This post title may sound familiar to some.  I have linked to this one-minute video twice previously, once in a post on the Crystal Coast Tea Party’s Facebook page, and again on my vanity website, so I will apologize in advance to those who may have seen it before.  However, I think it displays exceptional helicopter piloting ability, and well worth a look for those who have not seen it.

The video shows a large double-rotor Chinook helicopter being used in the mountains of Afghanistan to extract a team of Special Forces soldiers back in 2008 or so.  The terrain was mountainous, and the extraction site so steep, that the pilot actually backed the hovering helicopter up to a crop cultivation step at the end of a valley, where the crew dropped the rear ramp onto the step long enough to load the team while the pilot maintained the hover.  You gotta see it to believe it.