Just thought I'd throw my $0.02 in here about Ocean Helicopters (and maybe a penny about Cloud 9). As a customer, I recently did some 206 Recurrent Training in Ocean's ship, which was required by my insurance company and actually performed by an outside company (Lunsford Air Consulting). Long story, not relevant.
But here *is* the relevant part: I spent a lot of time speaking with the owner, Dave Harmon, his wife Gill (pronounced "Jill") and their employees (most of their instructors and their wonderful, cheerful Chief Flight Instructor Pam Landis). I liked Dave. Good head on his shoulders and good heart. We talked about people we both knew in the industry. I could tell by what Dave said and how he said it that he is a kind, generous man.
I've been in this industry a long, looooong time and I have to say I was impressed with Ocean and their staff. They are all incredibly friendly, likeable, professional and accomodating. They have a nice facility (no on-site coffee though- what's up with that!) and nice ships: R-22's, R-44's, S-300's and the aforementioned 206 (which was gorgeous). I got a good feeling while hanging out there as long as I did; wished I could have stayed longer. Good people. Made me feel right at home. My impression was: Nice place to train. I liked the fact that they had such a wide variety of ships - Robbies *and* Schweizers.
To their credit, nobody at Ocean had anything bad to say about Cloud 9 - *other than* stating that the owners of Cloud 9 had once worked at Ocean, then they left and then started a helicopter flight school right next door. That's all. End of story. (I suspected that there was more to it, but I didn't ask.) So I'll offer my one and only observation:
The morning I arrived, I spent a little time watching airplanes and helicopters take-off and land (I can be such a geek, even at this stage). The helicopters at North County all seem to be stored in some t-hangars across the runway from where the operators' offices are. Each morning, some are air-taxiied across the runway to a ramp area, some are towed on their ground-handling wheels, and some are just accessed by golf cart.
Suddenly, one of Cloud 9's ships came flying across from the hangars at low-level and high speed. The pilot raised the nose into what was a...let's say "aggressive" quick-stop. But instead of decellerating straight-ahead and terminating to a hover, during the decel he side-stepped left and then right (banked turns), ending with a bit of side-flare as he settled onto his parking spot. I thought to myself, "Weeeoh! Hot dog!" My second thought was that this was definitely *not* the kind of flying I would be showing to my students. My third thought was that if *I* was Cloud 9's Chief Pilot, that guy would be in my office with his heels locked and one foot out the door. (When I later mentioned this event to Pam at Ocean she just rolled her eyes and said, "No comment.") I was *almost* tempted to go in and talk to Cloud 9's Chief Pilot, but thought I would just be coming off as some pompous, know-it-all jerk-off and so didn't. Opportunity lost.
So there you have it - my unscientific and unobjective evaluation of my day spent at North County Airport. I don't know about Cloud 9, but if I was a student looking for a place to get my ratings, I wouldn't hesitate plunking my money down with Dave and his happy crew at Ocean Helicopters, and I'd have a ball doing it. (But come on, Dave, get some coffee, willya? *REAL* helicopter pilots drink coffee and lots of it!)