The airline pilot training program
Five phases, one price, and an aircraft named against each. It starts with somebody who has never touched a control. It ends at a commercial certificate plus an instructor rating — the point where flying starts paying you instead.
What is the airline pilot training program?
A single $89,000 program that carries you from no logbook to a commercial certificate with a multi-engine class rating and a flight instructor rating. Five phases, in a fixed order, over roughly twelve to eighteen months at a full-time tempo.
Most schools sell ratings. This program sells the order they go in, which is the part a beginner cannot construct for themselves and the part that decides how much the whole thing costs. Each phase is a legal prerequisite for the one after it, and each is priced inside the total rather than quoted separately when you get there.
The program ends at the flight instructor rating rather than at the commercial certificate, and that is deliberate. A commercial certificate at 250 hours is not a hireable logbook. The instructor rating is the mechanism that closes the distance between 250 hours and the 1,500-hour floor set by 14 CFR 61.159(a), and it closes it while you are being paid rather than while you are spending.
What the program does not include is the hour-building itself. That is work, not training, and nobody should sell it to you as a course. What we do is put you in a position to do it.
A position worth stating: buying this as one program only makes sense if you can actually fly at the tempo it assumes. If your calendar allows two lessons a week, buy the phases individually and take longer. The $89,000 figure is priced against a schedule, and a schedule you cannot keep is the costliest item anywhere on this page.
What happens in each phase?
Each phase names its certificate, its aircraft and the regulation that sets its requirements. The durations assume four to five flights a week.
Phase 1 — Private pilot certificate
Roughly three to five months. Flown in the Piper Warrior or in the Diamond DA20, with Redbird MCX time carrying the procedures. The aeronautical experience floor is 40 logged hours, from 14 CFR 61.109(a), and it breaks down as three hours of cross-country training, three at night with one leg past 100 nautical miles plus ten full-stop landings, three on instruments, three of test preparation, and ten flown solo. AOPA puts the national figure at 50 to 70 hours, and the Comprehensive program is priced against 60 for exactly that reason. This phase ends with a checkride and a certificate that lets you carry passengers.
Phase 2 — Instrument rating
Roughly two to three months. 14 CFR 61.65(d) asks for 50 hours of cross-country as the pilot flying, ten of them in airplanes, plus forty hours under the hood or in cloud with fifteen of those forty delivered by an instrument instructor. Much of the cross-country requirement is time you were going to fly anyway, which is why this phase often costs less in extra hours than people expect. The honest downside at this field: Southern California gives you very little actual instrument weather, so most of the forty hours are flown under a view-limiting device.
Phase 3 — Commercial certificate
Roughly four to six months, most of it time-building rather than instruction. The commercial certificate sits at 250 logged hours under 14 CFR 61.129(a). Inside that: 100 as pilot in command, 20 hours of training containing ten on instruments and ten flown in an airframe that is complex, turbine-powered or technically advanced, plus a 300 nautical mile cross-country whose furthest point is 250 nautical miles out. The complex requirement is why the Piper Arrow II is on our ramp. A complex airplane also needs the one-time instructor endorsement that 14 CFR 61.31(e) requires before you may command one.
Phase 4 — Multi-engine class rating
Roughly one to two weeks. Flown in the Piper Seminole. 14 CFR 61.63(c) attaches no hour floor at all to an added class rating. An endorsement and a checkride are the whole requirement. Short does not mean easy: single-engine handling in a twin is the sharpest new skill in the whole sequence, and the checkride is unforgiving about it.
Phase 5 — Flight instructor rating
Roughly two to three months. 14 CFR 61.183 asks for eighteen years of age, a commercial or ATP certificate, an instrument rating, a pass on the fundamentals of instructing exam, and fifteen hours commanding the category and class you want to teach in. There is a spin-training endorsement in there too. This is the phase that changes your financial position, because from here the flying is paid.
What do you hold at the end of each phase?
Cumulative, because that is how the decision actually feels. Every row is a document you keep even if you stop there.
Phase by phase, with the hours
| Phase | You finish holding | Governing rule | Approximate logged hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Private pilot certificate | 14 CFR 61.109(a) | 50–70 |
| 2 | Instrument rating | 14 CFR 61.65(d) | 100–140 |
| 3 | Commercial pilot certificate | 14 CFR 61.129(a) | 250 |
| 4 | Multi-engine class rating | 14 CFR 61.63(c) | 260 |
| 5 | Flight instructor certificate | 14 CFR 61.183 | 275–290 |
| After the program | Airline transport pilot certificate | 14 CFR 61.159(a) | 1,500 |
Which aircraft do you fly, and in what order?
Four airframes across the five phases, and the order is driven by regulation rather than preference. Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole.
The Piper Warrior and the Diamond DA20 carry phase 1 and most of phase 2. They are the cheapest place to learn to handle an aeroplane, and cheap handling time is what a first certificate is made of.
The Piper Arrow II carries the complex training inside phase 3. Retractable landing gear and a constant-speed propeller are what let it count against 14 CFR 61.129(a)(3)(ii) and its ten hours of complex, turbine-powered or technically advanced training, and it is why 14 CFR 61.31(e) demands a one-time endorsement before you command one.
The Piper Seminole carries phase 4. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo sits outside this sequence entirely: it belongs to a different product, Premium private pilot at $22,500, and it is the costliest way anyone can build early hours. We would rather you spent that money on tempo.
