I recently went on a demo intro flight with Mick at LA helicopter training in Torrance, I must say…read moreit was one of the best experiences of my life , a life long dream , Mick was very professional and showed his great knowledge and experience as well as putting me at ease on my first heli training experience and I can't wait to start my full time training with him ,

It's been 2 years. They still owe me $2,000.00, yes you heard me right, TWO THOUSAND. Calls and…read moretext get no response. I waited as long as I could before giving this review because the instructor originally came off as a nice guy. Guess you really can't trust any one. Be careful here. Use a real flight school.

Scheduled a discovery flight two days prior. Card was charged. Arrived 15 minutes early. The…read moreinstructor was no-show. The number listed went straight to voice mail. No response via text either. Probably should go with the other flight schools available.

Best place to take your FAA written exams as Ramy is extremely helpful, professional and friendly…read more Knocked out the FIA and AGI back to back, just ask him if you'd like to take more than one. Also, CFIs should def look into getting their spin endorsement here. Their Robin 2160 is awesome!!

I wrote (and passed) my FAA Private Pilot Written Knowledge Exam here. They could not have been…read moremore accommodating. They opened on Sunday, just so I could take my exam. Everyone was super polite and helpful the times I called with questions. The day of the exam, they were open, set up and ready for me. The exam takes a couple hours, so I appreciated the clean exam room and comfortable chairs. Great experience.

I have not trained through this flight school, so I cannot comment on its overall training program…read more However, I have trained extensively with one of its instructors, Lucas, outside of the school as he has a side gig of nearly killing his students with his own private instruction. My primary concern is cockpit communication. In my experience, I found the instructor's spoken English difficult to understand, and communication between us was often challenging. While that may not be an issue for every student, I believe it became a significant safety concern during a takeoff incident. During the event, the aircraft failed to climb as expected, drifted substantially off the runway centerline, and I became concerned about maintaining control of the aircraft. The stall warning was sounding, density altitude was elevated, and I believed the situation required immediate intervention. I repeatedly told the instructor to "take the controls." instead of immediately assuming control of the aircraft, his attention was focused on adjusting the flap settings. This instructor knew about my thousands of hours of weight shift flying history and I had informed in great detail that I could be prone to dangerous mistakes due to faulty muscle memory that could surface under a stressful urgent situation.... Many controls are opposite fixed wing. The experience left me with serious concerns about cockpit communication and decision-making during time-critical situations. Aviation training depends on rapid, clear communication and immediate coordination between student and instructor when safety is involved. Based on my experience, I would not personally choose to train with this instructor again. I understand that this instructor theoretically was giving me a chance to correct the dangerous situation on my own before he took the controls, but I've never heard of an instructor refusing to take the controls when the student essentially insists I could've been having a medical emergency for all he knew. This is why it is insane for an instructor not to immediately resume control when the student urgently states take the controls you have the controls to an instructor This review reflects my personal experience and opinions regarding this instructor and is not intended as a statement about the flight school's other instructors or overall operation. But my understanding is, he's worked there for many years.... So I think they must have very low standards if they would employ a dangerous instructor like this.

Excellent experience! Having flown at several flight schools and flying clubs while earning my…read morePrivate Pilot license, I've learned [the hard way] what to watch out for (good and bad), and I had a good vibe about Beach Cities from the first time I walked into their office, to work on my multi-engine add-on pilot rating. Everyone I've interacted with there is friendly and welcoming and has been patient with my asking a million questions, as I tend to do! Many of their students have gone on to fly for the airlines, and most of BCAA's instructors were students at the school that were hand-picked to teach for them. Plenty of flight schools have big shiny signs and posh offices and are eager to get you to lock in and put down a ton of money buying overpriced block time, then they show no interest in the student's success, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Beach Cities runs a good fleet of well-maintained aircraft that they rent out by the hour, that could probably use a little paint work here or there, but all have recently-renovated engines and updated avionics, from what I've seen, and a very experienced staff that always makes me feel like they genuinely care about safety, professionalism, and about helping their students meet their goals. Thank you BCAA!

Just finished up my private pilot license with ACI and can't say enough good things about them!…read more Have received instruction from another local KSNA school, went through multiple instructors who always left as soon as they had enough hours for the airlines, making for a poor learning experience. It's a smaller operation at ACI, but that is a huge selling point. With the 2 other bigger schools at KSNA, you feel just like a number to them. At ACI, you are treated like family, and they care greatly about your success. Jackson, my main instructor, is extremely passionate about aviation and teaches students the skills they need to be a safe and knowledgeable pilot. Very comprehensive in-depth training, rather than just checking boxes in a syllabus. You will be well prepared for your checkride here! The quality of aircraft here is above any other school I've seen, and they are very on top of their maintenance and detailing. Have a nice fleet of Cessna 172S's, both 6-pack and G1000 versions. Have a few beautiful Cirrus SR22's as well. Pricing is right in line for the SoCal area, and I see other places charging the same but with high-time, older airplanes. Will continue to rent from them and enjoy my PPL, and also plan to work on my Instrument Rating with them in the near future.

I will forever be thankful to this school for helping with my training. The instructors genuinely…read moreseemed like they wanted to help you and the owner is always fun to talk to. The aircraft in their fleet are some of the nicest I've seen for a Part 61 school. I would definitely recommend doing your training here if you live in the Southern California area.

Everything! The instructors, material the ease of navigation through their system, the class…read moreformat, combination of videos, and practice questions has made it very easy to prepare for the exam. I also enjoy the confidence that they are still in their students. Thank you, Mike!

