In as little as 40 hours of accelerated private pilot training, you can become a private pilot! With a Private Pilot Certificate, you can take family and friends flying anywhere in the United States. Imagine having the flexibility to fly somewhere new for lunch, and be back by night time. With a Private Pilot Certificate, you’ll get to do just that!
Our expert flight instructors will ensure you are a safe and knowledgeable pilot. Doing your flight training in Los Angeles is a great way to learn how to fly in a busy airspace. You’ll be an expert on radio communications, and navigation between airports, in a city with great weather year round.
Course Description
A Private Pilot Certificate allows you to fly anywhere in the United States under Visual Meteorological Conditions, meaning under good weather conditions and visibility. Becoming a Private Pilot is extremely rewarding, and our flight school in Los Angeles allows for great weather year round to go fly in.
Here’s some good info to know:
- While the minimum required flight time is 40 hours, the nationwide average is closer to 65-70 hours of flight time. Studying up and practicing at home are great ways to reduce flight hours needed, and save you money.
- Typically, if you fly more frequently, you will retain knowledge from each flight better, and will spend less money overall during training. We recommend flying three days per week for best knowledge retention.
This course typically takes about 3-5 months to complete, if you are flying three days per week. It just depends on how quickly you can learn how to land, then that will determine how fast you move on to you solo cross country requirements.
If you are doing this course full time, five days per week, you can become a Private Pilot in as little as three weeks!* If you are on a time crunch, we can assemble a perfect accelerated course for you.
* All accelerated courses require written exams done prior to enrollment.
In order to become a Private Pilot, you will need the following:
- At least 17 years old when taking your checkride (you can start training at 16 years old)
- Be able to read, speak, write and understand english
- 3rd Class Medical Certificate (we can recommend some Aviation Medical Examiners)
- US Citizenship, or be eligible for TSA Flight Training Authorization (we can help with this!)
- 40 hours of flight time:
- 3 of these hours of cross-country flight training
- 3 hours night flight training, which includes:
- One night cross-country flight
- 10 full stop takeoffs and landings
- 3 hours of simulated “instrument training”
- 20 of these hours from an authorized instructor
- 10 of these hours of solo flight training, which includes:
- 5 hours of those hours cross-country time
- One solo cross-country flight greater than 150 nautical miles
- 3 solo takeoffs and 3 solo landings
- Exams Required for Certification
- Knowledge Test
- Multiple choice exam administered by FAA authorized facility
- FAA Checkride
- Oral Exam
- Flight/Practical Exam