Arial pickup

[Harnu 0]

I was just curious as to if that arial pickup system was used. It's the one where a guy puts on a harness with a large ballon attacked to a rope on it.

A plane then flies overhead, snags the rope, and lifts the soldier up.

Yes this is real, and was curious if it was used in vietnam. If it was, it would make one hell of an extraction for special operations groups

[edc 0]

It might have been used in Nam, but probably only in absolute emergencies, as it wasn't exactly the safest thing in the world if you know what I mean.

[Col. Kurtz 0]

The method of attaching yourself to a balloon and getting picked up by a C-130 is only for extreme emergancies. It is so dangerous that if I read correctly, spec ops don't even train to do it these days. Still, it would be pretty amazing to do it in OFP2.

[FSPilot 0]

It had been done, I don't think ever in combat or in operations though, just practicing on guinea pigs to see how it would work. I don't know why they never used it in combat though.

[demspec3112 0]

this has been done several times in Vietnam, it's called an STABO (STAbilized BOdy extraction) the Special forces used it whenever they had rescued a POW,VIP or a wounded to gett him the hell out of there

[demspec3112 0]

And i can tell you one thing.

the experience is quite uplifiting

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

Wasnt that on a james bond movie?

[nyles 11]

In this horrible old Green Beret movie where they capture that north vietnamese leader, they extracted him with such a method.

[demspec3112 0]

yeah thats it The green berets with Jonh Wayne.

the green berets use this kind of methods for fast extraction of inmportant personal so they can't do them no harm

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

One would have thought that in the vicinity of enemies, attaching someone to a large baloon so that they can float up into the sky and be snagged by a plane would very much put them in harms way. Anyway i cant see many missions being made in which this would be used in the BIS campaign  but it would be cool if it was possible for add-on makers to create it.

It would be lots of fun. Until the transport plane misjudged and you got ripped into by the engines. Haha

[VXR 9]

do you mean a pickup like in this movie?

its at 0:26 secs where they do a pickup.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

I've seen the STAR lift in a book.  They stay on the ground until the plane grabs the balloon's wire in a hook thing.  

That video didnt seem to have STAR in it.  Its a one man lift thing, the bit in the video with all the team on one line was STABO-ish, but not the way I've seen it.  I'll try to find the book and scan in pictures.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

This is STABO

This is STAR

[Die Alive 0]

But you got to have a Y probe on the nose of the C-130 in order hook onto the line.. and a pilot that can fly well enough to snag the line. An AI pilot would probably crash into a mountain or crash on top of you trying to catch the line

-=Die Alive=-

[dm 9]

The FULTON STARs never really "took off" (excuse the pun) because of the human bodies habit of falling apart in the aircrafts slip stream. I know there was extensive testing on the method, and that it was used operationally for a very short period of time - it was scrubbed because too many operatives were injured or killed on extraction.

Heres a little list of things that can/did go wrong:

[*] Extreem G-Forces - killing the operator on collection - as he is whipped from the ground.

[*] Asphixiation - The operator could suffocate in the slipstream - Air being forced down your neck at 200 mph+ you gonna have a hard time breathing that lad...

[*] Buffet - as any aviator knows, any aircarft leaves a slipstream. The bigger the aircraft the worse it is. Once the operator is picked up, he is left to dangle helplessly in the Hercules' slipstream until the guys inside can haul his ass inside. Agan, being buffeted by 200 mph+ airflow, the human body isnt really desigend to go over 20 mph without protection, so, naturally bits fell off...

[*] Twisting - Apparently, the extreem twisting and buffeting that the operator suffered in the slipstream caused odd impulses in the brain, which made the body spasm, so even after the operator was pulled inside the aircraft he would continue to sumersault and spin, as if he were still in the slipstream... not nice...

As for STABO that is indeed the much preferred and ocmonally used option in the modern battlefield. Based on SPIES (Special Purpose Insertion/Extraction System - Fast ropes etc) You simply clip yourself onto the rope hanging from the helicopter, and get plucked (all be it a lot smother than by a hercules) to relative safety.