Damn good at hovering autos though. Taxiing involved lifting to the hover, making forward progress and upon running out of left pedal, chop the throttle, land, wind on throttle, get RPM back, repeat till runway made and proceed with the running take off - some times with the gunner and crew chief running alongside until translational was hit, where upon they would jump on board.
That's superb, Brian! I can just picture it. That running alongside would get the loadies fit! I reckon a few might have missed the jump on board now and then and gone diving to the ground to avoid getting taken out by the sync elevator or the tail rotor ...
I can't remember the max all up for the B, but maybe what you're describing is something like the term "heavy 95", sometimes heard when you loaded the H up to 9500 lb and something still had to go on board!