There is quite enough room for a single passenger on a wing. 
You just have to forget about scratching your ass while in flight. Both hands are required in lieu of lapbelts.
Posted on 01/17/2007 12:48:28 AM PST by knighthawk
Royal Marines have carried out one of the most daring rescue missions ever to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade in Afghanistan.
It followed a ferocious battle in which 200 British troops backed by artillery, helicopters and aircraft raided a fort believed to be a major headquarters for Taliban militants.
Officials say that as the troops advanced they were engaged from several insurgent positions.
On retreat they discovered one Marine was missing and four men volunteered to go on a daring rescue mission.
Apache attack helicopters were used to mount the raid.
They have no room for passengers inside, so incredibly the Marines strapped themselves to the aircrafts' small side wings.
They then flew into the battle zone to locate Lance corporal Mathew Ford, the pilots also leaving the helicopters to give covering fire.
L Cpl Ford had died in the original attack but his body was recovered.
UK Task Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Rory Bruce, speaking on Sky News, said the heroic action was a "leap into the unknown".
"This is believed to be the first time UK forces have ever tried this type of rescue mission," he said.
"It was an extraordinary tale of heroism and bravery of our airmen, soldiers and marines who were all prepared to put themselves back into the line of fire to rescue a fallen comrade."
Some 46 British service personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Levels of violence are at their highest since the invasion.
Helicopter heroes' vain rescue bid
By Stephanie Condron
Four Royal Marine commandos clung to the stabiliser wings of two helicopters in a vain attempt to rescue a comrade in a gunfight with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But L/Cpl Mathew Ford, 30, of 45 Commando Royal Marines, had already died in a hail of bullets as troops attacked a walled compound believed to be a Taliban fort south of Garmsir in Helmand.
Fellow commandos, who had been forced to retreat, realised he was missing and decided to return for him, "strapped" to two Apache helicopters – two people to each craft – with a third Apache providing covering fire, the Ministry of Defence said last night.
The Apache has no space for passengers and the would-be rescuers had to cling to the machines' small stabiliser wings, with Taliban gunfire ringing around them.
It was only when they saw L/Cpl Ford's body they realised he was dead, but they managed to get him back to their base by strapping him to one of the Apaches.
The MoD described the commando, originally from Lincolnshire, as "a gentle giant". He had been planning to leave the service to settle down with his fiancée, Ina, in Dundee. His mother Joan said: "He was a wonderful son. His love for life and his ability to make everyone laugh will always be with us."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/17/wheroes17.xml
Do the Brits have Apaches?
WOW! Well done Lads, a brave effort.
RIP L/Cpl Matthew Ford. Thankyou for your courageous service to Queen and Country and in our fight for Democracy and Liberty against Evil and Oppression.
Tomorrow's Ode at 6PM sharp at the RSA will be, for me, in remembrance of you, and I shall hoist a pint in your memory:
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
There is quite enough room for a single passenger on a wing.
You just have to forget about scratching your ass while in flight. Both hands are required in lieu of lapbelts.
Very good. Thanks.
Heck of an operation. Three cheers.
The AH-1 Cobras were used on some rescue missions in Vietnam but nothing as elaborate as this one. That I know of, anyway.
In early 70 one of our LOH-6s was shot down in the tri-border area NW of Khe Sanh. The passenger was killed by the 23mm round but the pilot was able to set the bird down in an abandoned US outpost. The hilltop almost immediately fogged in and it turned into a 36 hour rescue ordeal. Eventually, a Cobra from the 101st saw an opening and dropped in. They carried the pilot out by putting him on one of the open ammo doors.
ping
They had all of this and had to retreat.
I bet somebody in the Pakistanis intelligence tipped them off that the Brits were coming.
The British Royal Marines live by the same credo as the United States Marines..."Leave No Man Behind"
By God am I proud to be British when I read this story...
Ping
bttt
Of course. We build them in the UK with Rolls-Royce engines.
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