South Coast Helicopters is a full service commercial helicopter operator and one of the premier providers of aircraft, personnel, and aerial support equipment to the film industry. To view our film, commercial and television credits, see credit page. South Coast Helicopters was incorporated in 1990 by Cliff & Kathy Fleming. Its' initial focus was aerial construction, fire suppression and aerospace R & D. However, over the years our focus has evolved such that film work now comprises 90% of our business, either as a stunt vehicle featured in the shot, or as a camera platform for creating an aerial shot.

In spite of our shift towards the film industry, we remain true to our roots and continue to support the U.S. Forestry service in fire suppression. Additionally, we recently had an exciting opportunity to return to our aerospace R & D roots. South Coast Helicopters, in a joint effort with NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories, was tapped to attempt a daring mid-air retrieval of the Genesis space satellite upon its return to the Earth's atmosphere on September 8 of 2004. For more details on that project Herecomesthesun. Unfortunately, due to the failure of the satellite's parafoil to deploy, that mission was not completed. Because we had been training for the mission for 5 1/2 years, this was a great disappointment, but are honored to have been selected for this project.

We operate turbine helicopters based in Orange County and Van Nuys, California. In addition, we have access to aircraft based throughout the West. For a photo gallery of our available helicopters, view the photo page.

Meet the team. South Coast Helicopters is proud to be partners with some of the most accomplished pilots in the film industry.