Full-Motion Simulator Training
A Redbird MCX sits on this field, and it is an advanced aviation training device. Full-motion, fully enclosed, and no ceiling has ever taken a session away. Toward an instrument rating that classification is worth as much as 20 hours, on conditions this page sets out. Toward a private or a commercial certificate there is still no number here, and the reason is a real distinction in the rules rather than reticence.
What Is A Full-Motion Simulator Actually For?
Procedures, instrument scan, emergencies and decision-making. It is not for learning to land, and any school implying otherwise is selling you the wrong hour. A motion platform reproduces the onset of an acceleration; it cannot reproduce a sustained one, and a sustained one is exactly the cue a landing flare is built on.
Understand what motion buys and the rest of this page follows. In a device that does not move, your inner ear and your instruments disagree constantly, and a student learns to distrust the seat of their trousers in a way that does not transfer cleanly back into an airplane. A moving platform closes most of that gap for the first second or two of any input, which is where the useful cue lives.
What no general aviation device reproduces is the last thirty feet of a landing. Ground effect, the sink rate you feel through the seat, the peripheral cues at the bottom of your vision and the small continuous corrections a real airframe demands are collectively what a flare is made of. Landings are learned in an airplane. That is a downside, and we would rather print it here than have you find it after buying ten sessions.
Where the box is genuinely better than the airplane is failure. An engine can be failed at four hundred feet, repeatedly, at no risk, with the ability to freeze the picture and talk about what just happened. The same twenty minutes aloft would be either unsafe or unaffordable, and usually both at once.
What Is Actually On The Field?
A Redbird MCX. Six things about it that are worth knowing before you book one, beginning with the one that decides how much of a session reaches your logbook.
Full Motion, On Actuators
The cab moves rather than sitting still, which is the difference between a device that fights your inner ear and one that broadly agrees with it for the first moment of a control input.
Fully Enclosed
You are inside it with the door shut. No peripheral view of a room, no instructor visible in your side vision, and a substantially better chance of forgetting where you actually are.
Indifferent To Weather
The one unambiguous advantage over an airplane. A ceiling has never cancelled a session, which is why a device slot is the natural substitute on the rare morning a lesson cannot fly.
Freeze, Reset, Repeat
An approach can be flown four times in twenty minutes from the same starting point. Nothing aloft comes close to that repetition rate, and repetition is what most procedural weaknesses actually need.
$189 A Session
A published figure rather than a rate quoted on enquiry, with no block discount behind it and no hourly equivalent under a different name. The session is the unit.
An Advanced Aviation Training Device
Advanced rather than basic, which is the distinction that doubles the instrument credit ceiling at 14 CFR 61.65(i). The class belongs to this individual machine and is recorded in the FAA letter of authorization issued for it, so it is never something to read off a model name.
How Much Simulator Time Can You Actually Log?
For an instrument rating there is a real figure and this page prints it: as much as 20 hours, on three conditions and inside a ceiling shared with every other device you have used. For a private or a commercial certificate there is no figure here, and the paragraph structure of the regulation is why.
20 Hours Toward The Instrument Rating
14 CFR 61.65(i) is the paragraph that governs an aviation training device, and it splits by class. A basic device may carry as much as 10 hours of the instrument time the section wants; an advanced one may carry as much as 20. The machine on this field is advanced, so 20 is the figure that applies to a session bought here.
The allowance is conditional rather than automatic, and the three conditions travel together. The device has to be approved and authorised by the FAA. An authorised instructor has to be the person providing the instrument time in it. And the instrument training and the tasks flown inside it have to carry FAA approval as well. Miss any one and the hour is practice rather than credit, which is the plainest reason an unaccompanied session adds nothing to a rating.
