dual over Grand Canyon iffy
Hey, have a blast! But it's easier to be a passenger over Grand Canyon than be the pilot: FAA, in its arbitrary capricious shoot-from-the-hip infinite wisdom, has decreed that ALL flights below 10,500' over Canyon must be a) under Part 135, and b) written into operations specifications of the 135 operator.
And c), Catch 22, part 135 specifically forbids allowing anyone but the FAA-approved designated pilot from touching the controls. (Thought control is Real and With Us!)
Under Part 91 (dual possible) You can stooge around outside the edges of the SFAR airspace at the west margins of the Park, but it's not as breathtaking.
But do check with the flight schools, Prescott or Silver State or AFlightAbove (St. George), just don't tell the FAA what you get to do with them . . .
One legal option: if you go in from St George (they have an R44 now, I believe), run 40 nm +- SE to Kanab Canyon, where you can land at 5000' on a point jutting out southward, just N of SFAR Airspace, right next to a Wilderness Area (restricted), on Bureau of Land Management open range (no restrictions whatsoever) and gambol about the plateau edge taking pictures 3500' down into the main Grand Canyon, S wall 8 mi S at Havasu Falls (not visible). The Esplanade is a little better-developed here than it is in the Park proper.
San Diego: Robinsons available at Carlsbad (Civic, but no R44's), Montgomery Field (Corporate Helis, as I recall). I have done one, and only 1, scenic tour southern San Diego County, trying to comply with all the airspace requirements without talking to controllers (this was to be a SCENERY flight) drove me nuts. But if you don't have to look at the city and the beaches, the foothills just east of Class B airspace are impressively rugged and beautiful, mostly below 4000' elevations, and largely unrestricted.
Dave