Sikorsky made short film demonstrating the CH-53. At primary flight school in Pensacola, they marched us all over to the base theater to see it, in a recruiting effort for helos. (Everyone, me included, wanted to be a 'jet jock' and fly Phantoms)
The film started with the camera aircraft flying alongside on a -53, which began to pull nose up, more and more and more until it was inverted at the top of a loop. By then, the rotorheads in our class, the ones already sold on flying helos, were standing in on their seats cheering. That -53 went on to do barrel rolls.
Next the scene switched to a Sikorsky demo done in Japan. They had the reviewing stands alongside the runway packed with Japanese admirals & generals. The -53 comes trucking down the runway at about 50 feet altitude and 170+ kts, pulls up into a zoom climb (I've seen 6,000 fpm rate of climb doing this), then levels off at altitude. A brief pause, straight & level, then it does a Split-S. Levels off, then comes flying by the reviewing stand at something under 500ft altitude, doing aileron rolls!
Next we see the -53 parked, rotors stationary. A single line of Japanese troops is walking up the back ramp. The camera pans down the line which snakes its way into the distance, disappearing over a small rise. They put 125 troops (no gear) inside, took off and climbed to 4,000ft, then returne for a single engine landing.
I'm hooked! Sign me up!
BTW, this was the old CH-53D, two engines. The Ch-53E now has three, 10% stronger engines and a much higher gross weight. With the -53D we could hover at sea level on a cold day at max gross weight, single engine. We had an 11,000lb concrete block we used for practice sling load lifts. I never used nor than 75% power climbing out with that on the hook. Our max sling load was 16,000 lbs. The -53E has a sling load capacity of 32,000 lbs