Standard Private Pilot Program At Van Nuys Airport
Phase one, at the regulatory floor, for a fixed $10,900
Forty logged hours, priced as one number before you start. This is the program built to the minimum in 14 CFR 61.109 and nothing beyond it, which makes it our lowest-priced honest route to a private pilot certificate, and the one that assumes the most about you.
| Price | $10,900, fixed |
| Flight time logged | 40 hours |
| In a single-engine airplane | 38 hours |
| In the Redbird MCX | 2 hours |
| Dual instruction | 30 hours |
| Ground instruction | 3 hours |
| Books and training materials | Included |
| Aircraft rate inside the program | $179 an hour, wet, single-engine. The airplane and its fuel; instruction is carried in the program price. |
| Regulation | The aeronautical experience floor is forty hours, per 14 CFR 61.109 |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
Who finishes inside 40 hours
People who fly three or four times a week, hold a current medical before they start, and do the ground study between lessons rather than during them. That is a real group and it is not a large one.
AOPA's figure for how long a private certificate actually takes nationally is higher than the regulatory minimum, and it is higher for a reason that has nothing to do with talent: somebody who gets to the airport twice a month burns the opening twenty minutes of each lesson climbing back to where the previous one finished. Tempo is the variable that decides this, and it belongs to you rather than to us.
Our position on this program, stated against our own interest
If you can only fly at weekends, this is probably the wrong purchase. Buy it and there is a fair chance you buy additional hours later at a rate that is no longer inside a package, and the total lands above the $15,900 Comprehensive program you did not choose.
Training two days a week is the most expensive way to get a certificate and it is also the most common. Choosing the cheaper program and flying it slowly is how people end up paying more than the expensive one costs.
What the certificate lets you do
Carry passengers, fly your own trips, share operating costs within the limits in 14 CFR 61.113, and act as pilot in command of a single-engine airplane in visual conditions. Not fly for hire. That is the commercial certificate, and it is a different program.
What the price does not include
The written test, the examiner, your medical, a headset and your own charts. Those are yours, and we will name them rather than publish somebody else's fees. Everything we control is in the $10,900.
Buy this program if you can fly often. If you cannot, buy the Comprehensive.
What the price is buying into
- Six types, all owned here, all maintained here. When an airplane is due for the 100-hour inspection that 14 CFR 91.409(b) demands of a trainer, it comes off the line and gets one.
- Instructing staff: eleven. Credentials, without exception: a flight instructor certificate, a commercial certificate or an ATP behind it, and a medical in date.
- One simulator, and it is a good one: an FAA-approved Redbird MCX, enclosed cockpit, motion base. Booked on its own it costs $189.
- Weather costs a full-time student roughly ten days a year here. NOAA ASOS records put 355 days above 3,000 ft and 5 sm in the twelve months ending 1 August 2026.
- Every program price is printed on this store. There are no ranges, no block-rate discounts and no number you have to ask for.
- Part 61, stated plainly. The curriculum, the prices and the hours are published; a pass rate and a graduate count are not, because there is no honest one to print yet.