Airbus Helicopters H135

Updated: October 2026 – A yellow helicopter settles onto a hospital roof, and at the tail the rotor spins inside a round shroud: it was almost certainly an Airbus Helicopters H135, still known to many as the EC135. The compact twin-engine helicopter from Donauwörth has shaped air rescue in Germany and Austria since the mid-1990s and flies with the police and the German Armed Forces. Here you will learn where it comes from, how to identify it with confidence, how to tell it from the larger H145 and its predecessor, the Bo 105, and how to get good photos.

What is the Airbus H135?

The H135 is a light twin-engine helicopter in the three-ton class. Airbus Helicopters markets it as a multi-role helicopter for air rescue, police, training, offshore and corporate flights. It is powered by two turbines with digital engine control (FADEC): either Safran Arrius 2B2 Plus or Pratt & Whitney Canada PW206B3. According to the Airbus data sheet, the maximum takeoff weight is 2,980 kilograms; with the Alternate Gross Weight option it is 3,100 kilograms. With standard tanks it can fly up to 626 kilometers. The cabin seats five to six passengers besides one or two pilots – in the rescue version usually one patient on the stretcher plus the medical crew.

The roots lie in Bavaria. At MBB, the Bo 108 was created in the 1980s, a technology demonstrator as a successor to the legendary Bo 105. The first prototype flew in 1988, still with an open tail rotor and a hingeless rotor system. When the helicopter divisions of MBB and Aérospatiale merged into Eurocopter, the French side contributed the Fenestron, and the Bo 108 became the EC135. It flew for the first time in February 1994, received European certification in June 1996, and the first production aircraft went to DRF Luftrettung that same year – the world’s first operator.

Since Eurocopter became Airbus Helicopters in 2014, the type has been called the H135. You can find more about the manufacturer on the pages for Airbus Helicopters and the parent group Airbus.

Airbus cites more than 1,600 H135s delivered in over 65 countries, over 700 of them in emergency medical service. Final assembly is in Donauwörth; since 2019 there has also been a final assembly line in China that builds aircraft for the market there.

The generations at a glance

Over three decades the type has developed considerably without changing its basic shape. The version names follow a simple pattern: T stands for turbines from Turbomeca (now Safran), P for Pratt & Whitney Canada. The number after it denotes the generation.

Generation	Key changes	Visible from outside?
T1 / P1	Production start 1996	hardly
T2 / P2	more powerful engines, from the early 2000s	hardly
T2+ / P2+ (also T2e, P2i etc.)	higher takeoff weight, improved performance	hardly
T3 / P3 (H135)	wider rotor blades, offset air inlets, changes to the Fenestron, better hot-and-high performance	with practice, yes
H135 with Helionix	Glass cockpit with four-axis autopilot, Alternate Gross Weight up to 3,100 kg optional since 2020	only from the inside

For spotters this means: you can hardly tell the generation from the outside. The T3/P3 has wider blades, which you can see in comparison on sharp pictures, but a reliable assignment only comes from a database lookup of the registration. Many older aircraft were later brought up to the newer standard – so the year of manufacture alone says little.

The three features that are enough to identify it

Both families have the rear doors through which the stretcher is slid in on the rescue version – so they only help you against other manufacturers, not against the H145. The final certainty comes from the registration: German civil helicopters start with D-H, Austrian ones with OE-X, Swiss ones with HB-Z. The system is explained in the articles on German aircraft registrations, Austrian OE registrations and Swiss HB registrations.

H135, H145 or Bo 105?

The most common mix-ups in the German-speaking region involve the larger H145, whose cockpit was derived from the EC135, and the older Bo 105, which also has four blades and rear doors. The finder helps you narrow it down.

Further distinctions: the H125 has only one turbine, three blades and an open tail rotor. The H130 does carry a Fenestron, but it is a single-engine helicopter with three blades and a very wide cabin. The Leonardo AW109 stands out with its retractable wheeled landing gear and slim, pointed fuselage. For an overall overview of the common types, see the article How to identify helicopter types.

