Hi Jinkster,
I've used Air Desert Pacific based at Brackett Airfield (KPOC) for a couple of weeks hour building on two seperate occasions.
The first time I hired an Archer / Warrior. I was booked into at an aircraft all day every day by the time I arrived onsite. I didn't stipulate I'd like to take the aircraft away so wasn't concerned with having the same aircraft every day.
As kabz says the maintenance does seem pretty solid. I had a transponder mode C fail on me on the first day when I was flying from Santa Barbara to Hawthorne. Not much of a deal, except it was precisely when I was overhead the departure end of LAX runways at 3000' just off the shoreline. The controller asked me to check my transponder as Mode Charlie had dissapeared... well we couldn't get it back. The controller was pretty calm about it, even though he was holding Boeings and Airbuses at 2000' (1000' seperation) below me.
Anyway I got a waiver to take off at Hawthorne and got back to Brackett.
They fixed (replaced) the transponder by 8am the next day (I got back to Brackett at around 5pm the day before)! They said that I may have had to wait for the aircraft to come out of maintenance, so I turned up at 9am.... suprised! If that was here in the UK it'd take all day, if at all! ;-)
The aircraft do vary in quality, some of them look pretty smart! My favourite Archer was N2925Q (or was it N2529Q?).
The second time (Sep / Oct 2001) I hired their Arrow III which back then was pretty smart with decent avionics including an HSI. But I have had word from someone else on pprune that the same aircraft looks a little scruffy now. Incidentially I hired an Arrow II but when I arrived they apologised and said someone took the Arrow II on a long trip and would I mind hiring the Arrow III at the Arrow II rates ($10 cheaper per hour) - I didn't have to think for a second to say yes!!! They had already block booked the Arrow III for the entire two weeks I was there.
Have a great time and don't forget to go to all those great destinations such as Grand Canyon, Sedona, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Sacramento, Big Bear City, Catalina Island, San Diego (use the Intl airport - two minute tram ride into the centre of town from the FBO), etc etc...
I can't comment on other schools in the SoCal area as I've never used them sorry.
Best wishes,
Charlie Zulu.