- As much as 20 instrument hours in an advanced device, at 61.65(i)
- An FAA-approved and authorised device
- An authorised instructor providing the time
- FAA-approved training and tasks inside the device
The 20 Is A Ceiling, Not An Addition
This is the sentence most people get wrong, and it is worth being blunt. Outside a course run under part 142, 14 CFR 61.65(j) sets one total for the instrument time you may credit from a full flight simulator, a flight training device, an aviation training device or any mixture of them: 20 hours, covering the lot.
So the 20 available in this machine does not sit on top of device time credited somewhere else. Arrive having already used 12 hours in another approved box and 8 remain, not 32. Anybody describing device allowances as figures you add together is describing a rating that will not be issued, and the mistake is expensive because the hours get bought before the arithmetic is checked.
- One 20-hour total across every device, at 61.65(j)
- Simulators, flight training devices and aviation training devices all draw on it
- The larger part 142 allowance belongs to a training centre course, which this is not
- Hours credited elsewhere come off what is left here
Why No Private Or Commercial Figure Appears Here
Because the paragraphs people reach for are written for other machines. The private pilot credit provision at 14 CFR 61.109(k) is headed for a full flight simulator or a flight training device and names no aviation training device anywhere inside it. On the airplane side of 14 CFR 61.129 the position is the same; the only mention of an aviation training device in that section sits in the helicopter paragraph.
An advanced aviation training device is neither a full flight simulator nor a flight training device, so neither of those allowances is its authority. What governs its use toward those two certificates is the FAA letter of authorization issued for this individual machine, and that document has not been read against this page. A plausible number would still be a guess, so there is not one.
- 61.109(k) is written for a full flight simulator or a flight training device
- The airplane paragraphs of 61.129 are written the same way
- Credit toward those certificates comes from the letter of authorization
- Ask for that letter before planning any private or commercial arithmetic
What Actually Goes In The Logbook
14 CFR 61.51(g)(4) is the answer to the question people mean when they ask whether a session counts. Time in a full flight simulator, a flight training device or an aviation training device may be used toward the instrument aeronautical experience for a certificate or rating, provided an authorised instructor is there to observe that time and signs your logbook or training record for it.
Two things follow. The credit is instrument experience specifically, not general flight time. And the instructor is not a convenience wrapped around the booking; they are the condition that makes the entry legal, which is why sitting in the machine alone produces a pleasant hour and nothing you can show an examiner.
- Instrument aeronautical experience, not total time
- An authorised instructor present and observing
- The logbook or training record signed for the session
- Time flown unaccompanied credits nothing
What Does A Simulator Session Cost?
$189 for a standalone session. Inside the private pilot programs it is already paid for: two sessions on the Standard and on the Premium, five on the Comprehensive. Those are simulator sessions and not ground school hours, a distinction people collapse constantly and one that changes what a program contains.
Standalone Session
One session in the full-motion device, bought on its own. Useful for a procedure you keep getting wrong, for instrument practice, or for a week when the ceiling has not lifted.
- ✓Never cancelled for weather
- ✓Freeze, reset and repeat
- ✓No block discount and no hourly equivalent
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours in the logbook, five of them in the box, fifty flown dual, and ten hours of ground school beside them.
- ✓Five simulator sessions included
- ✓Sixty hours logged in total
- ✓Ten hours of ground school
- ✓Every book and training material included
Instrument Rating
The rating where device time is genuinely valuable rather than merely convenient, because most of what an instrument student is learning is procedural.
- ✓Taught by a CFII
- ✓Device sessions used where they earn their place
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Airline Career Track
Every phase from no logged time to a flight instructor rating, with the device used where it works and left alone where it does not.
- ✓Five phases, one price
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced between phases
What Else Could That Money Buy?
Worth asking before you book a run of sessions. A device hour and an airplane hour do different jobs, and the comparison below is the honest way to decide which one your next weakness needs.
Assessment Flight
An hour in an airplane with you flying it. If you have not flown yet, this is worth more than any number of device sessions, because you do not yet know what you are bad at.
