50 hours toward the commercial and 20 of the 40 instrument dual hours. Our page on simulator hours that count explains exactly which hours the FAA allows.
FAA Safety Seminars And The WINGS Program
The FAA Safety Team runs free safety seminars across Southern California, and credit earned through the WINGS Pilot Proficiency Program can satisfy the flight review requirement in 14 CFR 61.56 when a phase is completed. These are FAA events rather than ours, and they are listed and booked on the FAASafety.gov website — search by location to find what is running near Van Nuys.
We do not currently publish a schedule of FAA Safety Team seminars hosted here. If we host one, it will be listed on this page with the date and the FAASafety.gov event number, and not before. Anything else would be inventing a calendar.
What Makes A Workshop Worth An Evening
A lot of aviation events are a room, a projector and an hour you will not get back. The ones that work share three features, and they are worth demanding of any event you are considering, including ours.
A small group. An oral prep session with six people works because everyone is asked questions. With thirty, it becomes a lecture and you can hide at the back, which is the opposite of useful preparation for an examiner who will not let you.
A defined document to work from. The Airman Certification Standards for your certificate is a published FAA document listing exactly what the examiner must test. A workshop that works through it line by line gives you something measurable; a workshop of general aviation anecdotes does not.
Somebody who has recently sat on the other side of it. Instructors who send students to checkrides regularly know which questions this year's examiners actually ask, which changes more than the ACS does. That is the part you cannot get from a book.
How To Register Interest
Because dates move with aircraft and instructor availability, the way this works is simple: tell us what you want to attend and we will call you when it is scheduled.
- Call (818) 330-1318, any day between 9 AM and 9 PM, and say which format you are interested in.
- Or book a free consultation and mention it there, which also gets your training questions answered in the same conversation.
- Or contact us in writing and we will add you to the list for that format.
Tell us your certificate level and what you are working toward, because it changes which session is worth your evening.
Hosting Or Partnering
We are open to hosting aviation groups, school and university STEM visits, scout and cadet units, and pilot associations in the hangar and classroom. If you run a group that would benefit from a session at a working flight school at one of the world's busiest general aviation airports, call the office. Filming and photography requests go through the same number, and the constraints are set out on our groups and events page.
Related Reading
- Groups, proposals and events — private bookings rather than open sessions.
- Ground school in Los Angeles — the structured course behind the evening sessions.
- The FAA checkride — what the practical test actually involves.
- The flight review — the 24-month requirement under 14 CFR 61.56.
- The full-motion simulator — the Redbird MCX and what it is approved for.
- Flying out of Van Nuys Airport — the airport, the airspace and how to find us.
- Summer flight camp for teens — ten flight hours across a Van Nuys summer.
Workshops And Events FAQ
When Is The Next Open House At You Fly LA?
Dates are set around instructor and aircraft availability rather than published on a fixed calendar. Call (818) 330-1318 and we will tell you what is next and add you to the list.
Do I Have To Be A Student To Attend A Workshop?
No. Open houses, ground school evenings and simulator clinics are open to anyone, including pilots training elsewhere. Checkride prep workshops are most useful to students close to a practical test, whoever their instructor is.
Is There A Charge?
Open houses are free. Instructor-led workshops, ground evenings and simulator clinics are priced according to the instructor and equipment time involved, at $110 an hour for instruction and $200 an hour retail for the full-motion simulator. Call for the price of a specific session.
Do You Host FAA Safety Seminars?
FAA Safety Team seminars and WINGS credit are run by the FAA and listed on FAASafety.gov. If we host one at Van Nuys it will appear on this page with the date and event number. We do not publish a schedule we cannot confirm.
Does A Workshop Count Toward A Flight Review?
A ground session can form part of the one hour of ground instruction required by 14 CFR 61.56, but only when it is given and logged by an authorized instructor as part of your review. Completing a WINGS phase can also satisfy the flight review requirement. Ask before you assume a group session counts.
Can My Group Or School Visit The Hangar?
Yes, subject to scheduling. We host aviation groups, STEM visits, scout and cadet units and pilot associations. Call (818) 330-1318 with the group size and the dates you are considering.
What Should I Bring To An Open House?
Photo ID for airport access, closed shoes and sunglasses. Headsets are provided if you get simulator time. There is no charge and nobody will ask you for a deposit.
Come And See The Place
If you would rather not wait for a scheduled event, the door is open seven days a week from 9 AM to 9 PM. Book a free consultation, come and look at the aircraft, and ask the awkward questions. When you are ready to fly, a discovery flight is $229 for 60 minutes with you flying from the left seat, logged as dual instruction, and credited in full toward a course if you enroll within 24 hours. Call (818) 330-1318. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406.