Airline pilot training in Los Angeles, priced and sequenced before you start
A phased route from no logbook at all to a commercial certificate and an instructor rating, flown at Van Nuys. Each phase names its aircraft, its duration and its price before you sign anything.
Is this school for someone changing careers into flying?
Yes. That reader is the reason this school exists, and every page here is written to answer the four questions that reader actually has.
You are probably in your thirties, employed, and doing arithmetic rather than speculating. You want to know how many months you lose, what the total is before you sign anything, what happens if you stall out at 180 hours, and whether a medical examiner can end the plan before it starts. Those four questions organise this entire site.
So the sequence leads here, not the scenery. Private certificate first. Instrument rating second. Then commercial, then the multi-engine class rating, then the instructor rating — an order fixed by regulation rather than taste. The airline pilot training program lays out every rung with its hours and its price.
What we will not do is dress the arithmetic up. Training two evenings a week is the most expensive way to earn a certificate, and it is also the most common way. Currency decays between lessons, you re-fly ground you already covered, and the hours quietly inflate past the regulatory minimum. That is a real cost and this site says so on the full-time versus part-time page.
We are a Part 61 training provider. That means your syllabus is built around the experience requirements in 14 CFR part 61 rather than an FAA-approved course outline, and it is why we can compress a phase when you are ready and slow one down when you are not. Part 61 training structure explains the trade honestly, including what you give up.
What can a school that opened this year actually prove?
Not much, if the proof has to be a review count. So here is the substitute: five things a stranger can check today, each with the source named next to it. We opened recently and we are not going to borrow anybody else’s history.
Aircraft types, on our own certificate of ownership
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. We own them and we maintain them; nothing here is chartered in from a broker for the afternoon.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors on the roster
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. Eleven of them means one full calendar does not stall your schedule.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23One Redbird MCX session
Full-motion, fully enclosed and never scrubbed for weather. It is the cheapest room in which to learn a procedure and the worst one in which to learn a landing, so we spend it on scan, radio work and emergencies.
Two hours sit inside Standard and Premium, five inside ComprehensiveTraining days the weather allowed
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 MesonetPrices we keep off the page
None. Every program number is published here, with no ranges, no block-rate arithmetic and no request-a-quote form standing between you and the figure you will actually pay.
Published in fullWhat order do the certificates and ratings go in?
Five rungs, and the order is fixed by regulation rather than preference. Each one is a prerequisite for the privileges of the next.
Private pilot certificate
14 CFR 61.109(a) puts the private pilot floor at 40 logged hours. Ten of those are solo, and one solo leg has to cover 150 nautical miles with three full-stop landings. Almost nobody finishes at 40. AOPA puts the national figure at 50 to 70 hours; your tempo decides where inside that spread you finish.
Instrument rating
An instrument rating needs 50 hours of cross-country as the pilot flying, plus 40 hours under the hood or in cloud, and an instrument instructor has to deliver 15 of those 40. That is 14 CFR 61.65(d). This is the rung the rest of the ladder is bolted to, because an airline transport pilot certificate is built on top of it.
Commercial certificate
The commercial certificate sits at 250 logged hours under 14 CFR 61.129(a). Inside that: 100 as pilot in command, ten hours of complex, turbine-powered or technically advanced training, and a 300 nautical mile cross-country whose furthest point is 250 nautical miles out.
Multi-engine class rating
A class rating added to a certificate you already hold carries no hour minimum whatsoever under 14 CFR 61.63(c). An endorsement and a checkride are the whole requirement. Which is why this rung is short, and why the Piper Seminole is the airframe it is flown in.
Flight instructor rating
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. This is the rung that starts paying you back.
How much does the whole route cost at Van Nuys?
$89,000 buys the entire sequence as one program. Bought a rating at a time, the same ladder is a running total you can watch climb, which is the honest way to look at it.
The ladder, with a running total
| Phase | What you hold at the end | Program | Price | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Private pilot certificate | Comprehensive Private Pilot | $15,900 | $15,900 |
| 2 | Instrument rating | Instrument Rating | $11,700 | $27,600 |
| 3 | Commercial certificate | Inside the career track | — | — |
| 4 | Multi-engine class rating | Multi-Engine Add-On | $5,100 | — |
| 5 | Flight instructor rating | Inside the career track | — | — |
| All five | A certificate that earns money | Airline Career Track | $89,000 | $89,000 |
How much does the weather actually cost you here?
About ten training days a year, if you fly four times a week. Van Nuys returned 355 training-capable days over the twelve months ending 1 August 2026 — days on which four daylight hours cleared 3,000 ft of ceiling and five statute miles of visibility, counted from NOAA ASOS reports.
That figure matters far more to a full-time student than to a weekend one. At four flights a week you are exposed to the calendar constantly and the ten lost days are real. At one flight a week the weather is not your bottleneck — your own currency is, and no amount of sunshine fixes that.
There is a genuine downside on the other side of the same measurement, and the instrument pages state it rather than hide it: a field this reliably clear gives you very little actual instrument meteorological condition to log. You will fly most of your instrument training under a view-limiting device.
The hour of day matters too. In June, 40 per cent of the 7am observations met training minima against 93 per cent at 11am. If your only free slot is dawn in early summer, that is worth knowing before you build a schedule around it.
