About
The Academy
A Part 61 flight school at Riverside Municipal (KRAL) and Redlands Municipal (KREI). Part 141 structured training at Riverside. Private through ATP, plus the endorsements that matter for Southern California flying.
Three groups, one curriculum:
- Career-track pilots (17 to 30) chasing airline or corporate aviation. Need hours, ratings, structured path to 1,500.
- Working adults earning a Private for travel or personal flying. Evenings and weekends, 6 to 12 months.
- Aviation enthusiasts chasing an endorsement, a flight review, or the joy of flying over Southern California.
Pacing changes. Standards don't.
Riverside Municipal (KRAL) · primary
Towered Class D, 5,401-foot runway, full Part 141, complete training fleet. Multi-engine and career-track training base here.
Redlands Municipal (KREI) · second campus
Non-towered, eastern Inland Empire, 30 minutes from Big Bear. Natural gateway to high-altitude and mountain flying. Part 61 only.
Students can transition between locations during training.
FAA-approved curriculum. Gleim-based syllabus aligned to current FAA Airman Certification Standards (ACS). Rolling ground school so written-test prep doesn't bottleneck flying. Stage checks by our Chief Instructor.
The fleet. Piston singles and twins: Cessna 152, Cessna 172, Piper Warrior, Piper Cherokee Arrow (PA-28R) for complex and commercial, Beechcraft Duchess (BE-76) for multi-engine. Plus a Redbird simulator for instrument procedures and multi-engine emergencies.
We schedule what your training stage requires.
Weather that lets you fly
280+ VFR days per year over Riverside and Redlands (NOAA climatology). The difference between a 6-month PPL and an 18-month PPL. Students who book consistently finish on schedule.
Airspace variety
Within 30 NM of KRAL:
- Class B: Ontario (KONT), San Diego (KSAN), Los Angeles (KLAX)
- Class C: March Air Reserve Base (KRIV)
- Class D: Riverside (KRAL), Redlands (KREI), Chino (KCNO), Corona (KAJO), Long Beach (KLGB)
- Mountains past 11,000 feet in the San Bernardino and San Gabriel ranges
- Pacific coastline for Catalina, Avalon, over-water training
- High-density airports at Big Bear (KL35) and Apple Valley (KAPV)
The high-altitude endorsement is required by FAR 61.31(g) for pressurized aircraft above 25,000 feet. More practically, mountain and density-altitude training is what separates pilots who can safely operate west of the Rockies from pilots who can't.
We train it with ground and flight components at Big Bear City Airport (KL35, 6,752 feet MSL) and Apple Valley (KAPV). Not a one-off. Part of the syllabus.
CFI, CFII, MEI. Our Chief and Assistant Chief hold all three. We hire instructors who teach because they want to, not because they need the hours and will be gone in three months. Instructor consistency is one of the largest predictors of training quality.
Not the largest flight school in California. Not a 200-student academy that hands you off to a different CFI every lesson. Not a single-airplane part-time operation.
A focused training organization at two productive airports. Enough fleet and instructor capacity to keep your training moving. Enough restraint to keep instruction personal.
A discovery flight is the simplest path. 30 to 60 minutes in the left seat. You'll know within an hour.
After that, contact us for program selection, financing through Stratus Financial and partners, and ground school scheduling.
Part of the Airport Community
Veterans Day events with Civil Air Patrol cadets. Flabob warbird gatherings honoring DC-3 and T-6 history. Community open houses where the kid in line is the next student pilot. If you train with us, you become part of that ecosystem too.
