Full motion simulator training
A Redbird MCX sits on the field. Full-motion, fully enclosed, FAA-approved. It is excellent at procedures and instrument scan, poor at landings, and the regulations cap how much of it you may count. This page explains all three, because the third one is where money gets wasted.
What is a full motion flight 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 moves the cab to reproduce the onset of an acceleration; it cannot reproduce a sustained one, which is exactly the cue a landing flare depends on.
Understand what motion buys and the rest of the page follows. In a fixed device your inner ear and your instruments disagree constantly, and a student learns to distrust the seat of their pants in a way that does not transfer cleanly to 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 simulator on the general aviation market reproduces is the last thirty feet of a landing. Ground effect, the sink rate you feel through the seat, peripheral cues in your bottom vision, and the small continuous corrections a real airplane demands are collectively the thing a flare is made of. Landings are learned in an airplane. That is a downside and we would rather write it here than have you discover it after buying ten sessions.
Where the box is genuinely superior to the airplane is failure. An engine can be failed at four hundred feet, repeatedly, at no risk and with the ability to freeze the picture and talk about it. The same twenty minutes in an airplane would be either unsafe or unaffordable, and usually both.
How much simulator time can you actually log?
Less than most people assume, and the ceiling depends on which category of device you are sitting in. Two regulations do the work: 61.109(k) for the private certificate and 61.65(h) through (j) for the instrument rating. Read these before you buy sessions in bulk anywhere.
Toward a private pilot certificate — 61.109(k)
61.109(a) puts a private applicant on 40 hours of logged flight time. Set against it, 61.109(k)(1) permits at most 2.5 hours of training taken in a simulator or a flight training device representing the right category and class. A course run by a training centre certificated under part 142 raises that to 5 hours under (k)(2), and (k)(3) reduces the total aeronautical experience needed to 35 hours for such a course.
The practical reading is straightforward. Simulator time is a small, capped component of a private certificate, and its value is training quality rather than logbook arithmetic. Anybody selling large blocks of device time as a way to shorten a private course is describing something the regulation will not honour.
- 40 logged hours under 61.109(a)
- 2.5 hours creditable from a simulator or a flight training device
- 5 hours where the course runs under part 142
- 35 total hours only on an approved part 142 course
Toward an instrument rating — 61.65(h), (i) and (j)
This is where device time becomes genuinely worth money. At 61.65(h)(2) the ceiling is 20 hours in a simulator or a flight training device, and it rises to 30 where the instrument time was completed in accordance with part 142. Separately, 61.65(i) allows a maximum of 10 hours in a basic aviation training device or 20 hours in an advanced aviation training device.
Then 61.65(j) draws the line that matters: outside the part 142 case, no more than 20 hours in total may be credited across a simulator, a flight training device, an aviation training device, or any mixture of the three. You cannot stack the categories to reach forty.
- 20 hours from a simulator or a flight training device
- 30 hours where instrument time was completed under part 142
- 10 hours from a basic aviation training device
- 20 hours from an advanced aviation training device
- A 20-hour overall ceiling on the combination, outside part 142
The question to ask us, and the one we will not fudge
Device categories are not interchangeable and the credit ceilings differ by a factor of two between a basic and an advanced aviation training device. Before you plan any logbook arithmetic around simulator sessions, ask which qualification level applies to the specific device you will be sitting in, and get the answer in writing.
We are not printing a qualification level on this page that we have not verified against the current letter of authorisation for the machine. That is a deliberate omission rather than an oversight, and it is the sort of number a school should be able to produce on request rather than assert on a web page.
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 about 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 in twenty minutes has no equivalent aloft.
- 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 little. Scan development, checklist discipline, radio work and holding patterns all transfer well.
- Instrument scanTransfers well
- Holds and entriesTransfers well
- Radio and clearancesTransfers well
- Cross-country planningTransfers well
Where it falls short
Everything that depends on real motion sustained over seconds, on peripheral vision, and on the physical feedback of an airframe. Landings above all.
- The flarePoor
- Crosswind techniquePoor
- Slow flight feelLimited
- Stall recognition by feelLimited
What does a simulator session cost?
$189 for a standalone session. Inside the private pilot programs it is already paid for: two sessions on Standard and on Premium, five on Comprehensive. Those are simulator sessions and not ground school hours, which is a distinction people collapse constantly and which changes what a program contains.
