PICTURE: Egypt's scary helicopter operations

Craig Hoyle

on July 5, 2013

There were some stunning images coming out of Cairo's Tahrir Square earlier this week, as the Egyptian military stepped up its intervention against the now-ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

First there was a crowd-pleasing flypast with a formation of flag-carrying Gazelles, and then an A-model Apache strutted its stuff over the capital as the generals looked to underline their intentions.

But the strangely beautiful Rex Features image below of an Mi-8/17 stood out for me as highlighting the challenge facing any helicopter pilot flying over the square at the height of the protests: if the hundreds of annoying green hand-held lasers being pointed at your cockpit don't put you off, then a firework's probably going to get you.