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This photo was taken by a soldier in Afghanistan of a helo rescue mission. The pilot is a PA Guard guy who flies EMS choppers in civilian life. Now how many people on the planet you reckon could set the ass end of a chopper down on the roof top of a shack on a steep mountain cliff and hold it there while soldiers load wounded men in the rear??? If this does not impress you .. nothing ever will…
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Bravo!
I saw this photo in 2003 whilst working in iraq, it was attributed to Italian special forces of all people.
Funny how things get reinvented
Whoever it is, that’s mighty impressive. Take a look at the rear wheel. Does that look like it’s sitting halfway through the roof to anybody else?
Probably just a flat tire.
According to Snopes.com this picture is real, but I doubt the text accompanying it is true.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/landing.asp
our troops best damn people on earth.
Outstanding!
Doesn’t look that hard.
I can. It’s not that hard depending on the winds. You just hover over the house until you are in position and set it down. The crew cheif in the back calls it. Ever land on a ship or an oil rig? Same thing. Except shipboard landing are much more complicated. All in a days work for an US Army helicopter pilot. Go Army!
Amazing how shots like these don’t make it to the mainstream media…
Here is a collection of Chinook “pinnacle landing” pics:
http://www.chinook-helicopter.com/Pinnacle_Landings/Pinnacle.html
As a helicopter pilot, I can tell you that we all practice these. With single rotor helicopters, one skid is placed on the “pinnacle”, which is usually just a jutting rock. In a Chinook, both or sometimes just one rear wheel is touching the surface. The idea is to barely “anchor” the heli so that personnel can exit onto uneven (or practically non-existent) terrain without the ground moving around. It is one of the more exciting things a pilot can do with a helicopter, especially in a wind! The heli is still basically hovering with as little weight on the pinnacle as possible…
This is something you will never see on fox news.
See how this data point supports my views on some distantly-related subjects? 🙂
Naw, but seriously, that’s a pretty sweet operation, and I admire the pilot’s skills.
I’m impressed no matter how many times it has been practiced. My question is: Where was the guy standing who took the photo?
It looks like the back wheels broke through the top part of the roof. I am amazed that the whole building didn’t collapse. I think it is safe to say that the number of pilots able to do this is short.
More on this operation here:
http://www.chinook-helicopter.com/news/Afghanistan/afghanistan_chinooks_15.html
No big deal…I can do that in MS Flight Simulator with no problem. ; ) Cool pic!
I admire skill.
I’m not sure of the neighbors, but that is a nice view
While serving as a crewchief on CH-46s in the USMC… We praticed this type of landing often. While in San Francisco, we landed on the roof tops of some of the sky scrappers in downtown. We did it on a Sunday… I wish we could have done that during the week…
I work on a recue heli and that is true EMS pilots are the best by far
Another Great Job but it might interest you to know that it is not .
the first of its kind. Following is another brave individuals recall of another daring rescue. My hats off to “childers” as well as the rest of this earlier (1969) daring rescue in Vietnam.
“In 1969, ICorp Vietnam, Marine Force Recon team was compromised and being pursued by NVA and/or VC. About midnight they called the TOC for emergency extraction. I remember a Major Cole was the 3 on duty and quickly analyzed the situation (wounded Marines, dark, rough terrain with little chance of finding a LZ that the team could make it to, jungke penetrator extract simply too hard to
do). He launched a hook with himself in charge, together with a number of people and lots of ammo and a couple of corpsmen, and vectored to the vicinity of where the in-extremis MFR team was. Lots of radio traffic between Cole and the team leader enroute. Cole had operated in the area personally before and had some knowledge of potential extraction sites, but it would require a daring maneuver. He had a daring pilot. After some time in flight, looking at possibilities, Cole directed the team to a specific terrain feature. It was a near vertical rock face with nothing but sky outboard of the face but with trees growing fairly near the vertical drop. The craft was backed into the cliff, ramp down,very much like the instance you sent. Rear rotor had little clearance of foliage and was of course in “ground effects” while the front rotor was essentially out of ground effects. Done one time just to see if it might work; MFR team not there yet. Then he pulled out and made several more “false hovers” around until it was time to go back and extract the MFR Team. Cole left two marines at the extract site to coordinate with MFR team when they arrived and to
call the chopper back. THe next back up was the real one. A terrific little firefight ensued during loadup for a short time.
It was an event that will always be with me.
My admiration for Maj Cole in conceiving this on the fly,
literally, is simply so great that I can never articulate it. His view was, just another mission; lots of good fortune; could have gone sour a number of times. Later the pilot said it was a really tricky maneuver the first time; the second time was harrowing because he had some time to think about it while making several false inserts and was just praying he could do it again.
s/f
childers” ”