Marksman unit

During the 67 riots. HK Police used helecopters to land officers onto the roofs of high rise buildings occupied by insurgents. It was the only way in. The Marksman unit and SDU used the same tactics in training and ops. So before you saw it on cinema/tv we already had it to a fine art. The RAAF took these ops to heart and given free rein/let loose really enjoyed their role as flying combat pilots. With a 6 man ops team on board, our pilot here in the photo would zoom in, come to a stop and hover with one of his landing wheels on the top corner of the building as a static reference, we threw out jump lines. In turn the 6 of us would grab and slide down the rope onto the roof to gain access. You had to be quick, all 6 of us, because the pilot had a hover time limit to get his craft off scene and out of danger, so as we slid down the helo started to rise. Looking down, the roof of the high rise was already some 10 floors from the ground and the roof you were dropping onto looked like a post stamp, made worse by the helo rising and the bottom of the rope getting higher off the roof. So it was hover, check rope end on target, don't think just rely on all the training, grab rope and slide quick, Land on roof establish security defence line for rest of team landing and then getting on doing the job. The Royal Hong Kong Police doing things people were unaware of and didn't even realise happened.