When I started reading the article I thought the journalist had made a boneheaded mistake saying the Vietnam helicopter pilot who rescued 4 men in the jungle was a Cobra pilot. Amazing story.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-medal-army-helicopter-pilot-vietnam-war-e73e7a47f736045670a874b9f6d46fd6
"I finally just flew up behind them and sat down on the ground," Taylor said during a telephone interview this week. "They turned around and jumped on the aircraft. A couple were sitting on the skids. One was sitting on the rocket pods, and I don't know where the other one was, but they beat on the side of the ship twice, which meant haul a- -. And we did!"
What Taylor did that night had never before been attempted, the Army said.
Hill put their odds of survival at "absolutely zero" without Taylor's outside-the-box thinking.
Something very similar happened in Iraq with British Apaches and Royal Marines, except they were hanging off of the sponsons.