What are the program prices?
Every figure below is the enrolment figure. Books and training materials are inside each private pilot program, and financing starts at $2,500 down.
Standard Private Pilot
40 hours logged, built to the regulatory minimum in 14 CFR 61.109(a).
- ✓38 hours single-engine
- ✓2 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓30 hours dual
- ✓3 hours ground
Comprehensive Private Pilot
60 hours logged, which is where most people actually finish.
- ✓55 hours single-engine
- ✓5 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓50 hours dual
- ✓10 hours ground
Premium Private Pilot
Forty logged hours, all of them in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo, on glass from lesson one.
- ✓40 hours in the Cirrus
- ✓2 hours Redbird MCX
- ✓30 hours dual
- ✓3 hours ground
Instrument Rating
Phase 2, and the prerequisite everything above it depends on.
- ✓Built around 14 CFR 61.65(d)
- ✓Redbird MCX for scan and procedures
- ✓Flown in the Warrior or the Arrow II
Multi-Engine Add-On
The class rating, flown in the Piper Seminole.
- ✓No minimum hours under 14 CFR 61.63(c)
- ✓Endorsement and practical test
- ✓Private or commercial add-on
Airline Career Track
Zero hours to a commercial certificate and a flight instructor rating, as one price.
- ✓All five rungs of the ladder
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
What this school is, and what it is not
Airline Pilot Flight School is a Part 61 flight training provider at Van Nuys Airport. The word “airline” in the name describes the destination our students are training toward. It does not describe a relationship.
We are not an airline. We are not owned by one. There is no cadet program here, no pathway agreement, no conditional offer, and no hiring relationship with any carrier. We do not guarantee an interview, a job or a salary, and any school that does is describing something outside its control.
We publish no pass rate and no graduate count, because we do not yet have a record worth publishing and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What we publish instead is the curriculum, the hours, the regulation behind each requirement, and the price.
Hiring minimums, seniority and pay are set by carriers, not by training providers. The pilot career outlook page uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook and nothing else.
Questions people ask before they enroll
Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) in Van Nuys, California, elevation 802 ft MSL. The field runs a control tower inside Class D and the whole of it sits beneath the Class B shelf that wraps Los Angeles International. Radio work and airspace begin on lesson one instead of being bolted on later.
$89,000 buys the whole sequence as one program, from no logbook to a commercial certificate and an instructor rating. Bought a rung at a time the figures are these. Private certificate: $10,900 on Standard, $15,900 on Comprehensive, $22,500 on Premium. Instrument rating: $11,700. Multi-engine class rating: $5,100. Financing opens at $2,500 down.
No. We train under 14 CFR part 61. A Part 141 school runs an FAA-approved course outline with a fixed lesson order; a Part 61 school builds to the same experience requirements with the freedom to reorder. The trade-off is real and it is set out on the Part 61 training structure page.
14 CFR 61.159(a) sets the unrestricted floor: 1,500 total hours as a pilot. The restricted-privileges route in 14 CFR 61.160 lowers it to 1,000 hours behind a qualifying bachelor’s degree, 1,250 behind a qualifying associate’s degree, and 750 for a former military pilot. Both front seats in a part 121 airline operation need an ATP certificate and a type rating, which is what 14 CFR 121.436(a) says.
Ask what an hour costs and the answer is $179 wet, single-engine, enrolled students only. That buys the airframe and the fuel that goes through it. Instruction is paid for out of the program price, not out of that number. Neither the twin nor the Cirrus carries a published hourly figure at all.
Get one early, even though training can start without it. Under 14 CFR 61.23(a) a first-class medical is what ATP pilot-in-command privileges require, and past your fortieth birthday that certificate holds those privileges for six months rather than twelve. A condition you did not know about is the cheapest thing to find out about in month one.
Flying most weekdays, the sequence from zero hours to a flight instructor rating runs roughly twelve to eighteen months, and then the hour-building to 1,500 runs on top of it. Two lessons a week turns the same sequence into several years. Tempo is the single largest variable and you control most of it.
One hour in the airplane with an instructor, $229, logged as dual instruction. You fly it. The instructor writes down what they saw and gives you a straight answer on whether the schedule you have in mind survives contact with an aeroplane. Enroll inside a day of flying it and the whole $229 comes back off whichever program you pick.
Yes, and it will cost you more and take longer. Currency decay between lessons is the mechanism, and it is not a small effect. The flight training while working full time page sets out how to structure it so the damage is smallest.
No. This business opened recently, has no reviews of its own, and will not display anyone else's. There is no pass rate, no graduate count and no safety-record claim anywhere on this site. The five checkable standards above are what we offer in place of them.
Where to go next
Start here
The airline pilot training program, phase by phaseHow to become an airline pilotEvery program price on one pageThe questions before the money
Airline pilot requirementsHow long it takes to become an airline pilotWhat airline pilot training costsAccelerated flight trainingThe ratings themselves
Instrument ratingCommercial pilot licenseMulti-engine ratingCertified flight instructorFly it once before you decide anything
An assessment flight is an hour of dual instruction, not a sightseeing trip. You handle the controls, the debrief is written down, and you leave with a straight answer about whether your plan is realistic. Enroll inside a day and the $229 comes back off your program.
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 →