- ✓Loggable dual instruction
- ✓You fly it yourself for the greater part of the hour
- ✓Credited in full against a program enrolled on inside a day
Redbird MCX Session
A session in the box, aimed at something specific. Excellent value when you know precisely which procedure is costing you time, and poor value when bought speculatively.
- ✓Best bought against a named weakness
- ✓Never lost to weather
- ✓Weak on landings and handling
Multi-Engine Discovery Flight
A fixed-price hour in the Piper Seminole, for anybody weighing up the twin rating. A device session is a poor substitute for finding out how a twin feels.
- ✓Loggable dual instruction in the multi-engine trainer
- ✓A fixed price rather than an hourly rate
- ✓Credited against a program enrolled on inside a day
What Is Simulator Time Good At And Bad At?
Three honest categories. The first is where a session is worth more than a flying hour, the second where it is worth roughly the same, and the third where it is worth considerably less.
Where It Beats The Airplane
Anything you would not want to do for real, and anything you want to repeat immediately. The ability to freeze, reset and fly the same approach four times inside twenty minutes has no equivalent aloft at any price.
- EmergenciesRepeatable, at no risk
- Instrument ApproachesReset and repeat
- Systems FailuresOn demand
- WeatherChosen, not encountered
Where It Draws Level
Procedural and cognitive work, where the airplane adds cost without adding much learning. Scan development, checklist discipline, radio work and holding entries all transfer well.
- Instrument ScanTransfers well
- Holds And EntriesTransfers well
- Radio And ClearancesTransfers well
- Cross-Country PlanningTransfers well
Where It Falls Short
Everything depending on motion sustained across seconds, on peripheral vision, and on the physical feedback of a real airframe. Landings above all, and we will not pretend otherwise.
- The FlarePoor
- Crosswind TechniquePoor
- Slow Flight FeelLimited
- Stall Recognition By FeelLimited
How Is A Session Actually Run?
Four parts, and the first one decides whether the other three are worth $189. A device session with no stated objective is the most expensive way to fly badly indoors.
A Named Objective, Before The Door Shuts
One thing the session is for. Not general practice, not a bit of everything — a specific procedure, failure or scan problem you and your instructor have already agreed is costing you time in the airplane.
A Short Brief, With The Scenario Stated
You are told the aircraft state, the weather you will be given, and what will be failed if anything is going to be. Surprise has its place, and it is not on the day you are learning a flow for the first time.
Repetition, With Freezes
The same segment flown several times, stopped in the middle where stopping teaches something. This is the part an airplane cannot do, and a session that does not use it is a session spent in the wrong machine.
A Debrief You Could Act On Tomorrow
Two things that improved, one thing still wrong, and what the next airplane lesson therefore contains. A device session that does not change the next flight was entertainment.
Does A Simulator Help When The Weather Stops You?
Yes, and less often here than the marketing for these machines suggests. NOAA ASOS observations put 355 training-capable days into the twelve months ending 1 August 2026 at this field, so weather cancellations are a small part of the calendar rather than a large one.
The honest version is that the device earns its place on the days you cannot fly and on the exercises you should not fly, and both of those categories are smaller at Van Nuys than they would be at most fields in the country. A school in the Pacific Northwest has a far stronger weather argument for device time than this one does.
Where it matters here is instrument training, and specifically the ability to fly approaches in conditions you choose rather than the ones the day hands you. Southern California gives a student very little genuine instrument weather, which is a real limitation of training here and is dealt with properly on the instrument and actual IMC page.
A position, then. For an instrument student the 20 hours are worth having and are cheap at $189 a session, provided an instructor is running them. For everybody else, device time bought to fill a logbook is usually a poor purchase and device time bought for repetition is usually an excellent one. The two are priced identically and are worth wildly different amounts.
Buy Sessions For Repetition, Or For Credit?
The same $189, spent on two completely different theories of what a simulator is. One of them works for anybody; the other works for an instrument student inside a ceiling of 20 hours and disappoints almost everyone else. They are easy to tell apart in advance.
