Helicopter Heroes is a British daytime television series, following the lifesaving work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. First screened on BBCONE in 2007, its first presenter was Top Gear's Richard Hammond. He agreed to front the show to thank the YAA crew which flew him to hospital after his near-fatal rocket car crash at Elvington airfield near York.
Very high audience appreciation ratings (AIs) led the channel to re-commission the show and it's been in production ever since. Several series have been repeated in primetime in slightly shortened form. Since Series 2 it's been fronted by ex-cop Rav Wilding.
Helicopter Heroes is now on air in Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia.
Unusually, it's entirely edited in a hangar at Leeds Bradford Airport and shot by a small team from BBC English regions using Sony EX3 HD cameras. Helicopter Heroes was among the first producer-shot ob-docs commissioned by the BBC HD Channel. They have flown more than 1,000 missions in the Yorkshire Air Ambulance's two MD902 Explorer helicopters.
Helicopter Heroes is well know for its dramatic air to air footage, its extensive use of aerial pictures of the Yorkshire countryside and bodycameras.
The programme captured dramatic footage of the aftermath of the Cumbria shootings during Summer 2010. The team also filmed what's thought to be the first footage of a patient - air ambulance dispatcher Chris Solomons - actually suffering a heart attack, going into cardiac arrest and being revived with CPR and a defibrilator. This is now widely used around the world as a training aid for police, firefighters and paramedics.
Celebrity contributors have included Prince Andrew, TV presenter James May, TV chef Gordon Ramsay and cricketer Ian Botham. One celebrity who declined to appear was Jeremy Kyle after the YAA was called to an accident involving his car on the A1. Helicopter Heroes is transmitted at the same time as his ITV show!
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More about Helicopter Heroes... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0087g39