The US Army often flys in combat without seats, and usually gets 8 in the doorways, legs out, with about 15 on the floor, for a total of 24 or 25. You often see the pictures with the guys sitting in the doorway, usually with a "monkey strap" run across their chests between the door posts.
With full crew, fuel, and ammo the Hawk weighs about 15,000 pounds, and can do nicely at 22,000 pounds, so there is weight for 28 @ 250 pounds, should the need arise.
We flew 43 Troops once in a mid-eastern country, going into battle, and 62 in a demo. They were all very friendly, obviously.
In Vietnam, we used to extract LRRP teams with McGuire rigs and 100 foot ropes from our UH-1H's. The team couldn't be hoisted into the cabin, so we flew home with them in the same pose as the Turks in the photo, but not as colorfully. As gun cover, I got to pull up to the external passengers and wave, they were always exhilerated by the ride. Everybody got a window seat on that airline.
I saw a POW extracted that way with a LRRP team, he was not very happy with the accomodations!
[ 02 November 2001: Message edited by: Nick Lappos ]