Japanese ENG Platforms VS. the Rest of the World
Not a rotary wing guy, forgive me if this is in the wrong place, but I figured this would be where the knowledge is.
I have observed that Japanese domestic news services employ a much different set of helicopters compared to everybody else. While the AS350 seems to be the platform of choice here in the United States, in Japan there is a wide selection of much larger, more expensive aircraft - Bell 430's, EC135's, even AW139's (!). From an ignorant outsider's perspective, this seems to be overkill for conventional ENG tasks. Are they employed differently, or are Japanese media companies just rolling in cash? I think it's great, I just don't understand why they operate them. Some examples:
EDIT: Apologies, not sure how to embed videos
Last edited by What Traffic; 28th Jul 2011 at 02:17.