Late Jan 2001, having spent many nights on a VERY cold (must have been below -5) Salisbury Plain, having broken the ice off our kit, racked with the flu (proper flu, none of your heavy cold rubbish), and waiting for extraction by HC2. At first light we watched them flying in from the South, like some sort of Guardian Angel, slowly at first, it seemed like an age, lying there, soaked and freezing. In an intricate synchronised ballet like movement, they each touched their wheels down onto the frost laden grass and mud, the cacophony of their engines and blades filling the air. The noise increased, the down wash was biting to our skin as they lifted off without us, returning South to a more pressing engagement, leaving us to tab out of the Plain.
Did I mention it was VERY cold? lol
That was my most memorable helicopter experience, sadly without being in a helicopter. All my other experiences in helicopters feel much more pedestrian to me in my memory.