Encore Flight, Van Nuys

From their home base at Van Nuys Airport, the certified flight instructors at Encore Flight apply what they learned as students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to the training of new pilots-to-be through everything from discovery flights to full pilot's certification. The crew goes to work aboard an extensive fleet of Piper and Cessna light-sport aircraft, or doles out instruction while safely planted on the ground inside two FAA-approved flight simulators, one a stationary apparatus and the other a full-motion Redbird FMX. Fully enclosed in the Redbird's cockpit, students experience the motions of actual flight on all three axes and enjoy more than 200 degrees of wrap-around visuals, helping them spot hazards such as oncoming flocks of birds or commuting superheroes.