A Japanese team of pilots has won a gold medal at the Tenth Annual World Helicopter Championship for the first time, using their Robinson R22 Beta two-seat helicopter. Takashi Tanizawa and Akihiro Sakamoto gained a gold medal in the navigation with Precise Timed Arrival and drop-off load event. Other events included precision flying and landing and slalom. The other events were won by Russian teams flying Mi-2 helicopters.\rHeld at Nordlington Airfield near Munich, the World Helicopter Championship attracted 51 teams from 11 different countries including Germany, Austria, France, the UK, Russia, Switzerland, Spain and Japan.\rBoth Tanizawa and Sakamoto are flight instructors employed by Robinson's Japanese dealer, Tokyo-based Alpha Aviation Company. Alpha Aviation president, Shizuko Saito, also participated in the championship and achieved a higher score than Tanizawa and Sakamoto in the slalom event. She said: "The Robinson R22 is the best competition helicopter. It has precise handling characteristics like Formula One racing cars. The result is that we can beat the big Russian Mi-2 with the R22."\rSaito is looking forward to the next championship to be in Spain in 2001: "Not only do we want to win a single event, next time we want to achieve the highest overall score. Of course, we'll use my favourite helicopter, the R22."