Japanese Team Win 2 Gold Medals At World Helicopter Championship 2000 Also Win Silver, Bronze Medals and Total Second and Fourth Position


The World Helicopter Championship 2000 held at El Copero military base near Sevilla at Spain from 22nd June to 25th June. The competition attracted sixteen teams from six countries including Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany.

The skills of expert pilots from around the world were challenged in four separate events, which included Navigation with Precise Timed Arrival and drop-off Load (23rd), Precision Flying and Landing (24th), Navigation (24th), Slalom (25th).

This event is the test event for the 2001 World Aeronautical Olympic in Spain. Japanese team won 2 Gold Medals, 1 Silver Medal, 1 Bronze Medal. And total position is Second and Fourth. Japanese team won Gold Medal at World Helicopter Championship 1999. These Japanese results of 2000 made many European strong teams surprised very much.

All these members of the winning Japanese team are flight instructors employed by Alpha Aviation Company based in Tokyo and Ms. Shizuka Saito is the President of this company. Sevilla city in Spain is famous for Bullfight, Flamenco and exotic building. There was The World Athletic Event last year in Sevilla. And The World Helicopter Championship 2000 received a hearty welcome by the people. The temperature were getting very high(100F=38C) even June. People take a rest from one to five o'clock in the afternoon in Spain -called 'Siesta'.

The Championship was held separately, from morning to one o'clock, and six to ten o'clock(sun set) in the afternoon. Because of high temparature and abnormal time schedule, the performance of helicopter was getting worse and everyday pilots and crews couldn't sleep well. The opening reception was held from 11 o'clock in the evening on 22th to 2 o'clock in the morning. Because breakfast is six o'clock in the morning, we couldn't sleep more than four hours. The schedule tended late everyday, the start time of every events were usually delayed about one or two hours. It was very hot and was very hard for the waiting competitors. The closing and award reception were held from 11 o'clock in the evening on last day to 1 o'clock in the morning. Japanese team should return to Japan at 5 o'clock in the morning. All schedules of this championship were very hard for Japanese team.

From this 2000's event, Japanese teams are recognized as strong teams by all judges. The judgement for Japanese teams is more severe than that for other countries. But Japanese team won best results in all teams, 2 Gold Medals, 1 Silver Medal and 1 Bronze Medal. Many helicopters are used in this championship, Robinson R22, Schweizer 300, Bell 206, Hughes 500, MBB BO105, Eurocopter AS332, etc. Though Robinson R22 has a disadvantage in airspeed, Japanese team won high praise.

We want to achieve higher score at the next World Aeronautical Olympic in Spain in 2001.


To Japanese Version
mail to:
mailto Alpha Aviation Co., Ltd.