Multi-Engine Discovery Flight
An hour in the twin, from the left seat
$499 for sixty minutes in the Piper Seminole — the airplane a multi-engine rating is earned in, flown by you rather than demonstrated at you.
| Price | $499 |
| Time booked | 60 minutes |
| Aircraft | Piper Seminole — twin engine, counter-rotating propellers, retractable gear |
| Who is flying | You, from the left seat |
| What is logged | Dual instruction received, in your name |
| Hourly rate | None published for this airframe. The twin is sold as a rating, and $5,100 is what that rating costs. |
| Published weight limit | 600 lb |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
What a second engine actually changes
Not the flying. Straight and level in a Seminole feels much like straight and level in anything else. What changes is how much has to be managed, and what happens when it is managed out of order: two throttles, two propeller controls, two mixtures, gear that retracts and must be lowered again, and memory items that exist because this airplane punishes hesitation.
The Seminole has counter-rotating propellers, which removes the asymmetry that makes some twins much harder to handle on one engine. That is a design decision made specifically to make the airplane a better trainer, and it is the reason it is the type most people earn the rating in.
Who this hour is for
Somebody on a professional track who wants to see what the multi-engine phase involves before committing to the $5,100 add-on. Also pilots who already hold a certificate and want twin time under instruction without buying a rating first.
It is a poor first flight for a complete beginner. A first lesson should have one engine and few systems, and it costs $229.
What it does not include
Engine-out work. Single-engine handling in a light twin is training, not a demonstration flight, and it belongs inside a rating course with a syllabus behind it. Anyone offering it to you in an introductory hour is selling something they should not.
Two engines double the systems and roughly double the ways to get it wrong. That is the lesson.
What sits behind this flight
- Every type in the fleet is school property, serviced on site. Instruction for hire triggers the 100-hour interval written into 14 CFR 91.409(b), and we would rather carry that cost than argue about it with an owner.
- Eleven instructors, matched to students one at a time and changeable if the pairing is wrong. Each holds a CFI alongside a commercial certificate or an ATP.
- A Redbird MCX lives on the field. It is enclosed, it sits on a motion base, it holds FAA approval, and a standalone booking is $189.
- The flyable-days figure for this field is 355, counted from NOAA ASOS records over the year to 1 August 2026 rather than estimated from a brochure.
- Fixed prices, published in full. The figure you agree at the start is the figure at the end, which is the point of buying a program rather than hours.