Discovery Flight For One — 90 Minutes
Ninety minutes buys you the practice area
The extra half hour is not more sightseeing. It is the difference between staying near the field and getting out to a practice area with time to repeat a maneuver until it stops being random. $299.
| Price | $299 |
| Time booked | 90 minutes |
| Aircraft | A single-engine trainer from the fleet |
| Who is flying | You, from the left seat |
| What is logged | Dual instruction received, in your name |
| Counts toward | The 40 hours of flight time in 14 CFR 61.109 |
| Enrollment credit | The full $299 if you enroll within 24 hours |
| Published weight limit | 180 lb |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
What the additional thirty minutes actually buys
An hour at a towered Class D field spends a real share of itself on the ground and in the departure sequence. Taxi, run-up, hold short, clearance, climb out from under the Class B shelf. By the time the airplane is level and clear of the corridor, a sixty-minute booking has begun counting down.
Ninety minutes gets you past that. There is room for a climb, a set of clearing turns, medium and steeper banks, slow flight taken to the edge of the buffet with an instructor talking you through it, and then the same sequence again with your own hands correcting your own errors. Repetition is what turns a maneuver from an accident into a skill, and the second attempt is the one that teaches.
Which booking is right
Take the sixty-minute flight if you want a decision. Take this one if you have already decided and want a first lesson that carries its weight.
The whole $299 is credited against any program you enroll in within 24 hours, on the same terms as the shorter flight.
A word about the weather here
Van Nuys produced 355 days that met a 3,000 ft and 5 sm over the year ending 1 August 2026, from NOAA ASOS records, with four qualifying daytime hours required for a day to count. Mornings are the exception rather than the rule — the marine layer sits over this basin into the late morning in May and June, and a 9am booking in early summer is the one most likely to move.
Weather almost never stops training here. Your own calendar does.
The operation underneath
- 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.
- No quote to request and no range to interpret. Program prices are fixed, published, and the same for everyone who walks in.