FB - Shoot Helicopter

But the sound from the copter was different now. Constant. Steady. The pilot was getting the idea, keeping it still. Rambo didn't know if they could see him in the tree or not, but that didn't matter much — the area at the top of the tree was so small that if the gunman sprayed it with bullets he was sure to be hit. He didn't have time to switch to a stronger branch; the next bullet might finish him. Hurried, desperate, he pushed away needles and light boughs and sought where the helicopter hung there whipping in the air.

Across from him. A house distance high. And craning his head out the open cockpit window was the gunman. Rambo saw his round, big-nosed face quite clearly as the man prepared to fire once more; a glance was all Rambo needed. In one smooth instinctive motion, he raised his gun barrel to the branch above him, steadied it there, and aimed out along it at the center of the round face, at the tip of the big nose.

A gentle squeeze on the trigger. Bull's-eye.

Inside the cockpit the gunman clutched his sunken face.

He was dead before he had a chance to open his mouth and scream. There was a moment when the pilot went on holding the helicopter steady like nothing had happened, and then at once Rambo saw through the glass front of the cockpit how it registered on the man that there were bits of bone and hair and brain everywhere, that the top of his partner's head was gone. Rambo saw him gape down in horror at the blood that was spattered across his shirt and pants. The man's eyes went wide; his mouth convulsed. The next thing he was fumbling with his seat belt, clutching his throttle stick crazily as he dove to the cockpit floor.

Rambo was trying to get a shot at him from the tree. He could not see the pilot, but he had a fair idea where the man would be huddled on the floor, and he was just aiming at that part of the floor when the helicopter veered sharply up the cliff. Its top section cleared the ridge nicely, but the angle of the copter was so steep that the rear section caught on the edge of the cliff. In the roar of the motor, he thought he heard a metallic crack when the rear section struck: he could not be certain. The copter seemed interminably suspended there, and then with an abrupt flip over backward, it plunged down directly against the cliff wall, screeching, cracking, blades bending and breaking as the explosion came, a deafening ball of fire and zing of metal that flashed up past the tree and died. The outer branches of the tree burst into flame. A stench rose up of gasoline and burning flesh.


- First Blood, Part 2, Chapter 7