For the recored, I was Ron's FIRST peter pilot on his FIRST mission as an aircraft commander. Later in the tour when he showed me the 'Corbin spin I almost shit my pants, then I realized that, if done properly with no mistakes, you'd get out of the air fast. Later, a similar maneuver (read the SAME maneuver")was shown to me by Ron Quanitance ( an original cobra pilot, as a method of "getting away from 37 mm fire". When I became an army test pilot at Bell helicopter and had almost finished a degree in engineering I had a chance to check a few things out. One is : the rotors on those birds had about 12 degrees of " flapping" and that put the Corbin spin less than half a degree from mast bumping. He was such a good pilot that he'd learned to fly to the very edge of the envelope and in combat that is where you want to be. It saves lives.
Now, we fast forward to today. Last year my son called me about a chopper pilot doing a lot of stuff over the Royal Gorge bridge. The Pilot had turned his chopper into a thrill ride for tourist. Unlike the safety at Disney world, or six flags, they were NOT safe. They were a slight wind gust from death. I sent his description and my comments to the safety folks at the FAA. He was put out of business. Here's the problem. When I take my family on a chopper ride I expect to come back. And any commercial operator who tries to turn a helicopter ride and a site seeing event into a "Thrill Ride" should have his ticket revoked. He has no right to have a family one wind gust from mast bumping and death. We did it because we had to. That damned South African pilot should be grounded! By the way, I enjoyed the movie. it brought back memories.
Salute to you all.
BT