West Valley Flying Club Inc

I just want to say that we are so impressed at how generous WVFC is. They had a Christmas party tonight for their members at Domenico Winery (tasty wine btw!) and they hired a band that we were in contact with and wanted to see a performance. Noelle of WVFC welcomed us, as complete strangers, to come to their party, have a drink (or two) and food. Everyone was really friendly and I’m just blown away by the warm welcome. I’d like to take a flying lesson someday and I will definitely hit these guys up if I do!

I have been a member of WVFC since 2007. I’ve been a member of about a half dozen clubs across the country and WVFC has been my favorite. They have a great selection of aircraft, I have confidence in the maintenance of the aircraft, and they have more social activities than any of my previous flying clubs.

I’m learning to fly here at WVFC. It’s a fun low key club with lots of planes, lots of instructors and two airport offices (KSQL and KPAO). They also offer ground school and have a few simulators you can rent.
They do a lot of club activities in the Palo Alto office. The onboarding for a new pilot who’s learning to fly is great.

I’ve been a member of West Valley Flying Club for a little over a year and I recommend it highly. I am 61 years old and have always wanted to fly but my wife and I raised five children and until recently, the priorities of family life consumed all available time and money. My instructor is Scott Stauter and from the very first demo ride I felt safe and confident in flying with him and learning from him. I also attended ground school at West Valley with Wes Irish as the instructor. Due largely to excellent instruction, I was able to pass both the written and practical private pilot exams on the first attempt.
It is a large club with a large and diverse fleet of aircraft as well as a large number of instructors. I suppose with ~40 affiliated instructors there may be a few bad apples in the bunch but I’ve flown with six different instructors for various check rides or special instruction and they all demonstrated a high level of professionalism and competence. Each instructor provided constructive criticism and suggestions for improving my game that I felt were given in good faith and in my best interest. The fact is I don’t pick things up as fast as I did twenty years ago but none of the instructors that I flew with left me with the impression that they were trying to run up the clock.
The planes I have flown (five so far) are maintained well and the mechanics are accessible, supportive, and helpful as is the office staff. Scheduling planes and instructors is easily accomplished through an online scheduling system. I fly out of Palo Alto once or twice a week and there have only been a couple of instances when I couldn’t schedule a plane when I wanted to.
The club has a strong culture of safety and proper preparedness for flight. They have implemented several checks and balances to assure proficiency of both students and instructors as they progress through the training regimen. An argument can be made that they’ve gone a bit overboard with this and I can understand how this might frustrate some people. But I have to tell you that I went into the PPL check ride feeling calm, competent, and confident and that is exactly how I now feel when I take off with my grandchildren in the plane. All in all, I am very happy with my experience at West Valley Flying Club.

Avoid WVFC. They have completely not changed with the times. The «club» currency rules are a disaster, and they force you spend far more than needed to meet ridiculous «club» requirements, which are only intended to get you to hire instructors.
For example, if you don’t fly their planes in a certain time period, you will be forced to do a checkout. Even if you do have «club» currency, you may still be forced to do a checkout because they have a poor system of granting that currency. For example: time in one model Cessna may be useless in another model.
There are other crazy rules that just waste time, and are pointless.

WVFC is the best place to start your flying ambition. Wether its for recreational or pro, this place has everything you need. From Private Pilot Certificate to Instrument Training and Commerical Certificate, you can get it all here. What’s good about the club is that its a non-​profit organization and so it has very reasonable prices. The CFI (instructors) are private individuals for hire. What’s good about WVFC is that they have a lot of aircraft availability, so you can basically fly anytime. They also offer ground school to prepare you for the written test.

The Club and most of the instructors are OK, but some has problem with attitude. I was flying with Patty Andrews. Nice girl, but she believes that people above 40, are not really comfortable with flying. «They just got money to realize a dream from childhood». I was flying under her instructions ~50 hours before I realized that we spend the time with straight– and level flight to and back Livermore. She was faking for me a lot of flying without entrusting me actions on my own. Trala-​la, trala-​la… I was too precious and solid student pilot to get anywhere with her (in the air). I left after 4 months and 10.000 $, and I still feel as an idiot…

I’ve been a member for quite awhile as I obtained my Private Pilot certificate a few years back at WVFC. I fly a little, now and then, just for fun, recreation, to keep current. I originally started at 2 other training centers in Concord, CA where I solo’ed 2 different types of aircraft – as my former instructors quit, went on to airline jobs, or just left.
When I moved to the Peninsula, I joined WVFC — to finish-​up. I could only fly part-​time due to my family committments, etc. WVFC has several convenient locations, a nice fleet of trainers. Most important — the instructors love to fly! Although technically certified — not every CFI makes a good teacher/​instructor. Flying is definitely not cheap — but if you budget your training, meet a few instructors, the chemistry & personality fit will emerge. Go to their website and have a look. Better yet — go to their location in SQL or PAO and say «Hi», ask questions… There is no pressure! Both SQL and PAO locations are adjacent to some shops where you can buy your books, materials. They offer periodic nighttime groundschools, too– for us 9 to 5 folks. Enjoy!

If you have the yearning to fly an airplane, I would totally recommend West Valley Flying Club. They are a non profit organization, so prices are very reasonable. Our first flying lesson (1 hr instruction, 1 hr of flying) was only $ 250. If you are pretty attentive and good with maneuvering the plane on the ground, the instructor may let you take the controls during takeoff and for most of the flight! Our instructor did exactly that and also did some badass 2.5 G turns and zero G dives for us. All on a 30 year old tiny plane haha. It felt surprisingly stable and I wasn’t nervous at all. The instructor turned the engine to idle at one point to demonstrate the gliding capabilities of the plane. Pretty freaky but cool! I’m bringing water balloons next time to drop on the unsuspecting population below!

I was surprised with a gift flying lesson for my bachelor party. The entire experience was superb. The instructor thoroughly explained flight surfaces and pre-​flight check in, and had me performing parts of take-​off and many in air procedures such as turns, maintaining level flight at engine idle, climbing, descending, and even landing! Just kidding, no landing allowed. All in all, an awesome experience!

Special assessments, accounting mistakes, disabling of scheduling privileges over clerical regulation anomalies … costs the club a star.