Buy It Against A Named Weakness
You know which procedure keeps costing you time aloft, and you buy sessions to hammer that one thing until it stops being difficult.
Best foran instrument student, or anybody with a flow they keep fumbling
- What You BuyRepetitions of one thing
- Measured ByThe next airplane lesson
- Depends On Device ClassNo
- Typical OutcomeFewer airplane hours spent relearning
Buy It To Fill A Logbook
You buy device time expecting it to stand in for flying hours toward a certificate or rating. For the instrument rating that is a real plan with a real limit; for the private and commercial certificates it rests on a document you have probably not read.
Best foran instrument student with room left inside the 20 hours, and almost nobody else
- What You BuyHours that count, up to a limit
- Measured By20 hours, shared with every device
- Depends On Device ClassEntirely
- Typical OutcomeLess credit than expected
Side By Side
| For Repetition | For Credit | |
|---|---|---|
| Price Per Session | $189 | $189 |
| Value Known In Advance | Yes | Yes, inside 20 hours |
| Requires The Device Class In Writing | No | Yes |
| Works For Landings | No | No |
| Recommended Here | Yes | For instrument hours, yes |
What Can A Stranger Verify About The Simulator?
Five figures, and the last one changes what a session is worth to your logbook. A school that cannot name the class of its own device is a school to press harder; this one is an advanced aviation training device, and the ceiling below follows from that.
A Standalone Session, Published
Not quoted on enquiry, not discounted in blocks, and not sold by the hour under a different name. Two sessions sit inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs and five inside the Comprehensive.
Published in fullSessions Inside The Comprehensive Program
Against two inside the Standard and two inside the Premium. These are simulator sessions and not ground school hours; the Comprehensive carries ten hours of ground school separately, and the two figures describe different things.
Program inclusions, published on the pricing pageSessions Ever Lost To Weather
The one advantage of the machine that requires no qualification at all. A ceiling has never cancelled a device slot, which is why a session is the natural substitute on a morning the airplane cannot go.
A property of the device, not a claim about usInstructors Who Can Run A Session
The device is not a self-service machine. A session is instruction, delivered by somebody holding the same certificates set out on the instructors page, and the value of the hour depends far more on them than on the actuators.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23Instrument Hours Creditable, At 61.65(i)
The device is an advanced aviation training device, so the paragraph allows as much as 20 hours of instrument time toward the rating — with the FAA’s approval behind the device and behind the tasks, and an authorised instructor providing the time. Paragraph (j) then makes the same 20 a combined ceiling across every device you have flown.
14 CFR 61.65(i) · 61.65(j)What Should You Ask Any School About Its Simulator?
Five questions, and they are worth asking here as well. Every one of them has a factual answer, and the pattern of which ones a school can answer is most of the information you actually need.
The Three That Are About Paperwork
Which qualification level does this device hold, may I see the document that records it, and how many hours will count toward the specific certificate or rating I am training for. Those are answerable from a folder in an office, and they are the questions that decide whether device time is an investment or a purchase.
A brand name is not an answer to any of the three. Devices from the same manufacturer are approved individually, and the approval is the thing that matters to your logbook.
- The qualification level of this specific device
- The document recording it
- The credit ceiling for your certificate or rating
- Whether the school will put the answer in writing
The Two That Are About Teaching
Who runs a session, and what happens if the airplane goes unserviceable on the day. A device slot supervised by whoever happened to be free is worth much less than one run by the instructor who knows what you got wrong last Tuesday.
The substitution question matters more than it sounds. A school that automatically converts a cancelled airplane lesson into a device session is optimising its own calendar. Sometimes that is right for you and sometimes it is expensively wrong, and the answer should depend on what the lesson was going to contain.
What We Can Answer Now
All five. The machine is an advanced aviation training device; the FAA letter of authorization issued for it is the document recording that, and you may read it; and the instrument ceiling that follows is 20 hours, shared with any other device time already in your logbook.