What does the program cost, and what are the alternatives?
$89,000 as one fixed figure, or the individual phases below if you would rather buy them one at a time.
Airline Career Track
All five phases, one price, fixed at enrolment.
- ✓Private, instrument, commercial, multi-engine, instructor
- ✓Aircraft named against each phase
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No re-quote when you reach a later phase
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Phase 1 on its own. 60 hours logged.
- ✓55 hours single-engine
- ✓5 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓50 hours dual
- ✓10 hours ground
Instrument Rating
Phase 2 on its own.
- ✓14 CFR 61.65(d) experience
- ✓250 nm instrument cross-country
- ✓Redbird MCX for scan and procedure
Multi-Engine Add-On
Phase 4 on its own, added to a private or commercial certificate.
- ✓Flown in the Piper Seminole
- ✓Endorsement plus a checkride
- ✓One to two weeks at a full-time tempo
What can you check about the operation running this?
Five things a stranger can verify. This school is new, has no reviews, and will not borrow anyone else’s.
Airframes on our own books
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. Ours, maintained by us, on our own schedule, and none of them chartered in for an afternoon.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors, and why eleven matters
Every one of the eleven holds a commercial certificate or better, an instructor certificate on top of it, and a current medical. Your instructor signs as pilot in command on every flight, by law.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23A Redbird MCX session
Full-motion, fully enclosed and never scrubbed for weather. Cheap place to learn a procedure, poor place to learn a landing, and that is exactly how we spend it.
Two hours inside Standard and Premium, five inside ComprehensiveDays the weather allowed training
Counted from NOAA ASOS reports at Van Nuys over the twelve months ending 1 August 2026. A day scored only when four daylight hours cleared 3,000 ft of ceiling and five statute miles of visibility.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetProgram prices we hold back
None. Every figure is on the pricing page, without ranges and without a quote gate. What you enroll at is what is printed.
Published in fullWhat $89,000 buys, and what it does not
Airline Pilot Flight School operates under 14 CFR part 61 from Van Nuys Airport. We are not an airline, we are not owned by one, and no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring relationship with any carrier exists here.
The program produces certificates, ratings and roughly 275 logged hours. It does not produce a job, an interview or a place in any queue. Carriers set hiring minimums above the regulatory ones and move them with the market, and no training provider controls that.
We publish no pass rate, no graduate count and no placement figure, because this business has no record worth publishing and will not invent one. What is published instead is the curriculum, the hours, the regulation behind each requirement, and the price.
What people ask about the career track
Five phases. Private pilot certificate, then instrument rating, then commercial certificate, then the multi-engine class rating, then the instructor rating. Aircraft, instruction, ground training and simulator time across all five. The figure is fixed at enrolment and does not get re-quoted when you reach a later phase.
The FAA knowledge tests, the designated pilot examiner’s fee at each practical test, your medical examination and your own equipment. Also, and importantly, the hour-building between 250 hours and 1,500 — that is paid work rather than a purchase, and the instructor rating in phase 5 is what makes it available to you.
Twelve to eighteen months flying four to five times a week. At two flights a week the same five phases stretch past three years, and the total cost rises because currency decay means you re-fly material you have already paid for.
Yes, and you keep every certificate you have already earned — they are FAA documents, not ours. What happens to the unused balance depends on the agreement you sign, so read that section rather than assuming. This is the single most important question to ask any school selling a large package and most people forget to ask it.
None. Phase 1 begins with somebody who has never handled a control. The assessment flight at $229 exists so you can test that assumption for an hour before committing to eighteen months.
Because a commercial certificate at 250 hours is not a hireable logbook, and 14 CFR 61.159(a) wants 1,500. The instructor rating is how most people cover that distance while earning. A program that stops at the commercial certificate leaves the hardest part of the plan unsolved.
The Piper Warrior and Diamond DA20 in phases 1 and 2, the Piper Arrow II for the complex training inside phase 3, and the Piper Seminole in phase 4. The Cirrus SR22 Turbo is not part of this sequence; it belongs to the $22,500 Premium private pilot program.
No. We train under 14 CFR part 61. That means the syllabus is built to the experience requirements in part 61 rather than to an FAA-approved course outline, which allows a phase to be compressed or slowed to fit the student. It also means this school cannot deliver the approved coursework that the reduced-hour routes in 14 CFR 61.160 depend on.
It opens at $2,500 down, with monthly payments through an outside aviation lender or an in-house plan. A monthly figure makes an $89,000 commitment feel smaller than it is, so read the financing page properly before signing.
You retrain the areas the examiner marked and retest. It is common enough that treating it as a catastrophe is unhelpful, and the retest carries another examiner fee, which is yours. We publish no pass rate, here or anywhere, because this business has no record worth publishing yet.
Every page in the career track cluster
The whole cluster, from this pillar
How to become an airline pilotAirline pilot requirementsHow long it takes to become an airline pilotWhat airline pilot training costsPilot certificates and ratings in orderAirline pilot flight hour requirementsThe ratings inside the program
Instrument ratingCommercial pilot licenseMulti-engine ratingCertified flight instructorTest one hour before you commit to five phases
Eighteen months is a long time to discover you dislike the work. An assessment flight puts you at the controls for an hour and produces a written read from the instructor on how you handled it. That is a better basis for an $89,000 decision than anything you can read.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →