You know, I'd dearly love to ride in one of those choppers...but I'd just soon not get in one that way.
Especially the way those baskets spin around... I'm just surprised we haven't seen anyone throw up in it. ;~D
I've ridden in lots of them. On a couple of occasions, I wasn't sure it was a round trip. Those guys are really, really good at what they do.
I actually owe my life to one particular pilot, that, except for his insane ability, kept us from crashing on deck in a singularly memorable 'flight'. I put 'flight' in quotes only because 'flying' implies some layer of 'control'. This was a 'landing' on the cutter in 20 ft seas, on a rolling and pitching (really small) flight deck in 50kt gusty and shifty winds... it was a 'landing' in the sense that we finished up with the wheely-part down and the rotating-thingy part up. Another writer might call it a "wheels-down crash". We nearly cut the ship to ribbons, but then finally hit the deck *really* hard. Ouch.
Took weeks to un-pucker from that. :-)