If you're looking for a Santa Monica sightseeing air tour or a coastal flying experience, Accelerated Flight School offers a discovery flight lesson from nearby Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) where you may take the controls with a Certified Flight Instructor.
You sit up front, learn the basics, and fly the airplane with your instructor beside you. The coastline and the Santa Monica Mountains are right in our backyard, so when the route allows, your flight can include beautiful coastal and mountain scenery on the way out and back.
This is hands-on fixed-wing aviation, with basic control response introduced when appropriate alongside your instructor. Coastal and mountain scenery is subject to safety, weather, and ATC, making each lesson a memorable learning experience.
From the Valley to the Bay: Your Hands on the Controls
Van Nuys Airport sits just over the Santa Monica Mountains from the coast, which makes it an ideal launch point for a flight pointed toward Santa Monica Bay. On this discovery flight you do not ride to the shoreline; you help fly there. Seated up front with a Certified Flight Instructor, you take the controls and feel the airplane respond as the terrain shifts from valley neighborhoods to the open water of the bay.
When traffic, ATC, and weather allow, the route can carry you toward the coastline where the pier and the wide arc of the bay come into view. Your instructor manages the busy airspace and the safety side while still handing you real flying to do, so the experience stays hands-on rather than passive.
We are based at Van Nuys (KVNY), not Santa Monica Airport, and the introductory flight runs $199.99 for one person or $249.99 for two. To check coastal conditions and pick a clear day, call or text 424-493-2761.
Turn a Santa Monica and the nearby coast Idea Into a Real Aviation Experience
A discovery flight with Accelerated Flight School begins on the Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) ramp, not at a sightseeing bus stop. Before departure, your instructor introduces the fixed-wing aircraft, discusses the preflight inspection and explains how weather, airspace and aircraft readiness shape the day's plan. That context makes the view more meaningful: you are seeing Southern California through the work of aviation.
In the cockpit, pilot interaction is central to the experience. This flight school's CFI handles the safety-critical decisions and can invite you to follow along with checklists, radio workflow and basic control inputs when appropriate. A requested destination is a starting point for discussion, never a promised route, airborne duration or landmark view; weather, ATC and safety always decide what is practical.
If the experience makes you want to learn more, our flight school can explain the next steps toward training and how a properly logged introductory lesson may fit into a longer pilot-training plan. It is a relaxed way to discover whether structured flight instruction from KVNY is right for you.
What You Will See From the Air
Exact scenery and routing vary with each flight depending on conditions on the day.
Why a Discovery Flight Beats a Passive Air Tour
A sightseeing charter puts you in the back as a passenger. A discovery flight puts you in the front, with your hands on the controls.
You Fly the Plane
Sit up front and take the controls with your instructor's guidance — this isn't a passive ride in the back.
Fly With a CFI
Every flight is with a Certified Flight Instructor in one of our fleet aircraft — a Cessna 172 Skyhawk or Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II.
Scenic & Educational
Take in Southern California from the air while learning how an airplane actually flies.
A Real First Step
No experience required — and your flight time may count toward Private Pilot training if you continue.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Discovery Flight — $199.99
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