Piper Seminole — Multi-Engine Training Aircraft, Van Nuys
The twin, sold inside the $5,100 rating and not by the hour
Propellers turning opposite ways, gear that folds away, and two of most things to keep track of. No hourly rate is published for this airplane; the twin is sold as a rating at $5,100.
| Type | Piper Seminole |
| Configuration | Twin engine, counter-rotating propellers, retractable gear |
| Hourly rate | None published, by policy |
| How it is sold | As part of the multi-engine rating, $5,100, and inside the $89,000 career track |
| Prerequisite for the rating | An existing private or commercial certificate |
| Ownership | Owned by the school and maintained in-house |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
Why counter-rotating propellers matter
Most light twins spin both propellers in the same direction, and that makes one of the two engines the critical one. Lose that engine and the airplane gets harder to hold straight. The Seminole's propellers turn in opposite directions, so neither engine is the critical one.
That is a design decision aimed squarely at training. It does not make asymmetric flight easy — nothing does — but it removes one variable from a lesson that already has too many, which is why this type has been the standard multi-engine trainer for a very long time.
What multi-engine training is actually about
Managing systems under time pressure, and making the decision to stop rather than continue. Two throttles, two propeller controls, two mixtures, gear, and a set of memory items that exist because the airplane behaves badly if the order is wrong.
The rating sits after the instrument rating in the sequence we recommend, because multi-engine time is expensive and 14 CFR 61.129 is best satisfied with cheap hours early and expensive hours late.
Why no hourly rate appears here
Because there is nothing you could buy at that rate. Twin time here is sold as a rating with a syllabus, a stage check and a checkride at the end. $5,100 is the published price for that, and a per-hour figure would only ever be a number to be compared with, not a number to be paid.
Two engines do not make an airplane safer. They make it more complicated, and complication is manageable.
How this airplane is operated
- Six airframes sit on this ramp and the school owns all six outright. Nothing is brokered in, nothing is on leaseback, and the shop that services them is ours.
- Eleven on the instructing roster. All of them fly on a commercial certificate or an ATP, all of them teach on a CFI, and none of them instruct on an expired medical.
- Procedure work happens in the Redbird MCX rather than in an airplane, because it is cheaper and because it can be stopped and rewound. $189 a session standalone.
- We counted the weather rather than guessing at it: 355 days here cleared 3,000 ft and 5 sm in the year to 1 August 2026, from NOAA ASOS records, and the method is published with its limitations.
- No hourly figure is published for the Seminole or the SR22 Turbo. Those airframes are sold inside a rating and a program, at $5,100 and $22,500.
- Published pricing, all of it, with no spreads. A program costs one number and that number is on its page.