The one figure still absent is credit toward a private or a commercial certificate, because the paragraphs carrying those allowances are written for full flight simulators and flight training devices rather than for this class of machine. The answer there lives in the letter, and it stays unprinted until that document has been read against this page rather than summarised from memory.
What Will A Simulator Never Teach You?
Judgement in a real cockpit on a real day, and the physical skill of arriving. Everything else on this page is a case for the machine; this paragraph is the case against overusing it, and it is the one most schools leave out.
A device removes consequence, and consequence is part of what trains a pilot. Nothing in the box costs you anything when it goes wrong, which is exactly why it is good for practising failures and exactly why an hour there does not build the particular kind of attention an airplane demands.
There is also a habit risk that instructors see regularly. Students who spend heavily on device time can arrive at an airplane lesson excellent at flows and behind the airplane physically, because the box was never asking their hands for very much. The fix is proportion rather than avoidance.
So the recommendation is deliberately modest: use it against a named weakness, use it when the weather has taken the airplane away, and treat any plan built on large blocks of device time as a plan that needs the paperwork checked first.
Where $189 Is Well Spent, And Where It Is Not
Six situations. The first three are the best money on this page and the last three are the most commonly wasted, and the difference between them is whether you already know what you are trying to fix.
A Flow You Keep Fumbling
Ten repetitions of a single engine-failure flow in one session, with freezes in the middle. This is the single strongest use of the machine and it is difficult to buy anywhere else.
Instrument Approaches Before A Checkride
The same approach flown from the same point until the scan stops falling apart at the same place. An airplane charges you a full circuit for every attempt.
A Week The Ceiling Never Lifted
On the rare occasion weather takes the airplane, a device slot keeps the sequence moving rather than opening a gap that costs you a relearning lesson later.
Landing Practice
The flare depends on cues the machine does not produce. Sessions sold as landing practice are the least valuable hours available in this industry, here or anywhere.
Accumulating Loggable Time
The ceiling is 20 hours toward an instrument rating and it is shared with every other device you have flown, so it runs out sooner than people plan for. Toward a private or a commercial certificate there is no published figure at all. Sessions bought to fill a logbook hit a wall; sessions bought to fix something do not.
Your Very First Hour Of Flying
Before you have flown an airplane you do not yet know what you are bad at, so a session has nothing to aim at. Fly first, then bring a specific problem to the box.
What We Do Not Claim About The Simulator
The Redbird MCX on this field is an advanced aviation training device. Toward an instrument rating, 14 CFR 61.65(i) permits as much as 20 hours of instrument time in a device of that class, on three conditions: the FAA has approved and authorised the device, an authorised instructor provides the time in it, and the FAA has approved the instrument training and the tasks flown there. 14 CFR 61.65(j) then makes 20 hours the combined total from every device outside a part 142 course. No private or commercial certificate figure is published for this machine, because the paragraphs carrying those allowances are written for full flight simulators and flight training devices; the authority is the device’s own FAA letter of authorization, and no number will be printed until it has been read. Nothing on this site claims device time shortens a course beyond what the regulations permit.
Airline Pilot Flight School trains under part 61 of 14 CFR, at Van Nuys Airport. It is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and no carrier holds a cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement with it. Nothing on this page offers you an interview, a job or a salary, and no carrier is named anywhere on this site.
No pass rate, no graduate count and no rating of any kind is published here. Any such figure would come from a sample too small to carry meaning, and inventing one is the easiest lie available in this industry. What gets published instead is the syllabus, the price, the hours and the regulation behind each requirement.
How Do You Get The Most Out Of A Single Session?
Four habits, and none of them costs anything. A student who does these gets noticeably more out of $189 than a student who books a slot and turns up.
Bring The Problem, Not The Hour
Arrive with the thing you want fixed already named. “My scan collapses on the procedure turn” is a session. “Some instrument practice” is an hour of gentle flying you have already paid for.
Ask For Failures Early
The machine is at its most useful when things are going wrong. If half your session is spent flying it correctly in good weather, you have bought an expensive imitation of an easy day.
