Sport Pilot License Program At Van Nuys AirportThe Shortest Route To Flying Yourself
Sport pilot at Van Nuys for a fixed $8,400 in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher, with the post-MOSAIC rules set out without the usual shortcuts.
Pick Your Option
Cowlendar handles the calendar. Until the services are live this button places the booking through checkout and we confirm the slot by phone; either way you are booked and nothing is charged twice.
What The Number Buys
Sport Pilot, $8,400, And The Rules As They Now Actually Read
A fixed-price route to a sport pilot certificate in the Cessna 162 Skycatcher. The rules changed with the MOSAIC final rule, most summaries of the change are wrong in the same way, and this page says what it actually says.
| Price | $8,400, fixed |
| Aircraft | Cessna 162 Skycatcher — two seats, high wing, single engine |
| Certificate | FAA sport pilot |
| Aircraft rate inside the program | $179 an hour, wet, single-engine |
| Governing rules | 14 CFR 61.303, 61.315, 61.316, 61.321, 61.325 and 61.329 |
| Field | Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA 91406 |
What MOSAIC Changed, And The Part Most Summaries Leave Out
The aircraft you may fly as a sport pilot are now defined by performance rather than by weight. The criteria sit in 14 CFR 61.316: a stall speed at maximum certificated takeoff weight of no more than 45 knots CAS, or 59 knots CAS where the aircraft is an airplane; two seats at most, though airplanes may hold certification for as many as four; a cabin that is not pressurized; and landing gear that stays down, with a propeller fixed or adjustable only on the ground, unless the endorsement described in 14 CFR 61.331 is in your logbook. Weight has dropped out of the test completely, because 14 CFR 1.1 no longer contains the definition that carried it.
Night flying is now available to sport pilots, and here is the sentence almost nobody includes: 14 CFR 61.329 asks for night instruction totalling three hours, a night cross-country beyond 25 nautical miles, ten landings after dark, every one of them to a full stop, at a tower-controlled field, an endorsement from your instructor, and on top of all that either BasicMed under 14 CFR 68.9 or a medical issued by the FAA. A driver's license does not get you to night flying.
The Medical Position, Stated Precisely
In daylight, a current U.S. driver's license stands in for the FAA medical a sport pilot would otherwise need. That is not the same as no medical requirement, and it is not the same as being medically unassessed — you are still responsible for not flying when unfit.
If you intend to fly at night, or to go on to a private certificate later, either BasicMed or an FAA medical under 14 CFR 61.23 becomes necessary, and settling that early is the least expensive way to test whether the plan holds.
Our Honest Position On Sport Pilot As A Starting Point
It is a real certificate with real privileges and it costs less than a private certificate. It is also a narrower one: 14 CFR 61.315 limits what you may do with it, and if your actual goal is a private certificate then the hours you fly here count toward it but the money spent on a second checkride does not.
If you know you want a private certificate, go straight at it. If your flying will be local, in daylight, in an uncomplicated airplane, and you want it to cost less, then this is the right product and we sell it without reservation.
Sport pilot is not a cheaper private certificate. It is a different one.
What Sits Behind The Program
- Ownership rather than access: the six airframes belong to the school and are looked after in our own shop, which is why the schedule does not depend on somebody else's asset.
- Eleven people instruct here. Each carries a CFI, each holds either a commercial certificate or an ATP, and each keeps a medical in date under 14 CFR 61.23.
- The Redbird MCX here moves and is fully enclosed, which makes it worth using for scan and procedure work. $189 gets you a session of it.
- 355 days a year clear the minima we train to, 3,000 ft and 5 sm, on NOAA ASOS records for this field. What that measurement does not model — wind, and thin layers the sensor misreads — is published alongside it.
- The price list is the website. Nothing is quoted privately, nothing is discounted for signing on the day, and no figure appears here as a range.
- This is Part 61 training. We publish a syllabus, a price and an hour count, and nothing about a track record the business has not had time to build.
Fly The Aeroplane Once, Then Decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →
Book It
One aircraft, one instructor, one slot on the schedule. Pick a time and we will confirm it.