Standalone session
One session in the full-motion device, bought on its own. Useful for instrument currency practice, for a procedure you want to drill, or for a week when the ceiling has not lifted.
- ✓No weather cancellations
- ✓Freeze, reset and repeat
- ✓Logged where the rules permit
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours in the logbook: fifty-five airborne, five in the box, fifty flown dual, plus ten hours of ground school.
- ✓Five simulator sessions included
- ✓60 hours logged
- ✓10 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and materials included
Instrument Rating
The rating where device time is genuinely valuable rather than merely convenient, and where 61.65 permits real credit for it.
- ✓40 instrument hours under 61.65(d)
- ✓Device credit capped by 61.65(j)
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Airline Career Track
Every phase from no logged time to a flight instructor rating, with the simulator used where it earns its place and not where it does not.
- ✓Five phases, one price
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No repricing between phases
What can be verified about the simulator?
Four figures and one omission, and the omission is the most useful item on the list. A school that will not tell you which device category it holds is a school you should press harder.
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 Standard and Premium, five inside Comprehensive.
Published priceAirframe types on the ramp, owned rather than brokered
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. The airplanes belong to the operation, so the maintenance calendar is ours and not a lessor’s.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors working here
Each carries a commercial certificate or an ATP beneath, an instructor certificate above it, and a medical in date. You are matched with one of them, and you may ask for another if the fit is wrong.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23 · 61.195Training-capable days measured across twelve months at this field
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations for the year ending 1 August 2026, admitting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility across four qualifying daylight hours.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetA session in the full-motion simulator
Two of those sessions sit inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs and five inside the Comprehensive, and weather never takes one away.
Published, not quoted on requestDoes 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 cancellations for weather 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 those two categories are smaller at Van Nuys than they would be at most fields in the country. A school in the Pacific Northwest has a much stronger weather argument for simulator 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 discussed properly on the instrument and actual IMC page.
A position. Simulator time bought for logbook credit is usually a poor purchase, and simulator time bought for repetition is usually an excellent one. The two are priced identically at $189 and are worth wildly different amounts.
What we do not claim about the simulator
No qualification level for this specific device is stated on this page, because we will not publish a category we have not confirmed against its current letter of authorisation. Ask, and expect a documented answer rather than an assurance. No claim is made anywhere on this site that simulator time shortens a course beyond what 14 CFR 61.109 and 61.65 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 us. We do not guarantee an interview, a job or a salary.
No pass rate, no graduate count and no rating of any kind is published on this site. The operation is new, any such figure would come from a sample too small to mean anything, and inventing one is the easiest lie available in this industry. What is published instead is the syllabus, the price, the hours and the regulation behind each requirement.
Questions about the full motion device
The cab moves on actuators to reproduce the onset of an acceleration, so that 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 upset onset, and does very little for a landing flare.
$189 for a standalone session. Two sessions are already inside the Standard and 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.
At most 2.5 hours, under 14 CFR 61.109(k)(1), set against the 40 logged hours that 61.109(a) asks for. That rises to 5 hours where the training is delivered inside a course run by a training centre certificated under part 142. It is a small, capped component by design.
Up to 20 hours from a simulator or a flight training device under 14 CFR 61.65(h)(2), or 10 hours from a basic aviation training device and 20 from an advanced one under 61.65(i). Outside part 142 training, 61.65(j) caps the combined total at 20 hours regardless of how many device types you use.
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 simulator 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 days 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 is full-motion, it is fully enclosed, and it is FAA-approved. What is not printed on this page is the specific qualification level of the machine, because we will not publish a category we have not confirmed against the device’s current letter of authorisation. Ask before you plan logbook credit around it.
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 different things.
It depends entirely on why. Bought for repetition of a procedure you keep getting wrong, it is among the strongest $189 you can spend here. Bought to accumulate loggable time, it is usually a poor purchase, because the credit ceilings in 61.109 and 61.65 are low and reached quickly.
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.
Where to go next
What replaces the reviews
Our fleetOur instructorsFlying days and training tempoFixed price flight trainingWhere the device is used most
Instrument ratingInstrument rating requirementsInstrument training and actual IMCThe device is worth more once you know what you are bad at
A simulator session is most valuable when it is 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.
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 →