Where you will find the H135

The H135 works where things have to happen fast. Most sightings therefore do not happen on the observation deck of a major airport, but at hospitals, rescue stations, police airfields or simply over your head.

Air rescue in Germany: DRF Luftrettung was the world’s first operator in 1996. It has since retired its older EC135s and flies H135s and H145s. ADAC Luftrettung calls the EC135/H135 the most widely used rescue helicopter in its fleet and operates it in the P2, P2e, P2+ and P3 versions. In 2011 ADAC took over the 1,000th EC135 delivered. In Germany, rescue helicopters fly under the call name “Christoph” with a number.

Air rescue in Austria: The Christophorus Flugrettungsverein of the ÖAMTC (the Austrian automobile club) has gradually converted its fleet to the EC135 since the late 1990s and today flies exclusively EC135s and H135s. The aircraft are spread across the whole country and answer to call names like “Christophorus 1” in Innsbruck. If you spot there, you often see the yellow helicopters at regional airports as well.

Police: The Bundespolizei uses the EC135, along with several state police forces. The Bavarian Police took over the 100th delivered aircraft in 1999. Police helicopters often circle over an area for longer – ideal for taking a few pictures in peace.

German Armed Forces and Switzerland: The Army Aviation uses the H135 in a version with raised skids as a training helicopter for basic training in Bückeburg. The Swiss Air Force flies the military version EC635, or H135M. What to keep in mind when photographing around military facilities is in the article Photographing military airfields: rules, and how German Armed Forces aircraft are marked is explained in the guide to Bundeswehr registrations.

Place	Chance of a hit	Why
Air rescue stations and hospital landing sites	high	ADAC, DRF and ÖAMTC fly the type every day
Police airfields	medium to high	Bundespolizei and state police forces
Area around Bückeburg	high	Army Aviation training operations
Large commercial airports	low to medium	Bases of individual operators, ferry flights, maintenance flights

Many rescue and police helicopters transmit ADS-B data and so show up on flight tracker services, but some flights are filtered. How to find them is shown in the guide Rescue and police helicopters on a flight tracker; the basics are in the article on flight tracking with ADS-B.

Spotting with consideration

With rescue helicopters the surroundings count more than with any airliner. A few ground rules come with it.

Whether your vantage point is fine in general is covered in the article Is plane spotting allowed?. You will find general tips about rotorcraft in the article Helicopter spotting.

Photo tips specifically for the H135

With helicopters, the shutter speed is what matters most. If you expose too briefly, the rotor stands still and the H135 looks as if it is about to fall out of the sky.

The same technique as for propeller aircraft also works for the rotor; details are in the guide Photographing propellers: the right shutter speed. When the light is right at your location is something you work out with the sun position planner guide. Helicopters often fly low – a medium telephoto zoom is usually enough, as the plane spotting gear checklist shows.

History you can touch: the Bo 108 in Bückeburg

If you want to follow the development, a detour to the Helicopter Museum Bückeburg is worthwhile. There stands a test aircraft of the Bo 108 – the direct ancestor of the EC135. Compared with a modern H135 you can see well how much of the MBB heritage is in today’s type and what Eurocopter changed with the Fenestron at the tail. Army Aviation trains on its H135s very nearby, so museum and spotting combine well.

The prehistory in air rescue is also exciting for collectors: the Bo 105 was the standard type at ADAC and DRF for decades before the EC135 replaced it from the late 1990s. If you still catch a flying Bo 105 today, you have a real rarity in your hangar – more on that in the article Spotting rare aircraft. The line of the larger sister models runs via the BK 117 to the H145.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

Conclusion

The H135 is the helicopter many people in Germany and Austria know without knowing its name: the yellow or red-and-white lifesaver over the country road, the police helicopter over the stadium, the training helicopter over the Weser Uplands. Fenestron, four blades and a compact fuselage give you the type, the registration the generation. Because many operators are currently reshaping their fleets, it is worth documenting older EC135s now. If you are just getting started, the introduction Plane spotting for beginners will get you on course quickly.