Use The Freeze Deliberately
Stopping the picture at the moment of a mistake is the feature that no airplane has. Ask to be stopped rather than flown through, because the ten seconds after a stop are where the learning sits.
Write The Next Airplane Lesson Down
End by agreeing what the session changes about your next flight. If nothing changes, the session did not work, and that is worth knowing before you book another one.
What People Ask About The Full-Motion Device
The cab moves on actuators to reproduce the onset of an acceleration, so the first second or two of a control input feels approximately right. It does not reproduce a sustained acceleration, which is why it helps with scan, procedures and the onset of an upset, and does very little for a landing flare.
$189 for a standalone session. Two sessions are already inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs and five are inside the Comprehensive. There is no block discount and no hourly rate under a different name; the session is the unit you buy.
For an instrument rating, as much as 20. The machine is an advanced aviation training device and 14 CFR 61.65(i) allows that much instrument time from a device of that class, provided the FAA has approved the device, an authorised instructor provides the time and the training and tasks flown are approved too. For a private or a commercial certificate no figure appears here, because those allowances are written for full flight simulators and flight training devices and the authority for this machine is its own letter of authorization.
An advanced aviation training device. That is the class the FAA letter of authorization records for this individual machine, and it is worth asking about anywhere, because an advanced device carries twice the instrument ceiling of a basic one under 14 CFR 61.65(i). Two devices that photograph identically can hold different letters, so the model name settles nothing.
No, and this is the most common misreading of the rule. Outside a part 142 course, 14 CFR 61.65(j) allows a total of 20 hours of instrument time from a full flight simulator, a flight training device, an aviation training device or any combination of them. It is one pool. Ten hours credited at a previous school leaves 10 here, and the arithmetic is worth doing before you buy a run of sessions rather than after.
Yes. 14 CFR 61.51(g)(4) lets device time be used toward instrument aeronautical experience only where an authorised instructor is present to observe it and signs the logbook or training record. So a session flown on your own is useful practice and nothing more, and the instructor is the reason a session is instruction rather than machine hire.
Not well, and we would rather say so. The flare depends on sustained motion cues, peripheral vision and physical feedback that no general aviation device reproduces convincingly. Landings are learned in an airplane, and sessions sold as landing practice are the least valuable hours in this industry.
No. That is the one unambiguous advantage of the machine, and it is why device sessions get scheduled on the mornings a ceiling has not lifted. At this field it matters less than elsewhere: NOAA ASOS observations put 355 training-capable days into the twelve months ending 1 August 2026.
A Redbird MCX. It lives here at Van Nuys Airport, full-motion and fully enclosed, and in regulatory terms it is an advanced aviation training device, which is the description that matters to your logbook. The instrument ceiling that follows from that class is 20 hours, shared with any other device time you already hold.
They are not, and confusing them changes what a program contains. The Comprehensive private pilot program includes five simulator sessions and ten hours of ground school; the Standard includes two sessions and three hours of ground. Both figures are correct and they describe entirely different things.
It depends entirely on why. Bought to repeat a procedure you keep getting wrong, it is among the strongest $189 you can spend here. Bought speculatively to accumulate time, it is a poor purchase, and an instrument student should work out how much of the 20-hour ceiling is still unused before booking a run of them.
Sometimes, and it should be a decision rather than a default. A session is the right substitute for procedural work and the wrong substitute for anything involving handling. Your instructor should tell you which of the two your next lesson was going to be, and if they do not, ask.
An instructor, holding the same certificates set out on the instructors page. The device is not a self-service machine, and the value of the hour depends far more on the person running it than on the hardware. Where possible it is your own instructor, because they already know what went wrong last week.
Keep Reading
The Device Is Worth More Once You Know What You Are Bad At
A session is at its most valuable aimed at a specific weakness, which means the airplane comes first. Book an hour, find out what needs work, and then decide whether the box is the right place to fix it. That is the order the money works in.
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 →