Cessna 162 Skycatcher — Training Aircraft, Van Nuys
The airplane a first landing usually happens in
Two seats, high wing, one engine, and the smallest airframe on the ramp. Enrolled students fly it for $179 an hour wet: airframe and fuel, with the teaching carried by the program price.
| Type | Cessna 162 Skycatcher |
| Configuration | Two seats, high wing, single engine, fixed gear |
| Rate inside an enrolled program | $179 an hour, wet |
| What the rate covers | The airplane and its fuel. Not the instructor. |
| Programs it appears in | Sport Pilot at $8,400, and early private pilot lessons |
| Ownership | Owned by the school and maintained in-house |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
Where it sits in the sequence
First. A small, light, two-seat airplane gives a new student the shortest possible loop between a control input and a consequence, and that loop is what early training is entirely made of. A heavier airplane is more forgiving of a sloppy input, which sounds like an advantage and is not — being told immediately that you were sloppy is how the habit gets fixed.
It is also the airframe on the $8,400 Sport Pilot program, and the aircraft criteria in 14 CFR 61.316 are what make that pairing work.
What it is not good for
Going anywhere with anybody. Two seats and modest load-carrying means it is a training airframe rather than a travelling one, and a student who intends to fly a family somewhere should expect to move to the Warrior partway through. That transition costs an hour or two of dual and it is worth planning for rather than discovering.
A note on cost, since this page shows a rate
The $179 is the single-engine wet rate for students enrolled in a program. It is not a walk-up figure, it is not a rental rate, and it does not include an instructor. We publish it because a fixed program price is only meaningful if you can see what the airplane inside it costs.
A small airplane tells you immediately when you are wrong. That is the point of it.
How this airplane is operated
- We bought the airplanes rather than renting them from private owners, so the maintenance decisions are made here. 14 CFR 91.409(b) puts an airplane that gives instruction for hire on a 100-hour inspection interval, and that bill lands on us.
- There are eleven instructors, which is enough that a full schedule does not stall on one person's diary. Every one meets the same standard: CFI, commercial certificate or ATP, current medical.
- An enclosed, motion-based Redbird MCX, FAA-approved, is part of the operation rather than an add-on to it. Priced at $189 when booked by itself.
- 355 training days a year, taken from NOAA ASOS records at this field and judged against a stated minimum of 3,000 ft and 5 sm.
- Inside a program, a single-engine hour is $179 wet — airframe and fuel. The instructor is not in that figure and never has been.
- No quote to request and no range to interpret. Program prices are fixed, published, and the same for everyone who walks in.