Came here for the Personal Lines course because it's where my job sends everyone. They definitely…read moreknow what they are doing here in order to get the job done. This place is technically 5 stars but I have to give it 3 due to the fact that their privacy of personal information is POOR! I am going to address this first.... Every morning you sign in at the front desk with the receptionist. You sign in on your class sheet and you also hand in your attendance card at the beginning of the day. On the class sheet, you are filling out your name, last four (social) and full birthday. This is for everyone to see. Your attendance card has your FULL social on it and many times this is out in the open. I just don't understand why this is even a problem. I know people who have brought it up and their answer was "this is just how we do it here." That is unacceptable. And I've read other reviews that stated the same. Some may not find it a big deal but I think that this is the one thing that needs to change. Other than that this place is fantastic for learning what you need. They make sure you have everything you need in order to pass the test and "stick it to the man" as Constance would say. My instructors were: Steve - he generally will go by the book, read it out loud and reinforce the material with ways to remember certain things and throw in some real life examples. Sandra - is lively, a good amount of real world examples, she too will reinforce material with ways to remember the important things. She pretty high energy too Constance - straight forward with the book (I mean, it's pretty hard to spice up insurance code), but she has real world examples and she wants everyone to stick it to the man. Fun Tiffany - She did the first part of the crash course. Good energy, real life examples. laughs a lot (keeps energy going) and knows her stuff. I enjoyed all of my instructors, they all brought their own personality to the table to teach the things we needed to pass. I would go back for them for sure. My co-worker and I took the class together and both passed easily. So the results of Mike Russ is not in question. I just wish they fixed their privacy issue.... and this place would be 5 stars all day long.

The LBFC is a travesty of a business. After their planes flew too low over our homes, I flipped…read morethem off hoping to get them to stop flying so low, However, not only did they not stop flying low.., they began diving on our houses at high speeds and gun their engines to get a response. Their licenses should be pulled after a thorough investigation of their illegal and abusive practices. There activity is recorded on Flightradar24.com where they turn their transponders off so they cannot be identified. Crap management as well as crap pilots.

I was a member of the Long Beach Flying Club briefly in the past, but ended up canceling my…read moremembership rather quickly after joining because I decided I didn't want to fly their very "vintage" planes (more on that below). That said, I was recommending them to numerous friends up until my first-time interaction with their management today. Today, I brought by a fellow pilot friend who's working on his cross country requirements for his Instrument Rating. I suggested to him that Long Beach Flying Club would be a good place to complete these requirements doing dual instruction because he'd get the benefit of completing the requirement while getting some experience with a fleet of very "vintage" aircraft. I actually consider the age and lack of any modernization in their aircraft fleet to be something that pilots should experience, so I didn't consider this a downside. I don't know that I'd want to do all of my training in their fleet of aircraft, but it's worth getting a block of experience flying older planes. So, why the incredibly low rating? Unfortunately, I ran into Susan Baker. She has to be one of the rudest and least professional individuals I've interacted with in the aviation industry since I started flying in 2005. Sadly, she appears to be in charge of the place, so there's no one to escalate the issue to. What this means is even if you have a great instructor, and they do have some good ones, you'll eventually end up having to deal with Susan and she will not be someone who puts you first as the customer. Basically, she told us she was not interested in our business because she was too busy with her "Korean students". Sadly, this denied her instructors the opportunity to pick up an easy 15 hours of cross country instruction. She could have politely explained they didn't have the availability to take on new customers at the moment, but she made it a point to rudely declare, "I am not interested in your business", and then she literally walked away. As management, that sets the tone and culture for the Long Beach Flying club, so I'd guess there are systemic issues there. Unfortunately these sorts of flying schools tend to prey on foreign students because they have less recourse when the school doesn't address their needs, so their focus on this population of students makes sense. I feel bad for any of them that signed up thinking Long Beach Flying Club represents the otherwise great schools available throughout the Southern California area. After this off-putting experience, I reached out to several pilot friends who are part of the Long Beach airport community - it turns out Susan has a pretty bad reputation as no one was surprised by what I shared. So, would I recommend Long Beach Flying Club? I guess there are multiple angles on this. Would I recommend them as a "Flying Club"? Absolutely not - they're flat out rejecting applicants in the rudest possible way. Would I recommend them as a student? Again, no - inevitably you'll have to deal with their management in some way and if Susan is the person you'll end up dealing with, you're going to regret your choices in life. Would I recommend them to instructors looking for a place to teach? No - again, you'll have to deal with Susan and she'll have no issue trashing your potential customers, making it that much more difficult for you to build your flight training business. How about their planes? This one's also a hard no. Long Beach Flying Club has a reputation for having worn out planes with no modernization. They basically do the minimum work they need to do to keep the planes legal to fly (hopefully?). So, my prior recommendation to friends was Long Beach Flying Club is worth considering in spite of their aircraft. So what's left? Not much unfortunately. I'm actually a bit sad to write this review. I know some of the instructors there, and they're good people. But you need to think of your overall future experience as a customer. The instructor is just part of that equation. During this same outing, I took my friend to several flight schools at the airport: Aces High, Angel City Flyers, The Pilot Shop, and Pacific Air. Every single one of those locations had friendly professional service. They each have their advantages, but the unifying theme with each of them is that they seem genuinely customer focused with a well maintained fleet of aircraft. Also, I've done demo flights with both ATP and Sling Academy at Long Beach airport. Both of those academies were professional and friendly if you're looking for an "accelerated" program (I ended up going to one of them, but that's not the point of this review so I won't mention where I ended up). Long Beach Airport is an amazing community of pilots and flight schools. Stay away from Long Beach Flying Club, but please don't take their substandard approach to be at all representative of the rest of the great schools in this larger community!

The pilots are so nice and encouraging the student if they make a mistake and overall really…read moresupportive (especially the students)