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

It may be the camera angle and/or the focal length of the lens but did that guy drive a forklift under the rotating disc of the EC135 in the first video?

Maybe the Japanese Aviation Authority have some 'quirky' rules that require them to be able to stay airborne in the event of an engine failure? ;)

SJ, I think you are right! Novel way of doing it - conventional wisdom is to leave the GPU outside the disc for the start, and take the power cable to the aircraft!

212Man, that is a very good point, I probably should have thought about that myself. Still, an AW139 is a lot of helicopter for what they're doing. I assume an AS355 for instance, does not meet the requirements - twin engine does not necessarily imply that it will be able to continue flying for any length of time with fuel, passengers, and a bunch of electronics hanging off the outside.

Senior Pilot, thank you for getting my videos operational!

splash
 

I figure they might fly over water more than most and so two engines make sense.

Some years ago we had a Japanese film crew coming to our base for some tourist video production. They needed aerial shots of a town nearby. No offshore/night/hazardous areas or whatsoever. Just nice weather flying over open fields in the summer.

Still, the company pulled back in the last moment, when they found out we were only operating singles.

This year I flew a Japanese camera team in Spain and they didnt care at all that we were flying along coast lines and mountains in a single.

Maybe its company specific there or has to do with lots of flying over open water and densely populated areas in Japan.